Isaiah

Snow can be tiresome, even deadly, but it can also be a sign of holiness and of hope.

Snow can be tiresome, even deadly, but it can also be a sign of holiness and of hope.

When our girls were still quite young, my husband Norm and I moved our family from our fast-paced life and work in Chicago to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where Norm had accepted a teaching position. Feeling a bit like Abraham and Sarah, we made a radical change of landscape.

The Old Testament and gospel readings for Epiphany function as point and counterpoint. Isaiah offers a word of great comfort to those who have been so long in darkness. Impoverished as the hearers have been, honor and fortune are on their way. It's a message of rejoicing: the light that has dawned will make all who see it radiant.

Darkness does not come from a different place than light; it is not presided over by a different God.

I'm afraid I want the good news of Christmas without the challenge.

According to Isaiah, God has a tattoo!

Before his questioning of the doctrine of hell sparked such a (ahem) firestorm, Rob Bell wrote in Velvet Elvis a chapter about yokes.

Before his questioning of the doctrine of hell sparked such a (ahem) firestorm, Rob Bell wrote in Velvet Elvis a chapter about yokes.

There are places where Epiphany light shines through people who do the best of things in the worst of times.

Boston is dark in January. Very dark. At 5:30 p.m. light has completely abandoned the city. Sure, there is a kind of fake fluorescent light, a pale bluey glow, a TV light. But there is no authentic light, only illusion of it. And illusions only make the matter worse.

There's an interesting variation between the New International and New Revised Standard versions of Isaiah 63:9. The NIV expresses quite beautifully that "the angel of his presence saved them," while the NRSV contends that "it was no messenger or angel but his presence that saved them." Both convey Isaiah's revelation that God does not plan to redeem creation by force, by tinkering with free will, or from afar. God redeems creation by becoming one of us, by drawing near to us and being with us.

It was the spring of 1963 in Birmingham, and it looked as if the civil rights movement would suffer yet another defeat. The powers that be had more jail space than the civil rights workers had people. But then one Sunday, reports historian Taylor Branch, 2,000 young people came out of worship at the New Pilgrim Baptist Church and prepared to march.