Lectionary Commentaries for January 18, 2026
Second Sunday after Epiphany

We begin “the next day” in this passage, because one day has already transpired in verses 19–28, in which John gives testimony about who he is: not the Messiah, nor Elijah, but “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness” (1:20–23).

John the Testifier

John is an intriguing character, but he is portrayed differently in John’s Gospel than in the Synoptics, which is the material out of which our imagination of John the Baptist is mostly shaped. Here, there is no clothing made of camel’s hair or eating of locusts and wild honey (Matthew 3:4; Mark 1:6). There is no background about John’s mother, Elizabeth, and her relationship to Jesus’ mother, Mary (Luke 1:5–24, 39–45, 57–66).

It is John whose practice of baptism is being questioned by the Pharisees in the passage before this one (1:24–28). But note that in John’s Gospel, John “the Baptist” doesn’t baptize Jesus, as far as the reader witnesses. (Thus, Baptism of the Lord Sunday was celebrated last week with a reading from Matthew’s Gospel.)

In John’s Gospel, John the Baptist is the testifier to Jesus’ identity. He sees Jesus coming and declares, “Here is the Lamb of God” (verse 29). He reiterates his prior testimony (verse 30). He testifies to the Spirit descending upon him from heaven (verse 32). John testifies that the one who sent him also gave him the sign to look for in discerning the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit (verse 33). “And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Chosen One” (verse 34).

Whereas the Synoptics’ encounter with John the Baptist may open homiletic space for reflections on baptism, the portrayal in John’s Gospel opens space for the preacher to address the role of testimony in Christian life, and the role of John as testifier to Jesus’ identity.

The Lamb, the dove, and the water

We tend to read scripture as if the earth images—the landscape, the animal figures, appearance of water, skies, stars, et cetera—are simply the background, the mise-en-scène, for the human activity of the text. But the landscape, the animal, the vegetal, the aquatic, and the celestial speak throughout the text of scripture. John’s Gospel is no exception.

This passage is full of ecological imagery. On the next day, John sees Jesus coming toward him and he declares: “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” This is the first animal image appearing in this passage, and one more symbolic than literal.

Margaret Daly-Denton notes that the “Lamb of God” imagery has many possible symbolic meanings in John’s usage: the lamb provided by God instead of Isaac (Genesis 22:8, 13), the paschal lamb (Exodus 12), the servant led as a lamb to the slaughter (Isaiah 53:7), and the male lamb or young ram that was the first sign in the Babylonian zodiac that was part of first-century Jewish imagination. But, she cautions, John is known for layering meaning upon meaning, and “to accept one symbolic meaning does not require dismissing the others.”¹ We would do well not to import our own atonement theology into John’s portrayal of the Lamb of God, as we may run counter to John’s own portrayal of Jesus’ death later in the Gospel.

In 1:32, John testifies, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him.” The second animal image appears in the passage, and one both literal and symbolic.

The Spirit descending like a dove appears in all four Gospels. Yet, we often treat this animal appearance of the Spirit as something entirely symbolic, rather than an expression of God’s incarnation in the feathery flesh of the dove. Mark I. Wallace suggests, “The Christian belief in the incarnation of God in Jesus and the embodiment of the Holy Spirit in the baptismal dove should actually mean something in practical, spiritual terms, not simply serve as points of theological doctrine.”²

Preaching amid climate collapse, a planet on the brink, our life and death bound up with the fate of the multitude of other species, what would it mean to take the image of God’s Spirit incarnate in a dove as a sign of God’s presence with all creation? Throughout the Psalms, the vegetal, animal, aquatic, geologic, and celestial bodies join in praise of God. Here, the Spirit descends as a dove testifying to the identity of Jesus alongside John the Testifier. At very least, this text gives us the opportunity to help congregations hear the earth speak in the telling of the Good News.

In 1:33, we hear John describing his own mission to baptize with water, the activity for which “the Baptizer” is most known. Water is a third earth-image in this text. Even in the wilderness where we meet John, the waters of baptism—and new life—are flowing.

Where are you abiding?

John testifies, “Look! Here is the Lamb of God!” But now enter two disciples who begin following Jesus, seemingly without Jesus noticing at first.

David Ford argues that three questions raised in this passage (and the one immediately preceding it) will extend and deepen throughout the remainder of John’s Gospel:

1. Who are you? (1:19)
2. What are you looking for? (1:38)
3. Where are you staying/dwelling/abiding? (1:38)

The rest of the Gospel, Ford argues, can be seen as a response to these questions.³

The final question, “Where are you staying?” contains much to unpack for our congregations. The term could mean simply where Jesus is dwelling at the time. But it also carries the connotation of remaining and abiding, and is the same word used for the Spirit “remaining” on Jesus in verses 32–33.

“Come and see,” Jesus says, an invitation to would-be disciples ancient and modern.

And the disciples went and “remained” with him that day. Then Andrew found his brother, Simon Peter, to testify, “We have found the Messiah” (verse 41).

And the question is raised for us: As we remain with Jesus, how is our testimony shaped by our abiding with the one who John, the dove, and Andrew testify to as the Lamb of God (verse 29), the one who baptizes with the Spirit (verse 33), and the Messiah (verse 41)? What will we say of Jesus?

Notes

1. Margaret Daly-Denton, John: An Earth Bible Commentary: Supposing Him to Be the Gardener (New York: T&T Clark, 2017), 51.
2. Mark I. Wallace, When God Was a Bird: Christianity, Animism, and the Re-Enchantment of the World (New York: Fordham University Press, 2019), 165.
3. David F. Ford, The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021), 44.

Recapitulating many of the themes articulated in Isaiah 40–48, Isaiah 49:1–7 confirms the Servant’s identity and mission with God’s words: “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified” (Isaiah 49:3).¹ Called and cherished by God, Servant Israel’s role as a “covenant of people” and “light to the nations” is reaffirmed (see also Isaiah 42:6), and it will be through this community that God’s glory will be revealed. The task for interpretation is to see how these things take place.

In verse 1, allusions both to the call narrative of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:5) and to traditions of Jacob’s birth and renaming as Israel (Genesis 25:23; 32:28) create a rich interplay between the exemplary faithfulness of the prophet Jeremiah, on one hand, and the destiny of Jacob/Israel, on the other. Although it is possible that the reference to a mouth like a sharp sword in verse 2 indicates that Servant Israel² will perform a prophetic task, the allusion to Jeremiah may have more to do with Servant Israel’s appropriation of the prophet’s model of faithful suffering. Never known for his moral uprightness, the deceiver Jacob will, as renamed Israel, come to exhibit the exemplary piety for which Jeremiah was remembered.³

When Servant Israel does speak, he does so not as a prophet but as a righteous sufferer. Drawing on expressions of discouragement and failure from the biblical lament tradition,⁴ he confesses his own sense of failure while also expressing confidence in God’s continuing faithfulness:

But I said, “I have labored in vain,
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my cause [mispati, my right] is with the Lord,
and my reward is with God.” (49:4)

Behind Servant Israel’s frank confession lurks the task set for him in 42:1–9, to bring justice to the nations (mispat, verses 1, 3, 4). In that earlier poem, Servant Israel was to “bring forth” justice until justice had been established among the distant coastlands. His confession may be an admission that he has not yet fulfilled this task.

Verses 5–6 respond to the Servant’s sense of failure by reasserting his vocation among the nations. Rather than offering the Servant rest and consolation, God ups the ante, as if to say that the Servant is more than adequately equipped.

These verses are admittedly difficult. Scholars frequently comment on the problem in verse 5, in which the Servant, who was identified in verse 3 as Israel, is now called to “bring back” Jacob and “gather” Israel to God. The verse thus raises the question, How can Israel be called to deliver Israel? To resolve this contradiction, commentators often suggest deleting the reference to Israel in verse 3, even though textual evidence to support this emendation is lacking.⁵

In recent decades, others have noted that this reading rests on the ambiguity inherent in the infinitive clauses describing the return and gathering of Jacob/Israel.⁶ Since the Servant is mentioned immediately before these clauses, many translations assume that the subject of these infinitives is the Servant. This understanding of the verse is reflected in the above paragraph.

The Common English Bible resolves the difficulty by suggesting that it is God who is engaged in the action of bringing back Jacob and Israel. In the other two clauses in which the Servant is mentioned, the Servant’s role is to honor the God who has honored him by performing these acts of deliverance. The interplay between divine act and Servant Israel’s proclamation is underscored in the translation of the Common English Bible, which presents the Servant interjecting his acknowledgment that this God who acts is the one who has been with him from before his birth:

And now the Lord has decided—
the one who formed me from the womb as his servant—
to restore Jacob to God,
so that Israel might return to him.
Moreover, I’m honored in the Lord’s eyes;
my God has become my strength. (49:5 Common English Bible)

In this translation, God’s decision to restore Jacob/Israel becomes an answer to the prayer the Servant had uttered previously. His own strength depleted, the Servant acknowledges that his strength now comes from God. Where he had uttered a lament in verse 4, the servant now offers words of praise.

As if to honor the Servant’s renewed strength, God now declares that it is “too light” a thing simply to restore Jacob/Israel. God therefore makes Servant Israel the light to the nations, so that God’s salvation may reach to the ends of the earth. And indeed, the kings of the earth are astonished when they realize that this “slave of rulers” is in truth the Servant of God (verse 7).

In verse 2 of this poem, we learned that God had equipped the Servant with a mouth as sharp as a sword. Because this image was combined with an allusion to Jeremiah’s call, it seems almost a foregone conclusion that the words the Servant utters in these verses are mere preliminaries, perhaps even evasions, of the mission set before him. We expect a sharp, incisive, prophetic word to come from one so well equipped.

But what if the words in verses 4 and 5 are the very words Servant Israel needs to speak? From the beginning, Israel had complained of God’s absence and injustice (40:27). In this unit, by contrast, the Servant acknowledges his own failure while also expressing confidence that God would grant him justice after all.

What if this trust in God amid discouragement is the illuminating light the Servant is called to provide to the nations of the world? What if it is this community that is the arrow in God’s quiver—a people who know they are called and never forgotten, who find strength in God amid discouragement and failure, who continue to seek justice from God in a world where it is rarely found? For all communities who now face hardship and discouragement from powers beyond our control, these words may be just the ones we need to hear.

Notes

1. This interpretation rests on the emerging consensus that the Servant passages in Second Isaiah are all references to Israel, a collective designation for the community of Israelite and Judaean exiles. See especially the forthcoming commentary by Patrica K. Tull, Isaiah 40–66, Smyth and Helwys Bible Commentary (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2026), especially in her commentary on Isaiah 41; 42:1–9; and 49:1–6. Special thanks to Tull and the publisher for their permission to consult this commentary in advance of its publication.
2. Throughout this essay, I have rendered the Hebrew term “Servant” as “Servant Israel” to convey the sense of that term as a designation for the collective community of Israel.
3. For the use of womb imagery in other references to Jacob/Israel in Second Isaiah, see Isaiah 44:2, 24; 46:3. For the intertextual combination of Jeremiah’s call with the story of Jacob/Israel, see Tull, Isaiah 40–66, 291–293.
4. Claus Westermann, Isaiah 40–66: A Commentary, trans. D. M. G. Stalker (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969), 210.
5. See, for example, Westermann, Isaiah 40–66, 209.
6. For a helpful discussion of the issues in translation, see Tull, Isaiah 40–66, 295–296.

The lectionary selection from Psalm 40 includes 10 verses that express thanksgiving (verses 1–10) and one verse of petition for help (verse 11).¹

The shift from thanks to plea represents a major problem of interpretation in this psalm. In Psalm 40:1–10 the psalmist recounts being delivered from trouble, established securely, and given reason to praise the Lord. Scholars typically classify this first portion of the psalm as a song of thanksgiving.²

Verses 12–17, however, have all the characteristics of an individual lament. This leads many to conclude that Psalm 40 consists of two originally distinct psalms. Adding to this perception is the fact that Psalm 40:13–17 appears again in the Psalter as Psalm 70. Thus, it seems logical to conclude that the psalmist borrowed Psalm 70 to form the present ending of Psalm 40 with verses 11–12 linking the two sections.

Whatever the history of Psalm 40’s composition, it makes sense to treat the psalm as a unity, and verses 1–11 make sense as a lectionary selection. The subject of verse 11 is the Lord’s steadfast love (hesed) and faithfulness (aman), for which the psalmist gives thanks in verse 10: “I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation.”

The Old Testament presents “steadfast love” and “faithfulness” as central features of God’s character (see Exodus 34:6; verse 11 also adds “your mercy” [raham], which also appears in Exodus 34:6). The psalm gives thanks for these gifts and also pleads for more.

In verses 1–3 the psalmist recalls a past petition and the Lord’s gracious response. The testimony “I waited patiently for the LORD” indicates that the psalmist did what numerous psalms encourage (Psalms 25:3, 21; 27:14; 37:34; 39:7).³ “Waiting” is an expression of trust and reliance on God. For the psalmist, this faithful waiting leads to God’s salvation.

Through the experience of salvation, the Lord puts a “new song” in the psalmist’s mouth, a song of praise that testifies to the Lord’s goodness. By singing this song, the psalmist leads others to trust in God’s salvation (verse 3). The next two verses contain a beatitude (verses 4–5) that exhorts trust in God as the way to live that yields blessing and contentment.

Verses 6–8 raise a question about appropriate worship. The thanksgiving section of the psalm (verses 1–10) could have provided liturgy to accompany a thanksgiving offering (see Psalm 30; Leviticus 3; 7:11–18). But verses 6–8 seem to reject such an offering: “Sacrifice and offering you do not desire” (verse 6). The Old Testament elsewhere critiques sacrifice, but never rejects it outright (Psalms 50:7–15; 51:15–17; 69:30–33; Amos 5:22; Isaiah 1:11; Jeremiah 7:22).

Verses 7–8 may intend to present an alternative to the sacrifice—namely, the psalmist’s written testimony in gratitude for deliverance: “In the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is in my heart.” The “scroll of the book” is somewhat obscure, but it may refer to the psalmist’s testimony in written form, presented in the temple. The psalmist essentially presents himself as a “living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1–2).⁴ Verses 9–10 advance the claim of this testimony in the congregation gathered for worship.

Verses 7–8 are important in the larger context of the book of Psalms. The word for “delight” (hapah) in relation to torah is the same word that appears in Psalm 1:2, which says of the righteous that “their delight is in the law of the LORD.” This combination of words occurs only in these two places in the Psalter. Thus, Book I of the Psalter (Psalms 1–41) begins and ends (or nearly so) with this distinctive emphasis on torah-obedience as a sign of faithfulness to God. The one who speaks in Psalm 40:1–11 is one of the righteous, one whom Psalm 1 describes and whose way of life it commends.

What about the shift to petition in verse 11? We should note that this kind of rhetorical development appears in numerous other psalms (see Psalms 9–10; 27; 44; 74; 89). The move from thanksgiving to petition is a reminder of the context of suffering that shaped the Psalter. Clinton McCann says it well: “Whether individually or corporately, we always pray out of need, at least in the sense that no deliverance is final in this mortal life.”⁵ Indeed, the thanksgiving for God’s steadfast love in verses 1–10 appears appropriately in a context in which the psalmist still needs to call for hesed.

The Irish rock band U2 provides an artistic expression of McCann’s point about the move from thanksgiving to lament. On their 1985 album “War”⁶ they included a song called “40,” the lyrics of which they took from Psalm 40:1–3. The song begins with an adaptation of verses 1–2, which recount the psalmist’s wait for salvation (“I waited patiently for the Lord”) and the Lord’s deliverance (“He drew me up from the desolate pit”; “he set my feet upon a rock”). It then goes to a chorus influenced by verse 3 (“He put a new song in my mouth”).

But then the song includes a line that is not part of Psalm 40: “How long to sing this song?” These words echo a line in the first song on the album, “Sunday, Bloody Sunday,” which laments a horrific day of violence during “the Troubles” in Northern Ireland. The album ends in thanksgiving spoken with the awareness of continuing pain and suffering. This rendition of Psalm 40:1–3 is true to the psalm as a whole and to the Psalter as a whole. It is a song of thanksgiving that recognizes the ongoing trouble in the world and the need for salvation.

Notes

1. Commentary previously published on this website for January 15, 2017.
2. Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalms 1–59: A Continental Commentary, trans. Hilton C. Oswald (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 423–424.
3. J. Clinton McCann, Jr. “The Book of Psalms,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, ed. Leander Keck (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 4:842.
4. James Luther Mays, Psalms, Interpretation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 168.
5. McCann, NIB, 4:884.
6. U2, “War,” Island Records 262051CID112, 1983, Album.

The Sundays after Epiphany in Year A offer us several opportunities to engage the opening chapters of 1 Corinthians, Paul’s second letter (see 1 Corinthians 5:9) to a church he had established during his stay in the Roman capital of Achaia, in the southern part of Greece (between 50 and 52 CE; see Acts 18:1–18). Oral reports and a letter from some members of the congregation had come to Paul regarding serious problems they were facing. Paul addresses specific problems later in the letter (1 Corinthians 5–15), but in the initial four chapters, he seeks to unify the congregation, rekindle his relationship, and reestablish his ability to instruct them.

Paul’s greeting

Today’s passage includes both the salutation (1:1–3) and the thanksgiving (1:4–9) of the letter, the first two components that then lead into the body. In his salutation, or greeting, Paul follows the standard components of a Hellenistic letter—sender, addressee, greeting—but expands each element.

In identifying himself, Paul stresses God’s call that shaped his ministry as “an apostle of Christ Jesus” (1:1), a role grounded not in self-assertion but in divine initiative. Along with Paul, Sosthenes—possibly the same Sosthenes who had been “the official of the synagogue” at Corinth (Acts 18:17)—sends the letter.

Paul also expands the second part of the salutation, identifying the letter’s recipients not only as “the church of God that is in Corinth” but also as “those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints” (1:2). As God’s call establishes Paul’s identity, it establishes theirs as well. Through union with Christ, God has sanctified them, or made them holy. They are set apart for relationship with God as agents of God’s mission in the world, echoing Israel’s covenant relationship as God’s holy people (Leviticus 11:44; 19:2; 20:26).

Yet the addressees include not only the believers in this one city but also “those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1:2). In the biblical tradition, the practice of calling on, or invoking, the name of the Lord begins in the primeval and ancestral periods (Genesis 4:26; 13:4; 21:33). In the development of Israel’s faith, this act of calling on God indicates a posture of worship and prayer (1 Chronicles 16:8; Psalm 99:6; 105:1; 116:13, 17; Isaiah 12:4; Joel 2:32).

Yet here that worship and prayer are addressed to “our Lord Jesus Christ” (1:2), a characteristic practice that marks the early church (Acts 7:59; 9:14, 21; 22:16; Romans 10:12–14; 2 Timothy 2:22). Paul includes all who worship the Lord Jesus, regardless of physical location, as the letter’s recipients, framing this letter to the Corinthian church within the broader scope of the church universal.

To this audience, Paul extends grace “and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (1:3). He changes the traditional Hellenistic word chairein (“greeting”) to charis (“grace”), echoing its sound but adding theological depth. To that foundation, he adds the traditional Jewish greeting of peace. These blessings come, not from Paul, but from God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul thus uses the familiar threefold form of salutation but recasts it, filling each element with theological significance that stresses a ground in God’s action, not human work. God calls Paul and the Corinthians. God sends Paul out as an apostle, and God sets the Corinthians apart through their union with Christ. The initiative, from start to finish, is an act of God’s grace.

Paul’s thanksgiving

In Paul’s letters, apart from Galatians, a prayer of thanksgiving follows the greeting. These prayers often point to themes that Paul will take up in the body of the letter and so always reward close examination.

Here, Paul’s prayer focuses once again on the divine initiative of grace. Through Christ Jesus, God gave grace and enriched the Corinthians “in every way” (1:5), including speech and knowledge, two attributes they value highly. Their abilities, Paul subtly reminds them, are not self-generated but come from God. God also has confirmed the testimony about Christ in their hearts so that the Corinthians lack no gift of grace (1:7).

Like the gifts of speech and knowledge, all their gifts come from God, including the ones they prize most highly (1 Corinthians 12–14). God’s grace leaves no room for self-congratulation or boasting, because God, not the Corinthians themselves, is the source of their giftedness (1 Corinthians 4:7, 8).

Furthermore, God’s work is not yet complete. The Corinthians still await “the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1:7). This future day of Christ’s coming will not only be a day of hope but also a day of judgment. Yet the Corinthians should not be fearful, because Christ will also strengthen them so that they “may be blameless” on the day he returns (1:8).

Their future hope is sure, for “God is faithful” (1:9). In the Hebrew Scriptures, God is the God of steadfast love, loyal to the covenant promises made to Abraham and, by extension, to his heirs, the people Israel (Deuteronomy 7:9). In the same way, the Corinthians now can rely on God as well, for God has called them “into the partnership of his Son” (1:9). Paul’s language here conveys not only their partnership with Jesus Christ but also their communion with one another as members of the fellowship Jesus creates.¹

This rich opening of the letter offers us several avenues for preaching. One possibility is to craft a sermon that is itself in the form of a greeting and thanksgiving that grounds proclamation in the grace of God. Paul’s words can lead us to give thanks for our own congregations as those whom God has set apart and gifted in every way for ministry. We, too, proclaim that “God is faithful” (1:9) and will strengthen them to the end (1:8), assured that the grace of God encompasses their past, present, and future.

Notes

1. Richard B. Hays, First Corinthians, IBC (Louisville, KY: John Knox, 1997), 19.