Author: John Tillman

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Sight for the Blind :: Epiphany

Scripture: Luke 4.18
…recovery of sight for the blind…

Luke 7.22
So he replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.

Reflection: Sight for the Blind :: Epiphany
By John Tillman

Jesus often analogized his healing of people’s physical diseases to his mission of healing all of us of our spiritual disease of sin. In his sermon at Nazareth, the only specific healing mentioned is that of blindness but other diseases often serve as teaching moments in Christ’s ministry.

Healing is a marker of Jesus’ identity as the Christ. When the imprisoned John the Baptist doubts who Jesus is, he sends disciples to ask Jesus directly, “are you the one?” Jesus answers first with action—performing a large number of healings of many kinds. Then he tells John’s messengers to report what they saw and uses language that echoes his declaration at Nazareth. “The blind see…good news is preached to the poor…”

It is hard to appreciate the Epiphany of Christ—literally the manifestation or appearing—if you are blind. Before we can share in and become part of Christ’s Epiphany to the world, we must be healed of our blindness so that we can say with the blind man from John chapter nine, “I was blind but now I see!”

But too often we are like the Pharisees who investigated the healing of the blind man. The Pharisees are easy for us to dislike when we read about their opposition to Jesus in the New Testament, but modern Christians share much more in common with the Pharisees than with Christ’s disciples.

We are so full of confidence in our scholarship, in our knowledge of history, of our faithfulness to religious traditions, of our moral uprightness, that we cannot imagine or accept that it is us who needs to be healed of blindness. Christ’s words to the Pharisees after they kicked the blind man out of the synagogue should be convicting to the Pharisees inside each of us.

“For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind…If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.” — John 9.39, 41

It is not until we recognize that we are blind and experience Christ’s healing touch, that we can see. It is not until we acknowledge that we live in a land of darkness that the light of Christ can dawn in our lives. Only then can we guide others to see the manifestation, the Epiphany, of Christ.

The Request for Presence
Save me, O God, by your Name; in your might, defend my cause.
Hear my prayer, O God; give ear to the words of my mouth. — Psalm 54.1-2

– From Christmastide: Prayers for Advent Through Epiphany from The Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Ezra 3 (Listen – 3:01)
Acts 3 (Listen – 3:33)

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Freedom for Prisoners :: Epiphany

Scripture: Luke 4.18
…He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners…

Matthew 12.28-29
But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. “Or again, how can anyone enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can plunder his house.

Reflection: Freedom for Prisoners :: Epiphany
By John Tillman

Just a few chapters after his Nazareth sermon and his declaration of “freedom for the prisoners” Jesus travels to the region of Gerasenes to free an unusual prisoner. The demoniac of the Gerasenes could not be captured or detained. He could break any chains that were put on him, yet remained captive to the evil inside of him.

Addiction is a prison similar to the demoniac’s. Addicts often maintain freedom of movement but are enslaved in every other possible way. Substance addictions, sex addictions, pornography addictions, gambling addictions, and technology addictions damage all of us, including the addicts, their family members, and their victims.

In some cases we commercialize addicts, building an economy on supplying their fix. In some cases we criminalize addicts, locking them away from society. In some cases we sympathize with them, treating them as having a medical problem. In some cases we stigmatize them, dismissing their addiction as just an excuse for bad behavior.

Our human concept of freedom has a prerequisite of innocence or at least, nobility. Jailbreak movies and television shows nearly always include as the main character a wrongfully accused, innocent man who we long to see freed.

But in reality we, like the people of Gerasenes, fear those escaping prison and those who would help them escape. We fear Christ partly because the freedom Christ brings is undeserved and is not merely for the noble.

Make no mistake. The Gospel is a jailbreak. Jesus is a thief in the night, robbing the possessions of the strong man, Satan—stealing away with captives who foolishly, yet willingly sold themselves to the debtor’s prison of sin.

Make no second mistake. We are not noble captives or innocents. We, who are escaping, do not deserve to see the light of day as free men and women. Sin is our crime, our addiction, and our prison. Yet Jesus comes to free us nonetheless.

And what would our liberator Christ, have us do? He gives us a choice. We can, like the townspeople, exile Christ, and the freedom he brings from our land, preferring to manage our addictions rather than be cured. Or like the demoniac we can go, living in radical freedom, to tell others.

To manifest Christ, we must show what Christ has done for us as what it is—a radical jailbreak setting prisoners free.

The Prayer Appointed for the Week
O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

– From Christmastide: Prayers for Advent Through Epiphany from The Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Ezra 2 (Listen – 5:25)
Acts 2 (Listen – 6:35)

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Good News to the Poor :: Epiphany

Scripture: Luke 4.18
…to proclaim good news to the poor…

Luke 1.52-53
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.

Reflection: Good News to the Poor :: Epiphany
By John Tillman

When Mary sang about filling the hungry with good things, poverty and many other personal tragedies were considered markers of spiritual failure. Faithful Jews would assume that some sin in your life must have occured for you to fall into trouble.

Today we also see poverty as a result of sin. But the God we believe the poor have sinned against is the god of Materialism and the god of Competence. When the pursuit of happiness is enshrined as humanity’s highest good, failing to achieve it is a marker of spiritual or moral poverty.

Whatever the causes of poverty, its outcomes are consistent. Poverty limits access. The poor have little access to good schools, to transportation, to healthcare, to legal aid—the very things they need to break the cycle of poverty.

Christ’s incarnation is about granting access. Access for homeless shepherds. Access for despised Samaritans. Access for excluded foreign immigrants and seekers from other faiths. The Annunciation, the Magnificat, and Christ’s Nazareth sermon all prominently focus on granting access to the poor and the outcast.

It would be easy to read the Magnificat merely as a redistributive command. It is more than that. It would also be easy to infer that Christ is actively cursing or punishing the rich by sending them away. But it is more complex than that.

The hungry aren’t filled with material goods taken from the rich. They are filled with “good things” that will satisfy their hunger. The rich don’t go away empty because Christ is ambivalent toward them or because he is taking punitive action on behalf of the poor.

Like the rich young ruler, the rich who go away empty do so because they came to Jesus clinging to their emptiness and can’t be convinced to give it up. As Christ said, regarding the rich young ruler, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”

Wealthy or not, we must become poor in spirit to receive Christ’s gift of Good News to the Poor. Our manifestation of Christ will be in direct proportion to our acknowledgement of needing him more than we need our comforts, our possessions, our luxuries, or even our daily bread.

Once we are filled with good things, we can now play our part in the Incarnation, passing on what we have been filled with—both physical and spiritual blessings—as a part of the manifestation of Christ.

A Reading
Jesus stood and cried out: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me! Let anyone who believes in me come and drink!” —  John 7:37

– From Christmastide: Prayers for Advent Through Epiphany from The Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
2 Chronicles 34 (Listen – 6:23)
Revelation 20 (Listen – 2:49)

This Weekend’s Readings
2 Chronicles 35 (Listen – 5:25) Revelation 21 (Listen – 4:34)
2 Chronicles 36 (Listen – 4:26) Revelation 22 (Listen – 3:59)

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The Spirit of the Lord :: Epiphany

Scripture: Luke 4.14
Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside.

Isaiah 61.1
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me…

Reflection: The Spirit of the Lord :: Epiphany
By John Tillman

Jesus, in his Nazareth sermon, began with an affirmation that the Spirit of God was on him. This was a radical claim. The Spirit of God had been absent from Israel for generations. Their prophets fell silent and their senses dulled to God’s voice.

It is no wonder that the religious elite sank so deeply into ritual and legalism. They had no power to do anything else. It is no wonder that Nicodemus—Israel’s teacher—is so ignorant of the Spirit when he speaks to Jesus. Who could have taught him?

We are often no less ignorant than Nicodemus and no less addicted to moralism than the Pharisees, but we do so with fewer excuses.

It is difficult to overstate the importance of the Holy Spirit of God to our lives as believers. It is also difficult to understate the time most believers spend developing and refining our connection to the Spirit. Cretan philosopher Epimenides said, and Paul the Apostle agreed, “In him we live and move and have our being,” but if we are living and moving amongst the Spirit of God we seem to often be doing so with senses dulled.

Many people desire the gifts of the Spirit, without recognizing that the Spirit is the gift.

It is through the Holy Spirit that Jesus starts his earthly life in the womb of a virgin girl. It is through the Holy Spirit that he grows and learns. It is through the Holy Spirit that he resists temptation. It is through the Holy Spirit that he healed, taught, cast out demons, and raised the dead. Then he ascends to Heaven to make way for the coming of this same Spirit to his followers, saying that we will “do even greater things than these.”

The growth of Jesus in Mary’s womb symbolizes his growth and gradual manifestation in our lives. Mary lent Jesus DNA, and cells, and tissue—her body knit him together and delivered him into our world. Mary lent his Spirit flesh. Jesus gives our flesh Spirit.

The Holy Spirit, paraklētos, who made Christ’s earthly body, now makes in our individual bodies Christ’s mind and spirit. But more powerfully, we are knit together as a community, The Church. into the physical body of Christ in the world.

We, The Church, are charged as Mary was, to deliver Christ, to manifest him, to the world. The rest of Christ’s sermon at Nazareth will help us see how.

Today the church remembers with sorrow the slaughter of the male infants of Bethlehem. When the world finds it cannot kill Christ, it will often turn to the nearest available victims to dispense its aimless rage. As we manifest Christ to the world, we will find ourselves victimized in his place…”for your sake we are slaughtered…“

The Refrain
Remember, Lord, how short life is, how frail you have made all flesh. —  Psalm 89:47

– From Christmastide: Prayers for Advent Through Epiphany from The Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
2 Chronicles 33 (Listen – 4:01)
Revelation 19 (Listen – 3:47)

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Unwrapping Christ’s Gifts :: Epiphany

Scripture: Luke 4.20-21
The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Isaiah 9.2
The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
a light has dawned.

Reflection: Unwrapping Christ’s Gifts :: Epiphany
By John Tillman

The Annunciation of the birth of the King of Kings had come quietly to Mary, a young girl in Nazareth, and when that King’s time had come, he announced his kingdom in the same synagogue he studied in as a young boy. Mary’s son chose to announce his true identity to those who knew him best. He chose to proclaim the presence of the kingdom of God in a town from which true Israelites believed nothing good could come.

It should not surprise us that Jesus chose to make one of his earliest and most direct claims to being the Messiah not in a rabbinical school, not in the temple, not in a court of law, nor in the courts of political power.

Jesus consistently chose to minister in out of the way places to people life had pushed out of the way. But here in Nazareth, Jesus wasn’t burying the lead; he was burying a treasure in a field. Those who studied the prophecies knew that the Messianic ministry would dawn like a light in Galilee. Christ’s seeming retreat from more important locations, is actually a marker of his true nature as the foretold Messiah.

Christ’s gifts to us are at first concealed, like gifts under a Christmas tree. They are hidden in plain sight for us to wonder at, to shake, to puzzle over, and ultimately to open and rejoice over. But, after opening, gifts become a part of you when you accept them. Whether it is a tool that is used regularly, an item of clothing that is worn often, or a book, game, or other entertainment that engages our mind and imagination, good gifts integrate themselves into our lives and identities.

Christ’s gifts are meant to become integral to our lives and to become manifestations of himself to our family, friends, and communities. As we approach Epiphany over the next ten days, may we wear Christ’s gifts prominently, like new and well-loved items of clothing. Through the wearing, may we allow them to transform us into the manifestation of the giver.

Today the church celebrates the life of the Apostle John of whom Jesus said, “If I want him to remain alive until I come, what is that to you?” Though John lived a long life—the only Apostle not to be martyred—he did die. Yet Jesus has left “the disciple Jesus loved” here until his second Advent. He leaves us. His well loved and Holy Spirit equipped disciples, the church.

The Refrain
The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation. —  Psalm 118:14

– From Christmastide: Prayers for Advent Through Epiphany from The Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
2 Chronicles 32 (Listen – 5:58)
Revelation 18 (Listen – 4:48)