The First Sunday after the Epiphany AD 2025

The Gospel for the first Sunday after Epiphany tells of how the twelve-year-old Jesus stayed in the temple in Jerusalem and there manifested His divine authority: “All that heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers." It was the same astonishment as twenty years later, when all the people “were astonished at His doctrine: for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.”

In Sunday’s Epistle, St. Paul exhorts us to present our “bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God,” thus showing that in a sense our entire life takes place in the temple of God – in the presence of Him who has full and complete authority over us. Just as Jesus came to the temple in Jerusalem, claiming that He must be “about His Father's business,” so He comes to us, admonishing us with His Word and asking us to account for our lives.

Not only St. Paul, but God Himself demands of us: “Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind!” The apostle explains what it means: “Prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God!” The will of God is that each of us, through His mercy, may be saved and, having died and risen with Christ, “freed from sin” and “walk in newness of life.”

To do this, we must place our trust in God and ask Him for faith, hope, and love, without which there is no true life. And we must be humble and obedient. Jesus Himself, God made man, was subject unto Mary and Joseph – how much more should we be subject unto God! No, not to live as if in slavery, but to become truly free in Christ.