Rebel
Lections: The Third Sunday After the Epiphany , AD 2026 A Homily: Lord, we pray for the preacher, for you know his sins are great. Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Rebellions are built on hope. And make no mistake, that’s what we have here in our Gospel reading this morning: the spark of a rebellion, which shall light such a fire as to encompass the entirety of the cosmos. Jesus’ people knew oppression on a scale the likes of which most of us simply cannot fathom. Their origin story begins with 400 years of slavery in Egypt: set to hard labor, kept from their homes, their children subject to state-mandated infanticide. And it just gets worse from there. Canaanite powers rise up in the time of the Judges. Then the Assyrians, the Neo-Babylonians, the Medo-Persians, various Macedonians and Greeks. Why, there’s nary a power in the Ancient Near East which did not subjugate the Jews. Century upon century of violence, bleeding...
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