O God, you led the magi by a star to encounter your
presence, may you also bring us to see your light through our worship this
night. Amen.
We
are all searching for something: meaning, purpose, redemption, a fresh start, love,
value, healing, justice, answers, the Divine. If you are looking for an
answering, searching for a truth, or seeking facts, what do you do? To whom do
you turn? Google. One of the largest, most profitable, and pervasive companies
in the world, and yet, for the most part, they don’t sell any products. In
fact, the vast majority of what Google offers to consumers is free – you don’t
pay to use Gmail or any of their other services. And yet, Google had revenues
of over $60 billion last year. So where does Google make all of that money?
Search. Google’s fortunes are earned by learning about their consumers, and
delivering advertisement opportunities to companies when you are searching for
something. Whoever knew that search could be such a valuable industry?
Perhaps
the magi did, after all, they journeyed a great distance to follow a star on a
hunch. The Bible really doesn’t tell us about these magi – why they decided to
leave home and traverse afar, how they knew that the star represented the birth
of the king of the Jews, or why, as non-Jews, did they feel the need to pay
homage to a foreign king. But they were clearly searching for something. Were
they visited by an angel, as were the shepherds? Did they have a dream, as did
Joseph? Did something unexplainable inside them just compel them to go?
Whatever their motivation, they set out looking for answers. I wonder what you
are searching for. What brings you here on a Wednesday night? What answers have
you come here looking to discover?
The
former Dean of Duke Chapel, Samuel Wells, once preached on the various ways
that we find answers in our search for deepest meaning. He says that there are
four modes of revelation, four ways to encounter God. The first is a sort of
general revelation. When you see the beauty of a sunset and think “how can
anyone not believe in the God that created this,” you are experiencing a form
of general revelation. It’s that sense of awe that you encounter when you
realize that the universe is bigger and more wonderful than you ordinarily
realize. General revelation comes when you are overcome with awe – whether that
be when listening to music that stirs your soul or holding a newborn baby. The
magi encountered this sort of general revelation when they saw a star that they
felt compelled to follow.
The
second sort of revelation is personal. These are individual experiences of the
Divine – a dream, a nudging, a still small voice that speaks to you, a sense of
peace amidst chaos, your heart feeling warmed. As a priest, I am privileged in
that people often feel comfortable sharing these sorts of experiences with me.
In our society, you might be afraid to say “I felt God’s presence” or “God
spoke to me,” lest people think that you are delusional or a religious fanatic.
But you tell me about these experiences, and so I know that it’s not only me
who has these personal moments of revelation. The magi experienced this at the
end of the story, as they had a sense that they should return home by another
road.
These
two ways of finding revelation in our search though don’t have any explicit
connections to our faith or ethical mandates. No one looks at a beautiful
nature scene and says, “Ah, yes, I had never heard of God as Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, but now I see it.” And these personal moments of revelation can
often lead us deeper ourselves. A sense of purpose is great, but without a
community, a calling becomes a personal agenda. And again, rarely will someone
say “The God of Israel told me to do this” but rather we come away with a vague
sense of the direction that we are supposed to go in, not an exact set of turn-by-turn
directions.
It
may have been these first two sorts of revelation that led the magi to set out
toward Bethlehem, but what they found there was an answer that they hadn’t
realized they were searching for. The third kind of revelation comes in the
form of our sacred scriptures – the Bible. The Bible is a collection of books
and stories about those first two kinds of revelation, but experienced through
a community. Generations of people feeling the nudges of love and justice leads
to sort of revelation that is greater than the sum of its parts. From time to
time, the Bible records even more magnificent sorts of events where those first
two types of revelation are combined – the burning bush, the parting of the Red
Sea, the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai. The Bible is the sacred journal of
God’s interactions with Creation, and as such, it helps us to ask questions which cannot be fully asked or answered in a single generation. When the magi
arrive in Jerusalem, they gain this sort of revelation when they hear the
story, as told by the scribes and chief priests, about the words of the prophet
Micah.
The fourth and final sort of
revelation is the sort that we have come in search of this evening. As Wells
puts it “the fourth kind of divine revelation develops out of the third. It’s
about what happens when that Scripture is turned into live conversation and
action.” In the Church, we call this a Sacrament, a moment when the veil
between heaven and earth is at its thinnest, when God’s eternity touches our
temporality. In the Sacraments, we find answers in our search through outward
and visible symbols which point us to an inward grace.
When
the story of God’s Creation and Salvation of the world is put into action, we
encounter the revelation of Sacraments. So we gather at a font to partake of
God’s eternal promises of salvation. We gather at a table to partake of the
Lord’s banquet which takes place at the end of time. We bend our knees in
prayer, seeking to unite ourselves the source of our being. We listen to God’s
sacred story in Scripture, and hear it proclaimed anew through preaching. We
serve the poor, the hurting, the vulnerable, and the hungry, as Jesus told us
that when we do so, we serve him. The Church celebrates these Sacraments because
we have found that God is often encountered in them. So if you are searching
for God, Church is a rather good place to begin your search. And this is what
the magi find: when they come in adoring worship, bringing gifts, they
encounter the embodiment of God’s promises, the end of their search, the Word
made flesh.
It
is rather exceptional to have an instance of all four sorts of revelation
coming together in a single event. That is why this celebration is known as The
Epiphany; that is, the manifestation of God to the world. Epiphany though, is
not about the appearing of God to the world. God has always appeared to the
world through these various forms of revelation. Instead of thinking of
Epiphany as a celebration of God’s appearance, may we see it as a celebration
of God’s transparence.
What
is revealed in Jesus is the very being of God. It’s not that God just appears
and remains a mystery, but that in Jesus, God’s love is made transparent. In
the letter that St. Paul wrote to the Ephesians, which we heard from this
evening, he says “the mystery was made known to me by revelation.” This is what
we celebration on Epiphany – the mystery of God becomes transparent in Jesus
for all the world to see. The love, peace, grace, justice, compassion, and salvation
of God is revealed in Jesus.
As
we gather tonight to celebrate the Epiphany of Jesus Christ, may we do so
considering what stars have led us here. What questions are in our hearts? What
are we searching for? We’ll find answers through the revelation of God in
general and personal ways, we can come to know of God’s relationship with the
world in Scripture, and through our worship, we will come to find the Divine in
the Sacrament of God’s presence. My prayer tonight is that each of you finds
what you have been searching for, that you encounter God through the Sacrament
of which we are about to partake. Amen.
