May Jesus Christ, the light of the world,
guide us into the safe harbor of his love. Amen.
There’s
a classic book on Christian mission called “The Open Secret,” and that’s what
the Feast of the Epiphany is all about. Through the seasons of Advent and
Christmas, the sermons all focused on the belief at the very center of Christianity:
the Incarnation. This the belief that God, the creator and sustainer of all
things took on flesh and lived a human life in Jesus of Nazareth. It can be
easy to overlook just how radical a claim this is. Superman arriving from the planet
Krypton or a seed growing in a beanstalk that takes us into the land of giants
is actually more rationally predictable than the Incarnation. In Jesus, the
infinite becomes finite, the limitless takes on limits, the indefinable is
defined. And our own Anglican tradition has emphasized and been shaped by a
focus on the Incarnation as the starting point of our identity and theology. The
Incarnation is when this unknowable God becomes known; when the secret is
opened.
In
tonight’s passage from Ephesians, St. Paul writes about the mystery that is
made known through revelation. The Incarnation is the opening of the secret,
the revealing of the mystery. The motivation for Christmas is the Epiphany, the
reason for God coming among us is so that all the world would see and know the
love that God has for this world and for each of us. Many generations ago, God called
Abraham and told him to leave his tribe and land, promising to bless not only
him, but the entire world through him. That promise is fulfilled and seen in
the Epiphany.
At
its core, the Epiphany is the proclamation that Jesus Christ is the Savior of
the entire world. This is what the word “epiphany” means, a manifestation or
appearance. Because of Jesus Christ, there is no part of Creation that is left
unredeemed, there is no person who is not covered by the grace of God, there is
no situation into which the light of the world does not shine. The way that
this manifestation is made known to all the world comes through the magi that
visit, adore, and are transformed by Jesus.
These
magi came from the east – perhaps that means a place that we’d call Iraq, or
Syria, or Pakistan; but the point is that they were, in no way, Jewish. And
though sometimes we call them kings, they were certainly not. Sometimes we call
them wise men, but no one would have respected them. Instead, the term “magi”
really is a good one – they were something like magicians, a class of people
consistently criticized in the Bible; or astrologers, a group of people we
still look down upon as foolish. And it is to a group such as these magi that
the glory of God is revealed. Remember, in Matthew’s telling of the Gospel,
there are no shepherds. The way Matthew tells the story, Jesus is born and the
next thing that happens is these magi arrive. This chronology tells us
something – that Jesus comes to the people who we don’t think would recognize
or deserve him.
The
way that Matthew presents this story of salvation though is very much in
continuity with the people of Israel. Jesus is born in the city of David,
Bethlehem. This makes it clear that Jesus will be a ruler who lives up to the
ideal of David. His birth is announced by a star, which reminds us of the passage
from Numbers that says “a star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall
rise out of Israel.” This had been interpreted as a signpost for the Messiah.
There’s the fact that Jesus, carried by his family, flees persecution to Egypt.
This recalls the story of the Exodus and how God saved the people under Moses’
leadership by bringing them into the Promised Land from slavery in Egypt.
Through
and through, this Epiphany story is about God’s faithfulness. The promises seen
in the Old Testament find their destiny in Jesus. God remembers his promises
and all of the glory and power of God that the people had known is continued in
Jesus. Jesus is Emmanuel – God with us. It is the God who created the heavens
and earth, the God who summoned Abraham, who led the people through the Red
Sea, who sustained them in the wilderness, who gave the Torah to Moses, who was
worshipped in the Temple, and who brought the people out of captivity that is
with us in Jesus. What makes the Incarnation so powerful is that the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob takes on flesh and dwells among us. And our hope rests
secure in God’s continuing trustworthiness.
A
star beckons these magi to travel west to see something special. Magi were the
sort of people who expected the stars to tell them what was going on in the
world. Creation itself was testifying to the birth of the Messiah and these
outcast foreigners were the ones who noticed it. So they journeyed to Israel to
see what had happened. It’s an important reminder for us to pay attention to
the little things. I wonder how many people saw that same star in the night sky
and thought nothing of it – they were too absorbed in their work, or their
projects, or their hobbies to even notice it. Very rarely will God take out a
Facebook ad or send you a text. But a blooming flower, a shooting star, a few
simple words spoken by a stranger or friend, a whisper in the wind. Pay
attention to the small things, to the coincidences that you can’t ignore, to
the things that make you stop in your tracks. These magi saw the star for what
it was, a sign from God; may God grant us the awareness to receive the messages
we are given.
When the magi
arrive and they offer gifts of gold and frankincense, and these gifts would
have been expected, as Isaiah mentions such gifts. But there’s a detail that
doesn’t quite line up. Gold was a gift fit for a king. And Jesus certainly is
the King of Creation. There’s frankincense, the incense that was burned as an
offering to God. And Jesus is God Incarnate and so, is worthy of such a gift.
But then there is the gift of myrrh. This is a peculiar addition. Myrrh was a
spice used to anoint corpses, a very odd gift to give to a child. Of course,
all of us will die and will eventually need an urn or a casket, but giving a
funeral item to a child is morbid, to say the least. This tells us though that
Jesus is a King and he is God, but he will also be the suffering servant whose
death will figure as a central detail in his story.
Matthew records a
prophecy about the city of Bethlehem, which was a small and ignored village
outside of Jerusalem. This comes from the prophet Micah and tells us that great
things will come from the least, which fits exactly with Jesus’ message about
the least becoming the greatest. This clues us in on how to interpret Jesus as
we read the rest of the Gospel and as we live our lives. The salvation of God
won’t be seen in armies or on thrones, but rather in unexpected and lowly
places. Certainly, the salvation of God comes through Jesus, but it also comes on
a Cross. Right here, at the very beginning of the story, we see a clue about
this open secret – that love, though vulnerable, is the most powerful thing
there is.
We are told that
when the magi arrive at the house that they are “overwhelmed with joy.” The
Greek text that Matthew writes in conveys it even more exuberantly: word-for-word
it says that “they rejoiced with mega exceeding joy.” I imagine that they had a
great sense of relief that when they showed up in Jerusalem and met Herod that
the Messiah was nowhere to be found. The King of Jews wasn’t someone else to
oppress them, to take advantage of them, to ignore them. Rather, the King of
the Jews was found at a simple home, with a mother and father who were quite
normal and down to earth. That’s the thing about Jesus, he shows us a different
and better way. God humbles himself and takes on the form of a servant to redeem
the world. This gives the magi a sense of overwhelming joy to know that Jesus
offers us salvation not only from Sin and Death, but from salvation from the
dog-eat-dog world of kings and generals. The same is true for us, Jesus offers
us a different way of being: one full of joy where loving, not winning, is the
name of the game.
When these magi encounter
this salvation in the flesh, they pay him homage, they kneel before him, they
are obedient to him. And it is after this worship that they are transformed.
Matthew tells us that after this encounter, they go home by a different way. In
other words, they are different people after encountering Jesus. This is why we
worship. When we come face-to-face with the salvation of God in Jesus, we are
changed. Worship isn’t something we do, it is a gift that God gives us because
in worship we see that which is ultimately true, we encounter a peace that passes
all understanding, we find the love in which we are held. And once we gaze upon
the beauty of Christ, we cannot help but be transformed. This is why in our
Anglican tradition there is such reverence and dedication given to our liturgy.
God doesn’t need our worship, rather we need to worship. We need to be reminded
of the way of love, of the fact that we are not the Messiah, of the grace given
to us.
And this is the
purpose of the Incarnation – to make the truth of God’s love known to all the
world, to reveal the mystery of the least becoming the greatest, to show that
God’s salvation of Israel extends to all people. Salvation is now an open
secret. There’s not a thing we have to do in order to earn this gift, rather it
is given to us just as surely as the stars shine in the sky. “Star of wonder,
star of night, star with royal beauty bright; guide us to thy perfect light.”
Amen.
