If there is one thing we might learn from recent events, it's that disaster brings people together.  People all over the world are uniting to help victims of earthquake and tidal wave, and the generosity is incredible.  Now we can only hope the funds donated will fall into the right hands, those who need it.

          Speaking of disaster bringing people together, how many Christmas letters did you receive?  Maybe I should ask if you got any cards without a letter.  Every card sent these days has one, telling of great travel and brilliant children, of promotions and purchases.  Rarely do they tell of disaster, or being in counseling or failure in business or divorce.  We read nothing about nights spent in tears or hospital beds or encounters with the Law.  But now and then a card comes without any letter, with just a signature, nothing else, and those are kind of refreshing.  I guess it's their way of telling us, "I'm alive and can sign my name, and the rest is none of your business."

          Our business today is that it's Epiphany Sunday, and Jan. 6, 2005, signaled six years since the first phone call was made and God began what now is Epiphany Lutheran Church.  Epiphany in the Bible signaled the first real Gospel outreach to the Gentiles, when the Magi found Jesus with His mother in a house in Bethlehem.  After Christ proved Himself to be the Messiah, the Good News of what He did spread like wildfire, creating a tidal wave of converts to Christianity, who were soon driven to all parts of the world to share their faith.

          One thing we all should have learned recently is the tremendous power of God.  Last week on the Op-Ed pages a cartoon showed a terrorist with a gun being swallowed up by a huge wave that said, "Amateur!"  How true!  By now the whole world should know that people are just a bunch of amateurs.  We are not in control of this world - but God is!  He is the one who can unleash the power of a million atomic bombs on a Sunday morning instant, and yet also has the grace to save one boy floating on a tree branch for days, living on coconuts, so he can be rescued.  I wonder if any of those survivors of whole villages destroyed are wondering why they are still alive.  What does God have in store for them now that they're the only ones left?

          God is a God of power, and He has gotten our attention.  They are saying church attendance is up 30% in towns and cities nearby those ravaged areas.  When you've seen whole villages swept away, you start to think about God.  Only the fool would say there is no God after seeing what happened there.  Only the "wise of the world" would still deny God after such power has been unleashed.

          God is a God of power and also a God of grace.  He once promised He'd never again send a worldwide flood, but it doesn't mean He still doesn't have the power to do so.  God hasn't retired or gone on vacation.  He is the boss.  He is still in charge of this world, and we must never forget it.

          There is hope this Epiphany, more than we ever could realize.  The God who brought the Magi to see Jesus is the same God who is filling churches in Indonesia.  The God who was laid in a manger is the same God who was laid in the tomb.  The God who sent His Son Jesus to save the world is the same God who could destroy the world, but has promised never to do it until the last day.

          There is hope this Epiphany.  God is still revealing Himself to the Gentiles, all over the world.  Now some may say the tsunami was a random act of an impersonal nature, but I say it is God showing Himself in all His power.  He does this all the time, but we don't always see it or recognize it.  We must see God through the eyes of faith, not the eyes of skeptical human intelligence.

          There is a true story about a young woman, Brenda, who went with a group rock climbing up the face of a stone cliff.  Although apprehensive, Brenda wanted to go with her friends, so she put on the gear, took hold of the rope, and started up the face of the rock.  As she took a breather on a ledge, a safety rope slapped her in the face and knocked out a contact lens.  It was one of those hard lenses for corrective vision and it just flew out of her eye.  With a hundred feet below her and a hundred or more feet above, she looked around but she knew that lens was gone.

          But she really needed that lens, her vision was so blurry!  In her desperation she prayed for God's help to find it, and then continued to the top, where she sat down and prayed.  A memorized Bible verse came to her, "The eyes of the LORD are everywhere." (Proverbs 15:3)  She prayed, asking God to help her somehow to find that contact lens.

          When all had climbed to the top, they walked a trail to the bottom where a new party of climbers was just starting up the face of the cliff.  One of them said, "Anybody lose a contact lens?"  It was Brenda's!  Her lens had fallen a hundred feet down the hill and, of all things, an ant was carrying it at just the moment the other climber looked down.  So, does God does answer prayer in amazing ways, or what?  Later on, Brenda's father was a cartoonist so he drew a picture of an ant with the words, "Lord, I don't know why You want me to carry this big thing.  It's heavy and I can't eat it, but if this is what You want, I'll do it."

          God is in control and He is showing His power and grace all the time.  Now and then we all must pray: "Lord, I don't know why You want me to carry this load.  It's heavy and it makes no sense, but if this is what You want, I'll do it."  God rarely tells us why things happen in the beginning.  And He rarely calls the qualified to do His work.  Instead, God qualifies the called by giving them faith and strength to do the seemingly impossible.  God is our source of existence and He is our Savior.  He keeps us going every day.  Without Him, we are nothing, but with Him we can do all things, as St. Paul once wrote, "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength." (Philippians 4:13)

          There is hope this Epiphany, hope for the world, hope for the church, and hope for each one of us.  If you think there are mothers crying today for their dead sons due to war or flood, think of the mothers of Bethlehem who witnessed the murder of dozens of babies in their small town.  Years later, we here in Casle Rock still grieve over the deaths of those three little Gonzales girls whose father killed them in a rampage.  Just like the people of Bethlehem have never stopped grieving over Herod's killing all those innocent little ones.

          But despite such death as we have seen, there is still hope this Epiphany.  For hope does not come from human accomplishment, or great progress or scientific discovery.  Hope comes from having faith in God.  Hope comes from Jesus Christ.  There is hope is His birth and life.  There is hope is His suffering and death.  There is hope in His resurrection and ascension, hope still today.

          The Prophet Isaiah, speaking 400 years before his birth, wrote of the messiah: "Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations.  He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets.  A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.  In faithfulness he will bring forth justice; He will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on the earth.  In His law the islands will put their hope."

          Jesus is that Servant, that Deliverer, that holy Life Preserver, the Branch to which we can cling in the floodwaters of life.  He will bring justice to the nations.  He does not come only with power, but also with His grace, forgiving us, accepting us, loving us, rescuing us.  He does not break the weak or smother the wounded.  He helps the discouraged, and "In His law the islands will put their hope."  I shivered when I read that sentence.  How many islands in the east were all but swept away, and yet some people were saved.  May God grant them a new start in Jesus Christ.  Even devastated islands can put their hope in Christ.

          Dear friends, God is talking to us right now.  Terrorists thought they had the world's attention, but they have been swept aside.  God is talking to us right now, and may all people of the earth hear what He has to say and then have faith in His Holy Son, Jesus.  amen.

Copyright © 2005 by Pastor Bob Tasler.  All rights reserved.