Devotional article for The Greybull Standard
and The Republican Rustler
We have seen His glory
This Sunday will be the last Sunday of the Epiphany Season. The word Epiphanymeans “manifestation” or “revelation”, and in the calendar of the Church the Epiphany Season, right after Christmas, is a time for meditating on who it is that has come to us, and what He has come to do.
Therefore His Church has meditated on His miraculous works over the last few weeks; for His miraculous works were signs, says Holy Scripture, which means that they pointed beyond themselves to the greater reality of who He is, and what He has come to do. They were not merely demonstrations of His power; rather, in healing the sick and in casting out demons, and in pretty much everything else He did, He manifested Himself as the Saviour sent from God to set sinners free from suffering and slavery to Satan.
And in this He has not only given proof of His power; He has manifested His majesty; He has shown His glory to be the glory of our salvation.
Nothing is more precious to God than our salvation. That is why He did not spare even His own Son, but gave Him up for us. And therefore the sufferings and death of the Son of God is the true revelation of the glory of God, and His goodness. In His sufferings and death the Father has glorified the Son, and the Son has glorified the Father, that His love is greater than all. For there is no greater goodness, no greater glory.
It is to this His glory and His goodness God will direct us, also, with all that He does in our lives, and with all that He lets happen to us, be it painful or pleasant; it is all meant to lead us to repentance, that is: to make us understand that we have nothing in this world that will be ours forever, and to make us acknowledge our need for the forgiveness of sins His Son has won for us. and gives to us, freely and for nothing, out of His goodness alone.
In what the Son of God has done for us we see the glory of the goodness of God, that He has rescued us from eternal death and damnation, and promises us eternal life with Him in His Kingdom, all out of the greatest love of all. Seeing this, we see the glory of God. And we know, in faith, that we have nothing to fear from the future, and not even from death itself. When His love is upon us, all will be well in the end, if not before. And this means that all is well already – regardless of all whatever else may go wrong for us in life.
Pastor Jais H. Tinglund
Grace Lutheran Church, Greybull/Zion Lutheran Church, Emblem