Show Notes
In this episode, Derek reflects on the Christian season of Epiphany, a season centered on revelation, light, and clarity. Epiphany always falls on January 6, twelve days after Christmas, and reveals that Jesus is not only the Messiah of Israel, but the King of the nations, the Savior of the world.
Derek also acknowledges the painful weight January 6 carries in the United States, recalling the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. He contrasts two kinds of “epiphanies” —one that reveals a kingdom of love, truth, and self-giving sacrifice, and another that revealed how rhetorical violence can turn into real violence. Epiphany, he reminds us, is clarifying. It reveals things as they are.
The episode then turns to the baptism of Jesus, the central Epiphany moment where God’s revolutionary kingdom is revealed. Drawing on Israel’s story, the Exodus, and the crossing of the Jordan, Derek shows how Jesus reenacts and fulfills Israel’s calling—not through conquest, but through love. In Jesus’ baptism, the Trinity is revealed, and we hear the words that define our identity before God: “You are my beloved.”
Epiphany, Derek says, prepares us for repentance by first grounding us in revelation by helping us see who Jesus truly is and who we are becoming in His light.
Key Insights
Epiphany celebrates the revelation of Jesus as Light of the World and King of the nations
January 6, 2021 was an epiphany revealing the danger of violent rhetoric
Epiphany shows that revelation is never neutral; light clarifies and exposes
Jesus’ baptism fulfills Israel’s story and reimagines power through love
The Jordan River connects Jesus to ancient Israel and God’s rescue plan
In Jesus, we receive our identity before we perform: beloved sons and daughters
Scripture Verses Mentioned in this Episode
Psalm 99:1–2
John 3:16
Matthew 3:13–17
Genesis 12
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Transcript
Welcome back.
To another episode of Peaceable and Kind.
I am your host, Derek Vreeland, and we are in a new calendar year.
It is 2026, and I hope your new year is off.
a good start.
I’m glad you’re joining me for this episode.
And before we get started, if you haven’t already, please subscribe.
Like, leave a rating and review.
Do all the things that helps us here at Peaceable and Kind.
And as we look at the church calendar, that is the Christian calendar, we have entered into a new season.
This is the season after the Epiphany, also called the season of Epiphany.
And so I want you to join me in entering into this season.
So on today’s episode, we’re going to talk about entering into the epiphany.
Of all of the holidays and seasons on the church calendar, it seems like the epiphany
It gets overlooked a little bit.
Now the Epiphany has a fixed date.
It’s always twelve days after Christmas, and because Christmas is fixed at December 25th,
Epiphany is always on January 6th.
So we’re just two days after the Epiphany.
Of course, for those of us in the US, when we hear January 6th, we think of something else.
It’s a little bit like the date September 11th.
January 6th, 2021 was truly a dark day in American history.
Of course, I’m talking about the attack on the U.
S.
Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.
Five people died.
on that day, approximately a hundred and forty law enforcement officers were injured.
An angry mob motivated by the lie
that the twenty twenty election had been rigged or stolen, turned to violence.
It was a sad day
Which makes Epiphany, at least for me, stand out even more as an alternative
So when we speak of January 6th for Christians, hopefully we are first reflecting on the Epiphany.
Now, Epiphany is a season about revelation.
In the Christian calendar, Epiphany celebrates
The revealing or the unveiling of Jesus as the light of the world, that the Jewish King, the Messiah
was not only the king of the Jews, but the king of the nations.
Epiphany is about the revelation that Jesus isn’t just
the king for one ethnic group, the Jewish people, but that truly Jesus is King of Kings, Lord of Lords, King of all nations, Savior of the world.
And it’s interesting to me that many of the psalms, particularly in the 90s, reverberate with this theme that Israel’s God is king.
For example, Psalm 99, verses 1 and 2.
The Lord is King, let the nations tremble.
He sits on his throne between the cherubim, let the whole earthquake.
The Lord sits in majesty in Jerusalem, exalted above all the nations.
And as I pray through the Psalms, I pray a psalm every day, when I get to these psalms that speak about the Lord.
which is the specific personal name for the God of Israel, Yahweh or Jehovah, when these Psalms speak of the Lord is King,
over nations, exalted above all the nations, the king of all the nations.
I’m struck with how much audacity
it took for the ancient people of God to make such a declaration.
Because in the ancient world everyone had their gods.
The world was awash with gods
In the Roman and Greek world they had a pantheon of gods, and yet the ancient people of God said, No, our God, who is the one true God of creation, he is king, and he’s king of the nations.
So with the Epiphany and this season we call Epiphany, we’re focused on that revelation.
that this particular Jewish king, the Messiah, is king of the nations.
And so we reflect on a number of stories in the Gospels during the season of Epiphany.
we reflect back on the visit of the magi, which often we think about as a part of the Christmas story.
But actually, the visit of the wise men from the east came later, came after the birth of Jesus.
So we focus on the wise men coming from the east during this season.
We focus on the baptism of Jesus.
Which we’ll get to later, which I think is astounding and important.
And we also focus on the public ministry of Jesus because
In these events, the visit of the Magi, the baptism of Jesus, and throughout his ministry, God is pulling back the curtain.
And God is saying, This is who I am, this is what my kingdom looks like
Again, epiphany is about revelation.
It’s never neutral.
Light
Always shines and exposes things for what they are.
In a darkened room, well, you can’t see anything.
But when you flick the lights on, now you can see what’s in the room.
And so the light and revelation of epiphany that shines through
the life of Jesus either draws us towards repentance and transformation, or it can also expose what we have been becoming all along.
That’s why Epiphany is not just comforting, it’s clarifying.
Revelation and Epiphany is exposing things as they are
And so, in that sense, it is rather fitting that the January 6th attack on the Capitol happened on the Epiphany.
Because it is a revelation of another kind.
January 6th, 2021 was a unveiling
It revealed something many of us didn’t want to see, and that is rhetorical violence eventually turns into real violence
Rhetorical violence in our political discourse eventually boils over into real violence.
That’s what we saw on January sixth, twenty twenty-one.
Words that dehumanize or demonize, words that stir up fear and elevate anger, don’t just stay in the theoretical
Over time, they shape our imaginations and begin to justify violent actions.
and make the unthinkable feel necessary, even righteous.
And scripture has a lot to say about the words that we use
James tells us that words are on our tongue, it’s like a fire that can set things ablaze
Jesus tells us that violence begins in the heart.
Anger, hate, these things begin in the heart.
And out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
What we practice in language, we eventually practice in life.
And so epiphany for Christians
In its revelation of who God is through Jesus forces a stark contrast
Christian Epiphany reveals a king who conquers not by force, but by co-suffering, self-giving love.
january sixth, twenty twenty one, as a kind of national epiphany, revealed what happens when power is pursued apart from love and truth and
moral restraint.
And so Epiphany invites us to examine the revelations that are forming us.
So
In the light of King Jesus, let me invite you to denounce and repent
of all political talk that demonizes enemies, that stirs up fear, and that ratchets up anger.
If you are going to set a resolution, a New Year’s resolution, would you resolve
To not allow the way you talk about politics to ratchet up anger, stir up fear, or demonize enemies.
The only way we are going to bring down the temperature in our hostile political environment
is by looking at the events of January 6th in the light of Jesus and no longer tolerate violent rhetoric.
This for me is the value of Epiphany.
And it’s just so ironic that the attack on the Capitol happened on this day
But in the light of Christ, we can see things as they are.
We can see truth for what it is, and we can see evil for what it is
And Epiphany is not only about revelation, but it is about light.
Epiphany is about revelation.
It’s about light.
It’s about the unveiling of who Jesus really is, not just for ancient Israel, but for the whole world.
Christmas comes with lights and music and with gifts.
Lent comes with fasting and repentance and gravity
But Epiphany sits quietly between them.
The twelve days of Christmas
The celebration of the birth of Jesus, Lent, the next season we’re going to enter into, the preparation for the Easter celebration, the reflection on the death and suffering of Jesus.
Are two important seasons on the church calendar, but right in the middle is Epiphany.
And Epiphany teaches us how to see.
The season of epiphany is a slow invitation that prepares us for the deeper repentance of Lent, and we’re going to get there.
And one of the clearest revelations that happens in the ministry and life of Jesus is his baptism.
In his birth, we reflect on the mystery, the miracle of God becoming human
the word becoming flesh and blood and moving into the neighborhood.
We reflect on the mystery and the miracle, but in epiphany we begin to see clearly
what this gift at Christmas was all about.
And so in all of the scenes in the gospel, I think Jesus at his baptism
Is a great unveiling.
So in this episode, I want to invite you to enter into the Epiphany, and I want to do two things.
One
Reflect on the purpose of Epiphany as the season of revelation and preparation, and then walk you through the baptism of Jesus as the moment where God’s
Revolutionary kingdom is revealed through one person.
I gotta jump into this podcast episode to let you know I have a new book that’s out.
Incarnation, eight lessons on how God meets us.
This is available now.
Go order it.
Link is in the show notes.
Now, if we back up, Epiphany does begin with those wise men from the east
coming to worship the newborn king and bringing their gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh
These were not Jewish insiders, these were Gentile outsiders, they were seekers, but they were drawn by the light.
They were led by a star.
And those details really matter because from the very beginning, Epiphany insist on something very essential.
And that is, Jesus does not belong to one tribe, one nation, or one religious group.
Jesus is the savior of the world
For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have
Everlasting life.
Jesus is the revelation, the means of God’s salvation
not just for one people group, but indeed for the entire world.
Epiphany doesn’t rush us into repentance, confession and repentance.
We’ll focus on that during the season of Lent.
Instead Epiphany grounds us in Revelation.
Before we can repent
We must see.
We must see who God is in Jesus, and we have to see who we are.
We don’t repent because of self-loathing or self-hate, because somehow we are worthless.
We repent in the season of Lent because now in the season of Epiphany, we begin to see.
The light of God shining on Jesus shows us Jesus.
in all of his grandeur and beauty and majesty and glory, and that light begins to shine in our hearts, that we might see what’s happening on the inside of us.
And so I do want to move us to the scene of the baptism of Jesus, but let’s back up and catch the context.
So Jesus is born in Bethlehem, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and is laid in a manger.
His family then flees to Egypt.
They return and settle in the small town of Nazareth, and there Jesus grows up.
He grows up as an apprentice, working alongside his father.
He works as a carpenter and lives an ordinary life
Then something extraordinary happens.
John the Baptist, who is Jesus’ cousin, appears and he is baptizing people in the River Jordan.
And as he was baptizing, he was crying out, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.
Remember, with the coming of Jesus is the announcement of the kingdom of God.
We cannot separate out the gospel of salvation from the announcement of the gospel of the kingdom.
They really go together.
Jesus, at the very heart of the gospel, Jesus is our saving King.
He has come to rule and reign.
And in his rule and reign, there is the forgiveness of sins, there is healing, there is blessing.
But it is an announcement of the kingdom
So when John the Baptist has come to prepare the way for the Lord, he is announcing the kingdom is coming.
It’s time to repent.
It’s time to realign and recalibrate because God is coming.
And it’s no accident that John is baptizing in the Jordan River.
If you know your Bible and if you know the story of Israel, this is the same river
Israel crossed after wandering around in the wilderness, and they entered into the land of Canaan, the promised land.
They crossed the Rue, the Jordan River.
Now, God called Abraham and promised Abraham and Abraham’s descendants a land
But the descendants of Abraham became slaves in Egypt, then God delivers them, leads them through the wilderness under Moses, but Moses never crossed the Jordan
Moses died on Mount Nebo, and a new leader comes on the scene, Joshua.
And Joshua was the one to lead the Israelites through the Jordan River.
and to settle in the promised land.
Now in Hebrew, Joshua’s name is Yeshua.
And do you want to take a guess at what Jesus’ name is in Hebrew?
That’s right, it’s Yeshua.
Yeshua means God saves or God is our salvation.
The first Yeshua, Joshua, led Israel through the Jordan into the land
Now Jesus, through his baptism, who is the second and greater Yeshua
stands in the Jordan to lead the world into a better promised land, the kingdom of God.
Isn’t it interesting how Jesus is enacting a new imagination for the people of God?
Jesus is summing up Israel’s history and identity and mission, and so there is a new crossing of the Red Sea and there is a new promised land.
And it’s not a geographical place, but it’s God’s rule and reign, which is to be worldwide.
So let’s go back to the baptism of Jesus.
So John is baptizing people for repentance.
And then Jesus shows up.
And John at first is confused.
He resists.
He says, no, no, no, no.
I need to be baptized by you, and now you’re coming to me.
But Jesus responds with these words.
This is in Matthew 3:15.
Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness
Jesus understood his baptism as not one that was necessary for Jesus himself to repent.
He was without sin.
He had nothing to repent of.
But Jesus saw this baptism as a fulfillment of all righteousness.
Righteousness is a.
challenging word to understand.
It sounds very religious.
It sounds very churchy.
And righteousness is not about moral perfection.
Righteousness is a covenant word.
It’s a word tied to God’s long rescue plan for the world through Israel
What Jesus was saying to John the Baptist in Matthew 3:15 is that this is the right way for us to complete God’s rescue plan.
In an expression of faithfulness to the covenant.
See, Jesus doesn’t set aside Israel’s story, and neither can we
Rather, Jesus steps into it in order to fulfill it, in order to bring it to its completion.
Jesus becomes the true son of David, the true Israelite, so he can fulfill Israel’s calling to be a blessing to the nations.
Remember when God called Abram, before he changed his name to Abraham in Genesis 12, God said, I will make you great, and you’ll be the father of many nations?
And God explains the reason he is choosing Abraham is not to exclude everybody else
but that through Abraham and Abraham’s descendants, God would bless all of the families of the earth.
This was God’s plan from the very, very beginning.
Paul in Ephesians calls this the mystery of Christ.
What was the mystery that’s now being unveiled?
Well, what God said from the very beginning is coming to pass, that God wants a big family of Jewish people and Gentiles.
That God’s desire is to have a big multi-ethnic family where all of the nations come together in one body.
So Jesus, through his baptism, is reenacting the Exodus.
and reenacting the entrance into the promised land.
As we’ve seen
Joshua, the first Yeshua, passed through the Jordan and he went to fight and conquer the Canaanites.
But Jesus, the greater Yeshua, passes through the Jordan River in order to save and rescue the Canaanites.
Joshua crossed the river and killed the enemies of God.
Jesus crossed the river and in the end was killed by the enemies of God.
And this itself is a revolution.
This reveals the revolutionary nature of the kingdom of God.
Jesus comes to reign over a kingdom which is not built on domination and power and violence, but love.
The very expression of God’s love is communicated
At the baptism of Jesus.
Because when Jesus is lowered into the river and comes out
we hear the voice of God the Father.
In fact, at the baptism of Jesus, one of the things revealed as a part of Epiphany is that the God that we worship is not singular but plural.
At the baptism of Jesus, we see that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The Father is speaking from heaven.
The Son is being baptized in the water.
God the Holy Spirit is descending like a dove resting on the shoulder of Jesus.
And what does God the Father say?
In the gospel, it’s recorded as God saying, This is my son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased.
This is the revelation of Epiphany, that the God who created everything
sent us the gift of his son that we might see what God is like, that we might see that God is truly Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a holy community
That we might see ultimately that God in God’s nature is love.
And God is love
without being selfish.
When we say that God is love, we mean that that is that is the divine essence of nature.
The divine essence of nature is love.
But God is love not by loving himself,
God is love in the sense that God is these three distinct persons, Father, Son, and Spirit
loving each other in in a self-giving way from even before the time of creation
And so Epiphany light floods this entire baptism scene
And what I think it reveals to us on a personal level is that when we are baptized, we identify with Jesus.
We go through the waters of baptism much like Jesus did.
And now that we have been incorporated in Jesus,
Because now we’re in his body.
We’re the body of Jesus, the body of Christ.
What the Father says about Jesus, he says about us.
Maybe this is the revelation you need to hear today.
Maybe you need to hear the voice of the Father saying to you.
This is my beloved son.
This is the daughter that I love.
And you make me happy.
I am well pleased with you.
And isn’t it interesting that before Jesus began his public ministry
God the Father is saying, I am pleased with you.
I love you
And Jesus becomes the forerunner for us.
And that pattern gets repeated in our lives before we do anything for God.
God is saying, I love you.
You’re my beloved daughter.
You’re my beloved son, and I am pleased by you.
It’s not so much that we have to do certain things to earn God’s affection.
God in God’s nature is love, and love seeks expression.
And in the epiphany
In the baptism of Jesus, we see the love of God on display.
And for me, this is foundational.
The fact that God loves you,
God has always loved you.
No matter what has been said about you, no matter what labels you’ve carried, no matter how broken you feel
God sees you, God knows you, God loves you, and God is pleased by you.
And so Jesus
Invites you to come to him as you are.
Now Jesus invites the world to come to him as they are.
But the beauty of following Jesus is we get to come just as we are, but we’re not going to stay that way
God, the Holy Spirit, is at work in forming and conforming us and changing us from the inside out.
And that revelation is foundational.
So this is what happens when you enter into the season of Epiphany.
You see things clearly.
You see God.
You see God’s kingdom.
You see God’s love displayed through Jesus.
And then you are welcomed into that light and that love.
The light has been revealed.
The king has been named, and the kingdom has been announced.
And all of this happens during the season of Epiphany.
Well, that’s all that I have for you today on this episode.
Thank you for joining me.
Go in peace and be kind.
This transcript was generated with AI and may contain errors.