Northeast Georgia Presbytery

Who We Are

We are a Presbytery consisting of 56 churches located in northeastern Georgia - a general geographic area defined by Augusta and South Carolina on the east, Milledgeville in the south, Winder on the west and Clayton and Blairsville to the north, near the North Carolina state line.

Ken's Corner: Along the Way

January 2012

Epiphany

“What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” John 1:4-5.

Those of us who have any awareness of the significance of Epiphany know that it speaks of the Christianizing of the pagan idea of Saturnalia. It relates to the turning from darkness to light as we recognize the shortest day of the year in December and the lengthening of days that follows as the New Year emerges. In ancient times, people equated the shortening of days to the power of darkness and evil, creeping in by stages to overcome the light, that is, the good. Epiphany marks the time when the days begin to grow longer again, thus embodying the idea in the text from John, that the light, the good, is not overcome by evil, but vice versa.

Oscar Wilde tells a parallel story called “The Selfish Giant.” It tells of a castle in ancient times surrounded by a large, beautiful garden, with trees and flowers…a place where children on their way home from school would stop and play. One day the owner of the castle, a giant, returned from a long trip and shooed all the children out of the garden and put up a sign “No Trespassing-Violators Will Be Prosecuted.” About that time winter came, and all was grey and bleak. But when springtime returned again outside the castle, all remained bleak and grey inside the castle walls. Outside the walls of the castle birds sang and trees budded forth, but inside the castle winter howled away, and snow was still on the ground. The giant waited for spring to come, but it never did. Then one morning, a long time later, the giant heard the lovely music of bird songs and smelled the delicious perfume of spring outside his window. It seems that the children had discovered a hole in the wall of the castle, and in spite of the warning signs, they had crept inside the castle walls and were sitting in every tree in the garden except one. The trees and the flowers were glad to have the children back, so glad that spring burst forth all around…except in one tree that remained stark and barren, shrouded in winter. Under that tree there stood a little boy, too small to reach the branches to climb into this tree. When the giant saw this, his heart opened, and he realized that the hardness of his heart had caused the winter in his garden. He walked out and gently picked up the little boy and placed him in the tree. At once the tree broke into blossom and the birds began to sing. The little boy stretched out his arms and flung them around the giant’s neck in a big hug. The giant had nurtured friendships with ogres, but now he experienced the friendship of children that brought a new springtime to his life.

Sometimes as we move from Christmas into a new year, we think…O.K. Christmas is over, let’s get back to our routine, business as usual. Yet the message of Epiphany is that a new year does not bring a return to “business as usual.” Rather it brings a continuing unfolding of the amazing story of the Incarnation that changes everything. As the text from John continues in verse 14:

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as the Father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”

Gerald May in his book, Addiction and Grace, speaks of “living into the mystery of grace.” He writes:

“Because grace is a pure gift, the most meaningful of our encounters with it will probably come at unintended times, when we are caught off guard…These hidden places include times of turmoil and failure, encounters with people we dislike, daily drudgery, boredom, and, of course, our addictions. .. The purest faith is enacted when all we can choose is to relax our hands or clench them, to turn wordlessly toward or away from God.”

May we be open to this relaxing our hands rather than clenching them and thus experience throughout the year the all-sufficient presence of God’s grace revealed in Christ as we journey into 2012 together.

Prayerfully submitted,

Ken Meeks, Jr.

If you are a first time visitor to our site, we would like thank you for taking the time to browse these pages, and we hope you find what you are looking for. If you need some assistance navigating our site, our site map contains a classified listing of most of our pages. If all else fails, you can contact our staff by phone or e-mail and we will be happy to assist you.

questions/comments: webmaster@negapby.org

Welcome to Northeast Georgia Presbytery

CLERKS: End of Year Tools