The Renewing of our Minds

The Rev’d Stephen E. Stults
First Sunday after the Epiphany
January 09, 2011

”The Renewing of our Minds”

“In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost….”

I bid you God’s Peace on this 2012 celebration of the first Sunday after the Epiphany, also known as the Manifestation of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles. That blessed event occurred on this last Friday, the 6th, and we will continue to be in the Epiphany Season until Septuagesima, or the Pre-Lenten season. It also officially ends the celebration of Christmas as we begin to move in to the church year in earnest.

Let’s consider the word epiphaneia – from the Greek, meaning “an appearance”; or the English derivative, Epiphany. It means “an appearance or manifestation especially of a divine being (1) : a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something (2) : an intuitive grasp of reality through something (as an event) usually simple and striking (3) : an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure .”

Today, let us focus just a bit on the last definition, that of an “an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure.” Let us look at what that means in our lives, and more importantly, what it means to our growth in Christ.

The realization for today comes from our Epistle selection from today. St. Paul. In this illuminating instruction from St. Paul, we are told three things that are vital to our life in Christ. With your kind indulgence, we will examine them briefly in turn.

The first instruction tells us “to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.” If we examine this statement, it correlates exactly with what the Prayer Book tells us to do.
Just as Bp. Grote spoke of yesterday, we no longer need the various ritual sacrifices prescribed in the Old Testament. Instead, the sacrifice we are called to give is our “sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.”

That’s all well and good, but what does this exactly mean? When St. Paul says, “Present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship”, does he mean a literal sacrifice? Are we to cast ourselves into the fire, to be a holocaust, in honor of God? Forgive me, but this is, of course, ridiculous. This is one of the glories of the New Testament. We are not called upon to sacrifice poor, hapless animals for our sins. We are not required to shed any blood in any sacrifice any more. Instead, we are to remember the “one, holy and perfect sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction”, that was offered for us. Then, in remembrance, we are to offer our own sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.

Again, what does mean, literally? It means that we should, without reservation, present ourselves to the Lord. Again, what this means is that we allow the light of Christ to peer into every aspect of our lives, without reservation. How easy this sounds and yet how difficult it is! That is, it is difficult if we are still holding on to something selfish, something secret, or something hidden that we don’t want God to see. Of course, how vain and how foolish this attitude is! Nothing is hid from God, despite our best efforts to convince ourselves that it is so. Many a time when younger, I heard preachers talk about this, how that we all hold our secret sins close to us, with the deluded conception that God doesn’t see. How vain, how utterly vain this is!

Yet, when we present ourselves as a sacrifice wholly acceptable to God, which is our spiritual service, something wonderful happens. Our God, our loving Fathert, sees us only as filtered through the Son. This makes our “spiritual service” worthwhile and good, despite our actual condition. This does not mean that we just sin and sin, confess, then repent and sin again, willfully. That is, we cannot test the patience of God in a willful manner, without regard to true contrition. To do so is similar to battering on the very gates of Hells itself, while praying that they don’t open. St. Paul addressed this very issue in the early church, and it was the cause of several early heresies. The point is we must be willing to let God’s light come into us and illuminate us, in spite of our sinfulness. When we do this, our desire to be godly takes on a real and almost tangible aspect.

What allows this to happen is the second instruction from St. Paul, as he tells to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” As we allow the Holy Ghost to illuminate our mind, we will be transformed in a new and wonderful way. That way is the renewing of our mind in Jesus Christ.

Once again, what does this actually mean? Simply this: we Christians have a light within us that cannot be quenched. Not misfortune, or persecution, or torture, or death can put it out. Why is this? It stems from the fact that our strength does not lie in this life. Instead, it stems from the eternal, absolute Life that is God. In short, it extends past our feeble earthly years into an existence that cannot be numbered or counted.

Yet, our light and our joy pertains to this life as well, lest one think that the benefits of Christianity are only future-based. Right now, in this life, is something that is not available to those who are not of the household of God: joy. This joy is the result of light inexpressible, irrefutable, and bright without measure, peeking around the edges of our souls. As we’ve always said, there is something different, in a good way, about a Christian. That “something” is the light that makes it way through the darkness of this world, to be seen by men. As our Lord said in Matthew 5:16: ”Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”

The last point St. Paul makes our epistle is simply this: Romans 12:3: “For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.” Seen another way, taken from the New American Standard translation, it says this: “For through the grace given to me I say to every man among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.”

Does this mean that we Christians aren’t to have joy in Christ and in our redeemed state? Can’t we feel that we Christians are a called people, special to God? Yes, we freely acknowledge this, but at the same time, our special relationship to God through Christ can never be a source of pride in ourselves, but only in Him. That is, there may be a temptation to think that because we are Christians, chosen and called by God to receive His eternal inheritance, somehow we have merited this by something that we are or have done.

Beloved, nothing could be farther from the truth. We are called, not because of our deserts, but precisely the opposite of it. God, through His mercy, saved mankind form eternal darkness and death for one reason: He chose to out of love. He chose to despite the fact that we deserve nothing but the harshest condemnation, due to our fallen nature. Despite the seeming harshness of this statement, it is true. Man, left to his own devices, without the renewing effect of the Holy Ghost, will always descend into an increasing maelstrom of lust, envy, murder and violence. Man without God is a dark creature, indeed.

Yet beloved, that is not the message for today. Instead, it is the fact that all of us, without exception, can enjoy the renewing of our minds through the wonderful influence of the Holy Ghost in our lives. We too, with simple desire, fervent repentance, and earnest expectation, receive new life in ourselves.

We too, through Christ, can “present our bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God.” It is this “illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure” that all of us can grasp this Epiphany season. Once we realize this, our lives will never be same, for our lives will have taken on a new measure and a new dimension in holiness. As we draw near to God, He will draw near to us. As the Psalmist says, in Psalm 73: “But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord GOD, that I may declare all thy works.”

Even so, let it be this Epiphany season this year 2012. Amen.