How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? I hope your immediate answer to that question is, "Who cares?" That's a question which some say theologians and philosophers who lived in the Middle Ages used to debate. Whether or not such debates actually took place is, in and of itself, a matter of debate. Chances are that Protestants in the 17th Century invented the phrase to mock the old scholastic system that seemed to spend so much time on questions that didn't really matter, or debate matters about which the Holy Scriptures are silent. Unfortunately, in the 21st Century those unfamiliar with Christianity and what happens during worship services may have the opinion that what is talked about during sermons and Bible studies concerns matters about which there is no real practical significance.

There is, however, one basic question which sermons and Bible classes should always bring participants back to: Who is Jesus? C. S. Lewis and others have argued that there are only three possible answers to that question: Jesus was either a liar or a lunatic or the Lord. There was a point in history when some scholars debated whether a man named Jesus actually lived on the earth, but that hypothesis has been discredited. I would like to add a fourth possibility: He is Divine (very God of very God), but has little relevance for us today.

I hope you responded to that possibility by saying, "How can God, if He exists, have little relevance for us today? God, being God, will always be relevant." Indeed, that is the case. Yet what sort of "meaningful conversations" do we engage in with others concerning God? What do our schedules (and for those who are parents, our kids' schedules) reveal about what we consider to be of the utmost importance?

As we continue going through the season of Epiphany, the Holy Spirit would use the readings from God's Word to bring us again to the point of having to personally answer the question: Who is Jesus? What a beautiful response offered in our Family Theme Song:

Beautiful Savior, King of creation,
Son of God and Son of Man!
Truly I’d love Thee, Truly I’d serve Thee,
Light of my soul, my joy, my crown.