THE FEAST OF THE EPIPHANY
Isaiah 60:1-6, 9
Ephesians 3: 1-12
Matthew 2: 1-12
(Year A)
Several years ago I stood
outside Canterbury Cathedral as the sun began to set. I had just attended
Rachmaninoff’s Vespers there and while holiness and heavenly music seemed to
float from one vault to another inside the Cathedral, it seemed to seep right
out into the evening as the sun hit that great Cathedral with such splendor
that words could never truly describe the glory of it all.
I stood there in silence and
took pictures, trying to capture what could never truly be captured. Every once
in awhile I run across those pictures, but the pictures fail to describe the
power of that moment. In the same way Matthew tries to describe for us a truth
that is indescribable; a truth that some will experience and others will
ignore; the truth of God’s presence in Christ.
The Feast of the Epiphany has
always been important to the church because it means that momentary flash
picture of the entire mystery of God’s Incarnation. Epiphany means
“manifestation” or “revelation”. It is an experience, not an idea. An epiphany
is something that happens to us; not something we can will to happen. What is
amazing about epiphanies is that they always demand from us a change in our
journey’s direction.
In the ancient world the term
‘magi’ covered astronomers, astrologers, and fortunetellers; occupations
thought absurdly frivolous by Jewish standards, the ultimate in gentile
idolatry and religious quackery on a par with reading tea leaves or chicken
livers. They were probably Zoroastrians from
They headed west and south,
crossing the wide valley over the Euphrates, enduring the desert miles beyond
that, fording a river called the
It should come as no surprise
that Herod made them feel uncomfortable. After all he was responsible for the
murder of thousands, including three of his own sons. So whether they would
have gone back to Herod we do not know. We only know they were warned in a
dream not to, so they went home by another way.
What were these men from the East
seeking, a glimmer of hope against their own darkness, truth as opposed to superstition? No one can say for sure. Perhaps,
whether they realized it or not, they were seeking what we all seek and that is
God.
Matthew, about as kosher a
Jew as you could find, is the only one who writes of them. His gospel is
distinctly Jewish, pointing out all the ways that Jesus fulfills the prophesies that had been foretold. Then, suddenly, into
this beautiful tapestry, he explodes the unexpected; telling of pagans who came
seeking a king they did not know, seeking God in him for heaven’s sake.
They were from the wrong
race, the wrong place, and it would be generous to say they were religious at
all. It is the most shocking thing about Matthew’s Gospel. It is meant to
disturb the Jewish people – and it is meant to disturb us. But we have heard
the story so often it just seems like a quaint part of the Christmas story. We
miss how shocking this information would have been to Matthew’s Jewish
community. He is pointing out with searing clarity the fact that in spite of
the chosen people pouring over their scripture, debating the fine points of
theology, keeping their religion neat and tidy, they missed God’s action right
before their very eyes.
Today we celebrate the light
of a child born in a place where darkness still reigns so we must remind
ourselves that while Christianity is impregnated with hope, it is not a
religion of sunny optimism. There are many darknesses these days in the world
and most of the time the light that comes seems random and elusive. There is
much in the world and in our own lives that causes despair. Matthew is careful
to point out all the darkness that surrounded Jesus; especially Herod’s
slaughter of the innocent and the Holy Family becoming refugees in their flight
to
Yet, Christianity proclaims
that God’s light will ultimately overcome every bit of darkness there is or
ever has been. We are the remnant, sometimes faithful, sometimes feeble, called
to proclaim God’s light and love to a broken and hurting world; to all those
who have gone out searching and hunting their way home. But is that something
we are really open to experiencing?
Some people are drawn by
God’s magnetic pull all their lives, while others it seems would ignore his
star if it hung eighteen inches above their deathbed. Some people seek God
through all kinds of things that are no more divine than crystals or pyramids.
Yet Matthew says some of those very people were the ones who were most open to
experiencing this Epiphany from God.
The Magi could not have been
more removed from the Jewishness of Israel, yet Matthew wants us to know that
in their venturing forth into the darkness, in the risks they took, in the
magnetic pull they felt, those whose world consisted of astrology charts, ended
up finding God in a child who smelled like baby power and milk.
What happened to the Magi is
what most of us are frightened of; and that is of acting upon the epiphanies
that God places before us. Most of us go through life, even our religious life,
on some kind of auto pilot. And unless we are awakened through the epiphanies
that God sends to wake us up, nothing much in life will ever change.
Richard Rohr writes: “Religion without epiphanies becomes digging
in your heels; religion with epiphanies becomes living on your heels, ready to go wherever God manifests. One wonders if
the three kings ever went back home at all. Home base had been taken from them.”
T.S. Eliot was writing about
his own journey from agnosticism to faith when he wrote, “The Journey of the Magi”. He wrote it around the time of his
baptism and entrance into the Anglican Church in 1927. No doubt he speaks of
his own epiphany and response to it in these words:
“Were we led all this way for Birth or Death? This was
a Birth, certainly, We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for
us, like Death, our death, We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no
longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching
their gods. I should be glad of another death.”
Before every epiphany in
scripture there is almost always a messenger sent from God who says, “Do not be afraid”; and we should not afraid to respond to God. The world
gives us much, but to find God, to find the glorious light that drew the Magi
to a strange land, to find the light and the treasure they could take with them
forever, they had to go home by a different way - and so do we.
The way home is to follow the
light of God’s Epiphany; the Epiphany of Christ and the epiphany that God
brings close to you in your own journey of pilgrimage. For it is only in that experience
and that journey that we shall find we have safely arrived at home.
AMEN
The Rev. Virginia L. Bennett,
D.Min.
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church