Sermon Series: Echoes  of Jesus in the Life of Joseph
Sermon: The Revelation of the King
First Reading: Luke  8 :4-15
Second Reading: Genesis 45:1-15
Preacher: Pastor Vito Aiuto

"I didn't go to the flea market the week of my abortion. I stayed home, and  smoked dope  and  got drunk, and  tried to write a little, and  went for slow walks along  the salt marsh with Pammy. On the seventh night, though, very drunk  and  just about to take a sleeping pill, I discovered that I was bleeding heavily. It did not stop over the next hour. I was going through a pad  every fifteen minutes, and  I thought I should call a doctor or Pammy, but I was so disgusted that I had  gotten so drunk  one week after an abortion that I just couldn't wake someone up and  ask for help. I kept on changing Kotex, and  I got very sober  very quickly. Several hours  later, the blood  stopped flowing, and  I got in bed, shaky  and  sad  and  too wild to have  another drink  or take a sleeping pill. I had  a cigarette and  turned off the light. After a while, as I lay there, I became aware  of someone with me, hunkered down in the corner, and  I just assumed it was my father, whose  presence I had  felt over the years  when  I was frightened and alone. The feeling was so strong that I actually turned on the light for a moment to make  sure  no one was there—of course, there wasn't. But after a while, in the dark again, I knew beyond any doubt that it was Jesus. I felt him as surely  as I feel my dog lying nearby as I write this.

And I was appalled. I thought about my life and  my brilliant hilarious progressive friends, I thought about what everyone would think of me if I became a Christian, and it seemed an utterly impossible thing that simply  could  not be allowed  to happen. I turned to the wall and  said  out loud, "I would rather die." I felt him just sitting there on his haunches in the corner  of my sleeping loft, watching me with patience and  love, and  I squinched my eyes  shut, but that didn't help because that's not what I was seeing him with."

ANNE LAMOTT, Traveling Mercies

 

"Whoever therefore is not illuminated by splendors as great as those to be found  in created things is blind; whoever  fails  to heed outcries so great is deaf;  whoever  fails to praise God on account of all these his effects is mute; whoever  does  not turn from such great signs  to their first principle is a fool. - Therefore, open  your eyes, rouse the ears  of your spirit, release you lips, and  apply  your heart, that you may see, hear, praise, love and  worship, magnify  and  honor  your God in all creatures, or else  perhaps the whole world may rise up against you."

ST. BONAVENTURE, The Journey of the Mind Into God

 

"So they drew near  to the village  to which  they were going. Jesus acted as if he were going farther, but they urged  him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and  the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and  blessed and  broke  it and  gave it to them. And their eyes  were opened, and  they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. They said  to each other, “Did not our hearts burn  within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” And they rose that same hour and  returned to Jerusalem. And they found  the eleven  and  those who were with them gathered together, saying, “The Lord has  risen  indeed, and  has  appeared to Simon!” Then  they told what had  happened on the road, and  how he was known  to them in the breaking of the bread."

- LUKE 24:28-35 ESV