Faith Journey – Linda Vogt Turner

Epiphany XVI: When Lightning Descends

A Black man stands in the darkened doorway of a stone building as lightning strikes overhead, illuminating his face. In the foreground, a red-haired woman faces him, with a stone stairway directly in front of them.

What does lightning reveal as the Angel descends and the Stone is moved aside?
Mary Magdalene, Peter, and John look inside and see the folded linen cloths—yet the Magdalene weeps, looking for her Lord— the one called aside at Cana.

Epiphany XV: Vinegar and Salt

A red-haired woman holding a small almond branch stands face to face with a Black man, surrounded by leafy fig trees, with a wooden cross between them.

Why is Jesus offered vinegar?

Mockery — or proposal?

Boaz once invited Ruth to dip her bread in vinegar.

At the Cross, that gesture repeats — in Jesus’ final single breath, a covenant is preserved.

Epiphany XIV: The First Stone — Without Deceit, Not Yet Cast

A red-haired woman bends over, touching a white stone tablet on the ground. A black man holding a stone building block stands beside an older white-haired man as both watch.

Nicodemus—the Teacher of Israel—speaks in defense of Jesus, whom the officers and Pharisees seek to have arrested and brought in.
And so the scribes and Pharisees bring in a Woman.

Epiphany XIII: Living Water Proclaims

A white-haired elderly man holding a wine glass looks toward a black man with his hand at the waist of a red-haired woman, who points and looks up toward the black man.

From place to place, Jesus proclaimed what had been kept sacred—
by Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.
Not all who heard were ready to receive what had been kept hidden.
But those with ears to hear
went—and began to tell.

Epiphany XII: Bethesda — Where the Threads Are Braided

A white-haired man in a camel hair pashmina stands beside a red-haired woman with braided hair carrying a bedroll near a pool in the first century.

Lying there was one who had been unable to walk freely for thirty-eight years.

But how did Jesus know this?

Epiphany XI: Jesus Talk — At the Well: The Source

An older man wearing a camel hair pashmina sits beside a red-haired woman with unbound hair at a stone well. They share a cup of water between them.

A Samaritan and a Jew speak — and those far off think they see what is taking place.
They are speaking at a sacred well — at Noon — the sixth hour.

Epiphany VI: The Crux

A Black man and a red-haired bride kissing face to face in wedding attire.

The crippled one in Acts is over forty — a detail that amazes. Human life forms in 39–40 weeks. How much longer, then, for divine life: forty years, and more, before the newborn, crippled from birth, walks — and leaps as a gazelle, taking Peter’s hand.

Epiphany V: Disturbance on Solomon’s Porch

On a stone porch, a Black man in saffron robes sits beside an older white man with a beard, who holds a leafless branch.

At Solomon’s Porch, an unexpected bloom appears on a leafless branch — the restoration of one long crippled. How can this be? And how can such a fragile miracle be protected without being silenced?

Epiphany III: At Solomon’s Porch

Shaded stone porch with columns forming a public walkway.

At Solomon’s Porch, what many had long waited and hoped for is revealed in public: Christ, the Bride belonging to the Bridegroom. Long crippled by male-centred worship and male grammar, this epiphany restores not only the Bride, but the Bridegroom — and all who bear witness, from the Forerunner onward.

Epiphany II: Jesus the Gate

In the season of Epiphany, Scripture invites us to pause and recognize what has come into view. At the Beautiful Gate, Peter gives what he has in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth and takes the hand of one born unable to walk, opening the way forward into life ever after.