Epiphaney

We continue through the time of Advent, we are now almost to the end of the 12 days of Christmas....what were the 12 days of Christmas?

They were the 12 days leading from Christmas, to the festival of Epiphany, and that is where we find ourselves today.

What is the feast of Epiphany you might ask?

It is one of the earliest feasts in the Christian faith being celebrated by the late 4th century.

It is the celebration that many times was accompanied with a feast where we remember Jesus being revealed to the world.

What a glorious thought that God has decided to reveal Himself to sinful man. Even more glorious is the thought that Jesus emptied himself, and took the form of a servant, and was born in the likeness of men.

Not becasue of our goodness or some meritorious quality that people have.

We are poor wretched sinners.

But becasue God is good. Becasue God abounds in mercy.

Becasue it all worked in accord with the counsel of His will.

God had revealed through the prophets of old that the messiah would come. After Jesus came, it was revealed that He was the messiah. This is what we celebrate when we celebrate the festival of epiphany.

The unveiling, the revealing of the messiah.

There are 3 different occurrences that this celebration focuses on.

The coming of the wise men.

This would be Jesus being revealed to the gentile nations.

They also weren’t kings, they were magi.

Astrologers from Babylon.

We also don’t know how many magi there were. There wasn’t 3 of them, there were three gifts.

Gifts that revealed so much about the one to whom they were presented.

I don’t know if the Magi fully understood the significance of the gifts, if they knew the law and the prophets well enough to deduce who was born in Israel that fateful night.

Or was it by divine providence that God influenced them to bring gifts that revealed more of the story He was telling through His son.

Gold, a royal gift for a king. For this babe is the king of kings!

Frankincense, A key ingredient used for the incense in the temple, in the presence of God, and to shield people from the holiness of God.

Showing this babe is Emmanuel, God with us. And that He is our shield from the holiness of God, not by covering our sins, but by removing them, and giving us His righteousness.

Myrrh, A gift of burial. For it is by His death that we will be made right with God.

At the time of Epiphany, it is celebrating God revealing His redemptive plan not just to Israel, but to the gentile nations.

Another point to focus on at this time, the baptism of Jesus.

At His baptism Jesus identifies with us, for He will be our sacrifice.

At His baptism He gives us the new covenant sign to be given to people who will live in a covenantal relationship with Him.

At His baptism, the Father makes a profound statement as Jesus comes up from the water. “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

At His baptism, Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit.

This is what the word Messiah or Christ means. The anointed one.

Jesus was truly God, but He was also truly man.

When He lived it couldn’t just be God going through the motions or else how could scripture say “he has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Could He have experienced that same temptation if there was no humanity in Him? No.

Jesus was truly man and needed to experience suffering in the same way we do, yet He had the Holy Spirit residing on Him, to strengthen Him through the hardship He would endure.

BTW, we live after the cross, now the Holy Spirit lives and resides within us, we are the temple of the Holy Spirit.

As we celebrate epiphany, we remember Jesus being revealed as the Son of God, and the messiah at His baptism.

The wedding at Cana

This was the last revelation that is celebrated at Epiphany, and it will be our object of study today.

John 2:1-12

This is significant, for it is the first miracle the Jesus does.

Why this event? Why turning water into wine?

Was this a miracle brought about by chance and the incessant pleading of His mother?

I would submit to you that it is not. For in the sovereign providence of God we know that all things take place in His timing for His intended purposes.

Exodus 15:22-26

This is the first miracle, the first provision that God gives them after the cross the Red Sea.

He takes…water. The undrinkable water and he makes it drinkable.

With this first miracle, God gave this status and charge.

“diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in His eyes.”

Jesus is the fulfillment of the nation Israel. Where Israel had failed, Jesus would succeed.

The first miracle for Jesus and for Israel having to do with water was not a coincidence.

Back in John

v.6

Stone Jars for Washing

Jesus is using the instrument that the people would use to make themselves ritually clean.

This was part of the old covenant which is why them being stone was significant.

The stone pointed to the Mosaic law.

What Jesus does is takes that which was from the law, which gives you the appearance of cleanliness. And He transforms it to good, aged wine.

This was to point forward to the kingdom of God.

Isaiah 25:6-8

Isaiah 25:6–8 ESV

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.

This passage is speaking about the feast in the kingdom of heaven.

The well aged wine is pointing forward to that feast.

It is pointing to God swallowing up death forever.

How will He make a way?

v.4

“My hour has not yet come.”

When Jesus uses that phrase, what is He speaking about?

His death

I believe that Jesus here is pointing us foreward to His death.

For it is only through His death that we can enter the feast in heaven.

and isn’t that the symbolism that we see?

For isn’t wine used by Jesus in the last supper? Representing what? The new covenant in His blood.

The picture that we get from wine at the last supper is a remembrance of the death of Jesus, and the new life that we have in the new covenant with Him.

We see that out of the water that was used for symbolic washing in the old law. Jesus bring the symbol for our true washing that takes place through His sacrifice.

When we celebrate epiphany, it is a celebration that Jesus came to earth and revealed to us who he was.

The true nature of Christ was revealed with the coming of the Magi, with Jesus’ baptism, and through the first miracle that He performed.

This time of year, remember that we are saved not by law. But by the gracious actions of God almighty.

Love Him, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.