The Second Sunday of Epiphany by Fr Jack

Isaiah 49.1-7
St Paul’s 1st Letter to the Corinthian Church 1.1-9
St John’s Gospel 1.29-42

We were talking at Bible Study on Wednesday - we have brilliant conversations every Wednesday 12.30-1.00 in the Rectory at Bible Study, do come some time if you are able.

Anyway, we were talking at Bible Study how unlike orthodox ancient, full-blooded Christianity (as we aspire to here) lots of the other world faiths are fundamentally legal codes, religions of the law, with very clear understandings of what it means to be a good follower of religion x or y. The standard may be set very high, with lots of obligation or sacrifice, but it is definite. You have to work hard to get there, but - what a relief! - you can say with confidence: ‘I am a good follower of my religion’.

At plenty of times in Christian history, people have tried to make our faith a legal code that can be quantified, but it always falls apart in the end, because our faith is not a legal code, it is a relationship. It is grace, not law, just as St Paul spent so long working out and spelling out in those days of the Early Church.

It’s similar with culture. Very often we dress up various cultural goods or norms, draping them in religious niceties. A good Christian looks like, this TV advert of family life, or that cultural appropriation of a social norm.

But again and again, we are bid to ask of these lapses into legality or cultural confusion, ‘is it actually?’. Is this - whatever it is - actually the life of the Living God, the life of the Holy Spirit, is it actually the humanity and divinity of Jesus of Nazareth blossoming in us? Or not?

I guess the question is, what does Christian life actually look like?

In this season of Epiphany we are noticing again and again in different ways - from the Holy child before the Magi, to the Wedding at Cana and the Baptism in the Jordan - different ways in which God reveals Himself to us. But there is also, arising in today’s readings, the question of how we reveal ourselves to God, and to each other, and to ourselves. The Epiphany, the showing, of us.

That is to say: what does a Christian life look like?

And we have had LOTS of to-ing and fro-ing about this over the years. In the days when we thought everyone went to church there was the whole thing about how s/he may be a ‘churchgoer’ but they aren’t much of a ‘Christian’! And then, when church is boring or rubbish, or to be frank we don’t fancy going to church as most people don’t, people say ‘well you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian’. I am very happy to chat with anyone over a cup of tea about these ideas, because all of them are (I’m sorry to say, and I don’t mean to be difficult) fatally flawed in their logic.

And they miss the point in so many ways. One of the reasons they miss the point is because they start with us as their locating point, too often. And they assume they know what a Christian (dare I say it!?) what a ‘good Christian’ is, and then compare against that. And I’m afraid that won’t get us very far.

There is no such thing as a good Christian. Christ only is perfect, and we are always on pilgrimage into His life.

May I suggest, instead, we turn to today’s Scriptures for help? To reveal who we are, and who we are called to reveal ourselves to be?

Let’s start with Isaiah, today’s first lesson. What does the Christian life look like? It is utterly relational. It is inherently and indelibly communal. Us-ness, Jacob and Israel are established not as persons, but as God’s people. Always a community that inherits a promise and relationship, together. We can’t do this alone.

Jesus after all, does not found a religion. He already had a religion. He founds a church, a community, an ekklesia, in the disciples He so purposefully draws together as one of His first priorities in His ministry.

And as a result, we today have been baptised into, and spend our lives within a worldwide, organic, messy, belonging. That’s what a Christian life looks like.

Look again, Isaiah also wants us to see that a Christian life shines with God’s light, not our own. We are the moon, that reflects the sun’s light.

Also Isaiah shows that God’s love, His salvation (the prophet writes) is to be carried to the ends of the earth. Every corner of the world. And that includes every corner of our lives. This light demands integrity and cannot be boxed in.

A light that pervades and envelops, which we don’t possess, but in which we share, and are brought to life and bring others to life, together - that is the Christian life.

So we turn to the beginning of St Paul’s letters to the early church in Corinth. Today’s epistle. The Corinthians are a tricky lot. It’s a big city. Lots of edgy, difficult stuff, like big cities with trade and politics and people always have. Corinth is not a cosy or cuddly place. Not so different from London today. And into this space, how does St Paul show what a Christian life is supposed to show?

Grace. We are called to live as saints in our context, irrespective of its challenge. Like yeast in a great big dough (as Jesus will say, in St Matthew’s Gospel 13). The Christian life does not despair of our smallness, our inability to wave a wand and make things as we would wish them. Instead we are confident and joyful in our calling. Not because of the results we see, but because God is God and we are called to live in His grace. To shine with that light, despite any darkness. With gratitude, writes St Paul, with spiritual gift, in fellowship, in Jesus. This spirit and understanding oozes out of St Paul’s words to us today.

And the Gospel? St John the Baptist shows us the way. We are called to be a community and people who spend our lives pointing to Jesus. Look - here is the Lamb of God. Pointing in thought, word, and deed. In spiritual and temporal matters, in everything, living out our baptism, which is always our primary vocation.

What does a Christian life look like?

We have asked that question in this season of revelation, not by starting with our assumptions or cultural norms, but by starting (much more sensibly) with who God is. We see who He is in this epiphany season. We are also asked to consider who we show ourselves to be.

Today’s readings sing harmoniously of the One who calls us into fellowship and relationship, with God and each other, as Isaiah says. Whom we carry into every corner of our lives, and of the world.

The One who desires - like St Paul says - to see our lives become graceful and confident Kingdom yeast in the dough of this world.. Shining with light, no matter the darkness.

As people who, like St John Baptist, are set free by who God is for us, to forget ourselves and point to Jesus in every thought, word and deed.

And for this, to be just this, we keep turning up in 2026.