On January 7th, I wrote the following:
“…Today we celebrate God’s revelation to us. The Gentile kings knew it, God the Father announced it, and Jesus gave his closest friends a glimpse of it. May the glory of Jesus shine on our minds and hearts today.”
The next morning I awoke to the reminder that 68 years ago, missionary to Ecuador, Jim Elliot, was speared to death by the very people he came to win. Elliot and five other missionaries had a covenant to do no harm to those among whom they ministered. When the Auca warriors lifted their spears, the men did not resist.
As a boy my father required me to read, “Through Gates of Splendor,” the book detailing the missionary ventures of Elliot and his companions. Many of you may be familiar with his widely read wife, Elisabeth Elliot, who later took her daughter and moved back to minister to the very people who executed her husband. I was delighted to find a recording of Jim Elliot preaching on, of all things, the resurrection and listened as in his own voice he anticipated an eternity with Jesus.
The Season of Epiphany celebrates Jesus’ revelation among us as the Son of God, our Savior. So often stories of our faith find their way into our mental file marked, “Sacred History.” For instance, we think of the inspired scriptures as having been breathed upon by the Spirit in their writing. What we might fail to remember is that they are just as inspired as we read them today.
Epiphany, for all of its historical significance and liturgical value, should be removed from the “Sacred History” file and be moved into the “Where do I see Jesus revealed today” file in our minds. God used the life and death of Jim Elliot to remind me that God is powerfully revealed in the people and events all around us. Epiphany is everywhere.
I guess you could say I had an epiphany about Epiphany!
Where do you see Jesus revealed right now? I’d love it if you stopped for 30 seconds and actually pondered that question, then took another 30 seconds, and thanked Jesus for making himself known to you in a thousand ways.
Let me leave you with the words of Jim Elliot. May this sentence lodge in your thoughts this season.
“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”
– Sam
