Ben Jammin' Zilla

I Epiphany: Daily Office, Year 1, Fri (BCP p.942) Pss 16, 17 / Eph 3.1–12 / Mk 2.13–22 The star of the Epiphany and the Spirit of Jesus’ baptism alike continues to beckon the Church forward, guiding us into Lent. No, I’m not trying to jump the gun by talking about Lent when Ash Wednesday is almost exactly a month away. But we must remember as Christians that the seasons of the Church calendar are meant to connect together in a grand tapestry of wisdom. Each season therefore can inform us about any other season. And a theme of Lent that can guide us through Epiphany is the way in which Jesus sits with us in the midst of our sins. And it takes no stretch of imagination to know the many sins this nation commits and the man sins this nation suffers under. So it is appropriate in Mark 2 this morning Jesus answers a question about fasting, that characteristic Lenten practice, and the need to sit with sinners, when the Pharisees scoff at him for doing so. Those who are well have no need of a ...

Holy Name/Circumcision/New Year’s Day (Jan. 1, 2021) Daily Office, Year 1 (BCP p.940) Colossians 2.6–12  It’s not just New Year’s Day (Happy New Year, by the way!) Today the wisdom of the Church appoints Holy Name, one of the more interesting features of the Twelve Days of Christmas. Until the current 1979 Book of Common Prayer we all use, Episcopalians called Holy Name “The Feast of the Circumcision.” This fact is instructive.  So Holy Name is really about two things: the naming of Jesus, and the circumcision of Jesus. Christ receives that hallowed name according to the instruction of the angel, his name which means “Savior,” and in his circumcision Jesus, the Eternally Begotten Son, submits his flesh to be placed in Abraham. His entire body, soul, and divinity is now placed in covenant with the God of Israel.  It reminds me of a petition in the Great Litany: “by his submission to the Law … Good Lord, deliver us” (BCP p.149). Two thousand years of anti-Semitism later, Ch...