Year A: Epiphany 02 | John 1:29-12
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
January 18, 2026
the Rev. Jonathan Hanneman
To watch the full service, please visit this page (available for three weeks after the date of streaming).
“[Jesus] said to them, ‘Come and see.’” – John 1:39[1]
Epiphany is the Church’s Season of Light. In it we celebrate the revelation of the Creator God incarnate through Jesus of Nazareth. As a priest and pastor, I do my best to direct us toward that light, to help us see God’s nature more clearly through the example, work, and teachings of the one we recognize as God’s anointed Son. My hope is that as we encounter God’s light we, like tiny prisms, grow better able to refract and reflect that light throughout our community more brightly and clearly.
However, sometimes we need to look at the darkness, to face the hard reality of what that light is illuminating. Today is one of those days.
To put it simply, much which calls itself Christian has nothing to do with Christ. Furthermore, the god in which we, as a nation, currently trust is not the God of Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob. We collectively worship a god named in the Bible, but it most certainly isn’t the God of the Bible. How can I say that so boldly? As Jesus said in our Gospel reading today, “Come and see.”
But first off, we need to understand what a god even is.
Modern people tend to mock the idea of gods. Only crazy people believe that magical beings live in the sky entertaining themselves by manipulating humans and the world around us. For us, gods are characters drawn from the superstitions and imaginations of primitive peoples—a way of explaining that which couldn’t yet be explained. Any modern reference to these strange legends is simply a remnant of past ignorance.
We’re wrong.
Gods are not—and never were—supernatural spiritual beings. Nor are they simply characters invented for story time. They are embodiments—a means of understanding and talking about greater natural, psychological, and social movements that influence and overtake a particular society. Despite the tales, people knew that Zeus never actually held the throne on Mount Olympus or zapped his foes with lightning. “Zeus” is a means of talking about Awe or Fear, with his storms a physical representation of the same.[2] Likewise, nobody was going to hunt for Poseidon splashing around under the sea making waves and causing earthquakes. Rather, he’s a distillation of Stability and Instability. Hades, then, is the embodiment of Mystery, of That-Which-Cannot-Be-Known. Or for a more Biblically-relevant example, Satan[3] isn’t necessarily just an individual fallen angel, the primal demon who functions as a not-quite-equal counterpart to God. “Satan” is a means of talking about what we know as Adversity or Oppression. Something truly “satanic,” then, doesn’t necessarily involve active devil worship—it’s anything which oppresses or promotes adversity.
Another important aspect of the ancient reference to gods is hierarchy. There was always a chief god to whom the others answered. Throughout varied societies—including early Hebrew society—“gods” had an authority structure that revealed what was important to that particular culture. So long as these “gods” were kept in proper order—as long as they maintained their appropriate position in the hierarchy—the people would thrive. One that asserted itself outside its station would inevitably become an agent of Chaos—the true evil of the ancient world.
Likewise, gods almost always appeared in pairs, generally described as “masculine” or “feminine”—hence the husbands and wives referenced in different tales about the gods. We would understand this more as the spectrum of how a concept might express itself. In addition to maintaining the hierarchy, it was essential that society maintained the proper balance between these more assertive and more nurturing aspects of the pairs; much like poles on a magnet, each required the other not simply to function but to exist. If one took command or was too heavily emphasized, Chaos would once again ensue.
Because gods are rarely specific to any given culture, we can recognize them wherever they appear by two simple methods. The first is how their followers worship them. And because we cannot help but embody what it is we worship in the depths of our hearts, we know the presence of a god through how their followers behave.
The current American god has gone by many names throughout human history. The Romans knew him as Liber, husband to our precious Liberty. The people of Carthage worshiped him as Baal-Hamon. His name in the Hebrew Bible—where he’s listed as an abomination—is Molech. In English, historically his names would be Chaos or Death. I like to describe him as Desolation, the Uniformity that reigns in the crushed remains of life or hope. How do we know? There are certainly hints of it in his worship, but it’s most clear through the behavior of his legions of followers.
This is where we begin to “come and see.”
After John the Baptist pointed out Jesus to two of his apprentices, Jesus invited them to follow him for a day. Within that short time, they were able to recognize him as God’s anointed heir. We today might wish that we could have been with them and seen what exactly they saw; the truth is, we can. There’s no need for us to ask, “what would Jesus do?” We simply need to look at what Jesus did. And the rest of John’s Gospel shows us exactly what those disciples would have experienced.
Throughout John we see a Jesus who welcomes both the well-connected and the outcasts. We see a person who brings life to the dead, joy to those in mourning, and healing to those impaired. We see someone who feeds the hungry, even those greedy and ungrateful; someone who actively dialogs with people who question or oppose him; someone who steps forward to take the brunt of Adversity without ever resorting to Oppression for himself. He liberates those doomed to slaughter and confronts people with the reality of who their god truly is. We ultimately see someone who not only calls but strives for unity and peace, who walks in love, and who embodies kindness and generosity. Jesus incarnates—brings physical reality to—all these things, offering us the attributes of his God in tangible form. And that is what we, as Christians, ought to emulate.
Unfortunately, as I said earlier, that which calls itself Christian in our country is anything but. The nationalism and its proponents that scrawl the word “light” across their banner of darkness are, in truth, inherently opposed to the nature and work of either our Savior or the Creator God. They are, in the most literal sense of the term, anti-Christ—utterly opposed to God’s anointing. No matter their name, they worship Death. How do we know? “Come and see.”
It’s hard to avoid the very real fear trembling within our present world. It’s all but impossible to ignore the cloud of cruelty and violence that suffocates our nation. Our leadership, and therefore our country, has become known throughout the world not for love, kindness, freedom, or generosity. Rather, we now incarnate blame, betrayal, conspiracy, cruelty, abusive language, and compulsive lying. We engage in brutality against not only our enemies but our own citizenry, violating boundaries, embodying assault, division, and unchecked greed. We long to impose uniformity. Our “equality” comes only through Oppression, and our present drive is set upon Desolation both here and around the world.
So tell me, how can so many who claim the label “Christian” incarnate the nature of Death, Cruelty, and Oppression (what we call “Satan”)?
Honestly, it isn’t a huge surprise that Americans conflate nationalism with Christianity. Our founding stories are laced with religious imagery and terminology, tales of people fleeing the “darkness” of Europe to create their own City on a Hill, a “new Jerusalem” shining its own individual light throughout the world. Throughout our history we’ve enculturated religious “awakenings” wherein vast swaths of the population make some sort of commitment to “god.” Our national anthem claims that god created us. Our pledge of allegiance identifies us as standing in that god’s favor. Our coins and currency proclaim our trust in this god—a god we never choose to identify, largely because we’re ashamed to bring his name to light. And that shame is what keeps us enslaved.
Despite popular belief, to be a Christian is not to think the right things about morals or God or the Bible. It isn’t to know the Romans Road or to pray a certain prayer or to condemn particular “sins” or to regularly attend church or even to memorize vast passages of Scripture. A Christian is defined by how they live—how they follow the example and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, whom we recognize as our Savior, model, and the Christ. A person is Christian only when their life embodies Christ. Full stop. Anything apart from that—and there has been plenty apart from that over the centuries—is a masquerade and a mockery of the term.
As we come to a close, I’m going to make it very simple for us all. There is one test to know whether or not something that claims the name might truly be “Christian”:[4]
If it isn’t kind, it isn’t Christ.
Let me say that once more, and please—please—hear this:
If it isn’t kind, it IS NOT Christ.
Again, full stop.
So then, what can any of us do at this point? How can we—all of whom fall for these lies in one form or another—truly repent? How can we turn from this gleeful obeisance to Death and, hopefully, cleanse and save our own souls while preserving the lives of our neighbors not only here in Las Cruces but throughout the world?
We shine a light on the darkness. We ourselves look not only to Jesus but to the God he expresses, studying and practicing to refract and reflect that true Light more and more clearly and effectively with every passing day. We join in unity, focusing that Light on the monsters drawn from Darkness, blinding and scorching them with its intensity. We embody Jesus’ teachings and example already recorded for us in Scripture. We call out both lies and liars, stripping their corrupted claims of “Christian” from their names. We hold our leadership responsible. We demand a return to justice and liberty and an end to these genuinely satanic practices that oppress our neighbors—and are surely coming for ourselves. We, like our Psalmist today, hide not God’s righteousness. We take responsibility for our own part in advancing Chaos and openly set ourselves adverse against Adversity!
Put simply, we incarnate our God—the one, true, Creator God—not by simply talking about but actively embodying Generosity, Mercy, Commitment, and Kindness. Knowing that the Light has not only shone in the past but will continue to shine—that Darkness cannot overcome it—we stand firm even in the face of Death. Rising like the sun, we awaken our siblings from the depths of their delusion and once again draw them to the Light. Together, we proclaim Jesus and all the truth he embodies. And pointing to that truth, even in the depths of Night we cry,
“Come and see!”
[1] All Bible quotations are from the NRSVue unless otherwise noted.
[2] Concepts neither ancient Greek or Hebrew societies appear to have distinguished from one another
[3] Or Lucifer
[4] No test can guarantee something is Christian, but this certainly weeds out that which is not.