When the Light won’t stay local…

Readings: 1 John 4.19 – 5.4 and Luke 4.14-30.

“We love because God first loved us.”  I’ll say it again: “We love because God first loved us.”  John offers that sentence, from our first reading, not as a comforting slogan but as a theological fact. Love, in Christian terms, is never something we initiate. It is always a response. God moves first. We follow — sometimes eagerly, sometimes cautiously, sometimes only once we are sure it will not cost us too much.

That, in many ways, is the logic of Epiphany itself. Epiphany is not about us discovering God by cleverness or effort. It is about God choosing to be seen. Light breaking in. Truth revealing itself, sometimes gently, sometimes uncomfortably.

Luke shows us one of those moments of revelation when Jesus returns to Nazareth. He reads Isaiah’s great vision — good news for the poor, freedom for captives, sight for the blind — and then dares to say, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

This is not just a sermon. It is an unveiling. Jesus is not offering commentary on Isaiah; he is identifying himself with it. This is who he is. This is what God looks like when God speaks in a human voice.  And at first, the revelation is warmly received. They speak well of him. They are proud. The local lad has done good. This, they think, is a Messiah they can recognise — hopeful, articulate, reassuring, and crucially, one of their own.

But Epiphany has a habit of deepening as it unfolds.  Jesus knows what they are expecting next. “Doctor,” they will say, “heal yourself. Do some of the miracles we’ve heard you did elsewhere.” Prove it. Perform. Start at home. Make this revelation work in our favour.  And it is precisely now that Jesus reveals something more.

He recalls a story about Elijah - sent not to an Israelite widow, but to a foreign woman in Sidon. He tells of Elisha healing not one of God’s chosen people, but Naaman the Syrian — an enemy general. These are not random illustrations. They are moments when Scripture itself reveals the true character of God: mercy that crosses borders, grace that refuses to be domesticated, love that will not be claimed as a local possession.

In that moment, the revelation sharpens — and the mood turns. Admiration curdles into rage. The people who welcomed him now try to destroy him. Not because they have misunderstood who he is, but because they have begun to understand all too clearly.  Epiphany, it turns out, is not always comfortable. Sometimes the light reveals truths we would rather keep in shadow.

And this is where John’s letter speaks directly into the moment. “Those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.” Not as an optional extra, but as the necessary consequence of encountering the God who has been revealed.

Because once God is revealed as love without borders, faith can no longer be used to protect our sense of superiority, identity, or entitlement. In every age — including our own — there are those who try to enlist Christianity in the service of nationalism or cultural dominance. But the Jesus revealed at Nazareth will not cooperate. His own Scriptures refuse to let him.

Which is why Epiphany is always a season of decision. Not just Who is Jesus? but What kind of world does he reveal? And who do we become if we take him seriously?

Here, at St Faith’s, we already know some of the answer.

Because the Christ revealed in Nazareth looks remarkably like the Christ quietly at work in this parish. In church doors opened daily without interrogating those who enter. In candles lit, prayers whispered, and space made for those who simply need to sit and breathe.

He is revealed in pastoral visits that offer presence rather than platitudes. In the Pallant Centre he is revealed in hosting lives that may never appear in pews but nonetheless matter deeply to God. In repair cafés, choirs, dementia groups, recovery meetings, youth theatre — places where dignity is restored one conversation at a time.

He is revealed in Little Lambs on a Friday morning, when toddlers are welcomed with mess and laughter, when exhausted parents are met with warmth rather than judgement.  He is revealed in the houses we provide, when local and refugee families are housed not as symbols but as neighbours.

None of this is accidental. It is Epiphany lived out. Light refracted through ordinary faithfulness. Isaiah’s vision taking flesh in Havant.  And yet — John will not let us stop at recognition alone.

Revelation always invites response. Love that is only observed is not yet complete. Love that is only received but never shared has stalled. And love that never stretches us beyond what is familiar risks shrinking into a faith that admires Jesus without following him.  Some among us give astonishingly of themselves. This is not a word of reproach to you — only gratitude.

But some of us are still standing at the doorway of Epiphany, content to watch the light without stepping fully into it. We come, we are nourished, we are comforted — and then we retreat to safer ground.  Luke’s Epiphany story will not let us stay there.

The love revealed in Christ leans forward. It looks for hands, time, courage, availability. It asks not, “How does this affirm who I already am?” but “Where is this light asking me to go next?”

And the grace is this: there is no single answer. There is room to hover. Room to grow. Room to step in gently. But there is no version of Epiphany that leaves us unchanged.

Nazareth wanted a Messiah they could claim. Epiphany revealed a Christ who could not be contained.

And the same Christ still walks through the crowd and goes on his way — drawing light, love and life wherever people are willing to follow.

“We love because God first loved us.”

And in this season of Epiphany, the question before us is not whether Christ has been revealed.  The question is whether we will live as though what we have seen is true.  Amen.