THE 2nd SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY - 16 January 2011

The Gospel John 1:29-42

John saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, "Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, `After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.' I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel." And John testified, "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, `He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God."

The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, "Look, here is the Lamb of God!" The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, "What are you looking for?" They said to him, "Rabbi" (which translated means Teacher), "where are you staying?" He said to them, "Come and see." They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, "You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas" (which is translated Peter).


In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My father and I were never close. We were each cut from very different cloth and had very different ideas about life. He was also a very distant figure which my mother attributes to having lived through the Second World War. As she relates, the man who returned from the South Pacific wasn’t exactly the man she’d married before the War and while in many ways he was still the same man, he was in many ways also very different. And she went on to succeed in truly loving this new incarnation. The War also affected me as a kid. As Mom told him in later years, “You were a great provider, but not a very present father.”

Dad was never a devout man. He usually worked on Sundays while Mom and I went to Church. But in his later years and to her great surprise, he began tagging along with her. And he seemed to get something out of it, especially receiving Holy Communion. He never talked about it, but he went.

As with many men who’d survived the War, Dad never talked about it unless he was in the presence of other veterans. And then they had to be veterans of the South Pacific. He claimed that the European war had been a whole different ball of wax. I guess we’ll have to take him at his word on that.

In his early eighties, Dad was diagnosed with a degenerative lung disease which was actually not a result of forty years of smoking. At the age of thirteen, he’d been kicked in the chest by a horse and it had taken seventy years to fester. By now, it was beyond repair.

His last summer, I went back to spend some time with Mom and Dad in rural North Carolina. They’d retired there because there were seven golf courses: one for each day of the week which he did religiously until his health began to fail. Then life wasn’t really worth living anymore. It was just a matter of time and then….release.

One night after dinner, Dad and I sat out on the back patio. It was a warm night and the lightning bugs were out. I was tempted to get a jar and catch some but I was now in my forties. I had to be an adult! It was quiet, the only sounds being the crickets and Dad’s oxygen tank puffing away. The scrub pines aren’t very tall and above them one could see the sky lit bright as day, the stars shining as if powered by electricity.

It was at this moment that Dad decided to talk about the War. Maybe it’s because when death’s near some people let their guard down. I’m not sure and I’ll never know.

He said: I’m not sure which battle it was since at this point they all run together. And there were so many of them. But I do remember that it was summer and monsoon season. We were on an island and trapped by the enemy and it was raining to beat the band. It wasn’t cats and dogs. It was cows and horses. We were knee deep in mud and surrounded. We all knew that it might be our last day and so we were all rather uneasy.

Around eight, the monsoon turned into a full blown hurricane and we were bailing water out of the foxholes slower than it was pouring in. We were tired, frustrated and scared out of our minds, but we kept bailing. It was something to do.

Around midnight, the rain stopped. It was warm and steam started rising from the ground. And then the clouds parted and between the trees all we could see was sky. Blue sky. Black sky. And since we were thousands of miles from any town, the stars shown brighter than those up there. He pointed. The air was still and nobody said a word. Our entire unit just sat in their fox holes and stared at the sky – for the longest time.

There was this guy in our unit named Hershel, a Jew. He wasn’t devout or anything. Didn’t wear a skull cap under his helmet or anything like that. But he’d been raised devout. We all had. That’s how it was in those days. We were raised with it, but most of us had left it behind including Hershel. But it was Hershel’s kosher voice that broke the silence. He said what we were all thinking, what we all knew somewhere deep inside us. “We’re not alone.”

And we all knew what he meant. And for some reason, we all sat back. And for some reason we all felt safe even though we knew that this would be our last night. It was OK. We weren’t alone. And the stars continued to shine.

The next thing we knew, the sun was up and the mud was hard. Jungle birds were squawking and making all sorts of racket. But that’s all we could hear. We packed our gear and slowly crawled out of the fox holes and headed towards the beach. When we got there, it was empty. There wasn’t anybody there. The enemy had gone. And we were still alive.

Somebody yelled, “Hey Hershel, you were right.” Hershel yelled back, “I still am!” for out on the horizon was a battle ship, a British battle ship. And we all began to cheer!!!!

Dad was quiet for a while. The O2 tank puffing away. Then he said: I see those stars up there tonight and I feel the same way I did sixty years ago. Tonight may be the last night. I don’t know. I don’t care. I just know I’m not alone. That’s all that really matters.

In this morning’s Gospel, John the Baptist cries, “Look! There is the Lamb of God!” And those around him would’ve known what he meant. This was no sacrificial lamb of atonement, a metaphor which would be later added by Christian Bishops trying to keep the masses in line. No, this Lamb of God referred to the Suffering Servant proclaimed by Isaiah, the Lamb of God who takes on the burdens of the whole People of Israel and walks with them in the shadow of death. This is the Lamb of God who accompanied the Jewish people in the wilderness to remind them that even though they might be lost, they were not alone. In this Epiphany season, this is the Lamb of God who is the bright morning star shining in the darkness, that star whose light the darkness can never blot out; that star which reminds us that in the midst of the darkness, God is still present and alive and with us, the God who is always with us and isn’t going anywhere.

So, in the coming days, days which are typically dark and dreary in Seattle, drizzly and damp and all around unpleasant weather-wise, keep watch each night and wait for one of those rare but dependable clear, crisp nights where the dark is deep and the stars shine like they’re powered by GE. And bundle yourself up and go outside and just stand and look at the stars. These stars are Sacraments, living reminders of the presence of God, and remember that you and we are not alone; that in the midst of the darkness the light SHINES! That star who became one of us in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.