The Thin Places

Reflection on Luke, 3:15-17, 21-22
Jan 10, 2010

I have been privileged to walk with you through the seasons of Advent and Christmas, and now we are in the bright season of Epiphany. The word epiphany has the same Greek root (phanein, to show, to bring to light) as the word phantom. You also find it in the word “fantasy” and even “cellophane”

Epiphany means a manifestation- a showing forth- the big aha moment. The baptism of Jesus is such a moment. The voice from the clouds, the dove lighting upon Jesus as the Holy Spirit, bring to light the divinity of Jesus even as he submits to something so human as being dipped in the River Jordon by his cousin John.

The other story celebrated at the beginning of Epiphany is also revelatory: The story of the magi bringing gifts to the Christ child, revealing him to be something much, much more than your average baby.

The biblical stories of Epiphany are like the thin places from the Celtic tradition- times and places where the veil between this ordinary world and the miraculous world to come is so sheer that it becomes transparent- invisible, like the Holy Spirit.

In our Gospel of today, the voice of God speaks through the heavens, and just as in the beginning, when God says of creation, “It is good,” God acknowledges Jesus, the new creation, as God’s beloved son. We have heard this loving voice of God before, saying exactly the same thing, also from the heavens, at another epiphany- the transfiguration, where Jesus glowed like the sun on the mountaintop and was book-ended by the great prophets Elijah and Moses.

In time-honored Old Testament fashion, God thoughtfully does not appear to us in today’s gospel, for as God points out to Moses in the Book of Exodus, “no one may see me and live.” So God is manifested as a voice from heaven. This voice was heard, coming out of the opening heavens long before Jesus’ time,, by the prophet Ezekiel, also by a river- the River Chebar, in Babylon.
Ezekiel was minding his own business at the river’s edge with the other Israelite exiles back n the 6th century BC, when the heavens opened, and he had his own epiphany. He had a vision of God that included strange and alien-looking animals and a wheel-within a wheel contraption. God’s voice from the heavens told him that he was to be a prophet, and speak for God to the people of Israel. In place of the Holy Spirit dove, the Lord God gave Ezekiel a tasty honey-flavored scroll to eat, that he might relay the message thereon to the Israelites.


The Holy Spirit is the all-present, supporting, inspiring, free-flying aspect of the Trinity, invisibly carrying out the work of God. The image of a dove is apt because of the ethereal swiftly flying nature of this invisible force. The Holy Spirit, in dove form or not, seems to have the nature of searching- The creation story tells us of Ruach Elohim, the Spirit of God, or you could say, Holy Spirit sweeping across the face of the waters, almost as if she were looking for something. And Noah send out the dove on just such a mission- to find the saving dry land that would mean survival for the human race. And then, in our story, it seems that the dove finally finds what she is looking for, swooping down and blessing Jesus, as God watches proudly from the clouds.

First century rabbis taught that the Ruach Elohim, or the Spirit of God left the realm of the earth when the last prophets of Israel died. However, they taught that God could occasionally send down a voice from heaven. And when he did, this voice was called the bat qol, or the daughter voice. It was, however, according to rabbinic teaching, not to be considered a continuation of the revelation in the Torah, or the prophets. One can only assume that if it did qualify, it would have been called the bar qol, or the son’s voice.

As for the Son, it is poignant to note that the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove,
descended upon Jesus while he was praying. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus always prays at significant moments, you might even say, at the significant epiphanies in his life. Just before Jesus’ first attempt to tell the disciples that he will be crucified, he prays. Right before the transfiguration, he prays. At the Garden of Gethsemane he prays. And on the cross, he prays.

And after his baptism, he prays. It is not entirely clear in Luke why Jesus gets baptized, and of course we do not know what he is saying in his post-baptismal prayer. John was preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. But from what we read, it doesn’t seem that sin would have been a problem for Jesus. Why was he baptized? Perhaps Jesus himself wanted some kind of rite of passage- an initiation, some kind of ritual cleansing. He was, after all, just about to meet Satan in the wilderness.

Most of these epiphany moments for Jesus involve or foretell his death. Even a baptism speaks to the death of the old and the birth of the new. At every moment that Jesus is forced to look at his own mortality- at the coming suffering and death that he must face, he turns to God in prayer, trying to understand, trying to see through the thin places. Death as well as life are together and visible at the thin places- you are spanning the world of life and death in a way that is very suddenly revealed.

As soon as Jesus is baptized, the same Holy Spirit that blessed him leads him out to the wilderness. After this blessing, after his loving father has made known his love, the next step is desolation, wilderness.

Last week I shared with you that I had lost my very oldest and dearest friend, and I have greatly appreciated your thoughtfulness and prayers. And today, in the beginning of this bright season of Epiphany, we bury the ashes of Sharon Gay Smith, so beloved of so many of you in this congregation.

Epiphany stories are not only the thin places where the veil between this world and the next becomes transparent. They are also the stories where the membrane between desolation and blessing, shrinks to almost nothing.

Like all the Epiphanies in the bible, when God peeks through the clouds, death brings its own epiphany, and I suppose each death might bring it’s own. But what I have seen through the clouds of late is the urgent importance of being with our loved ones, to love them to treasure them in our hearts while they are still on our side of the veil. And that for the rest of our lives we will have an on-going epiphany of our lost loved ones- a thin place between life and death, because they will always be with us.

Even in the wilderness that is grieving and mourning, we are supported and sustained and saved by the love of the Holy Spirit made manifest by our loved ones, on both sides of the veil.

In community we commit to one another that we will journey with each other in sickness and in health, in joyousness and sadness, and even in death. This covenant is the bright blaze of light in this season that will outshine all the darkness. This is the blessing of the Holy Spirit, and the voice of God.

And perhaps these wilderness experiences of loss are the fire by which we are baptized. Certainly during these epiphanies, the chaff of our life is burned away. What is revealed is what is really important.

The refining fire reveals in blazing clarity what we have always been told, what we thought we believed, what we have suspected all along. The transfiguring blessing that we run from and seek our whole lives is always right before us. The epiphany, the revelation, the blessing of the Holy Spirit that is our love for each other. This is the bright and even joyous good news that is revealed to us in our darkest day.

Amen