This year, in the Sundays that follow Epiphany and the Baptism of our Lord, we hear about the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. In John’s gospel, Jesus turns water into wine at a wedding in Cana. In Luke’s gospel, Jesus preaches in the synagogue at his home in Nazareth, and announces that Isaiah’s words are now being fulfilled. We step aside in time to celebrate the feast of the Presentation, when Jesus is brought to the Temple in Jerusalem as an infant. We then return in time to Nazareth, where Jesus’ sermon has caused a stir. On the last Sunday after Epiphany, Jesus is transformed before his disciples’ eyes and the journey to Jerusalem begins.
As we inaugurate a new year, as our friends in the United States inaugurate the second term of a sitting president… what would we being as followers of Jesus? What would God begin in us, continuing the work of incarnation in the world God loves?