Heavenly Father, we thank you for shining upon us the dawn of your grace; keep us in your light for ever ✠ in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Rise and shine! Perhaps you’ve been awakened with those words before. They are words used to call us out of our slumber and into the dawn of a new day. Well, on a theological level, that is also a way of reading the Epiphany. The narrative in Matthew and the themes of Epiphany are so rich, there are so many directions a reflection on this Feast could go. For this year, I am taking the first reading from Isaiah to be the foundation of this sermon. But more than considering the first six verses of chapter 60, I want to instead draw our attention to the Canticle that we heard sung.
It’s
known as the Third Song of Isaiah and includes a selection of verses from
throughout the 60th chapter. It’s from a section of Isaiah scholars
sometimes refer to as “Third Isaiah” because it is something like the third
movement of the work and describes events immediately following the end of Israel’s
captivity in Babylon and the people’s return from exile. This portion of Isaiah
is about hope and God providing for and redeeming the people. And though Isaiah
wrote these words some 2,500 years ago and the event which we remember tonight,
the visitation of the magi happened 2,000 years ago, we are hungry for a word
of hope from the Lord. I pray that the radiance of God’s love comes to you this
evening, whether it be through the words that the Spirit has given to me, or
through the beauty of music, or in the glory of the Eucharist.
If
there were to be a universally agreed upon sign for Epiphany, it would likely
be the star that the magi saw rising. Now what the star is really does not
matter. Maybe it was a comet, or a planetary conjunction, or a supernova, or
maybe it was something supernatural – but the point is that the star was a sign
for the magi. Without this sign from the heavens, they would not have discerned
that God was up to something. Without the star as their guiding light, they
would not have known where to go. Without the brightness of that star, they would
not have come and seen Christ. Without God, we would be lost.
That
classic hymn gets it right, “O star of wonder, star of
night, star with royal beauty bright; westward leading, still proceeding, guide
us to thy perfect light!” In antiquity, it was common for there to be stories
about seemingly miraculous events happening when royalty was born – perhaps it
was a shooting star, an earthquake, or a rainbow. But those signs were just
about making the person seem impressive. That’s not what this Epiphany star is
all about. The star is not saying “Look at how special Jesus is!” If that was
what God was after, Jesus would not have been laid in a manger and his family
would not have had to flee as refugees to Egypt. No, the Epiphany star is not
there to shine light on Jesus to show us how special he is. Instead, the Epiphany
star is there to shine on us to guide us to God’s perfect light.
This
is what the Third Song of Isaiah opens with: “Arise, shine, for your light has
come and the glory of the Lord has dawned upon you.” God wants to guide us into
abundant life. God seeks to bring us into his mercy. God draws us into his
love. God beckons us towards his peace. And in order to do this, because God so
loved the world, the Son of God came into the world. Or, as John puts it at the
opening of the gospel, the true light came into the world to shine on us. John the
Baptist’s father, Zechariah, prophesied that the Messiah would “shine on us who
dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death, and guide our feet into the way
of peace.” Isaiah says the same thing differently: “For behold, darkness covers
the land; deep gloom enshrouds the peoples. But over you the Lord will rise,
and his glory will appear upon you.”
How
ever you define this deep gloom, we are enshrouded by it. In theological
categories, we are certainly captive to Sin and trapped by Death. In our
society, we are beleaguered by racism, partisan gridlock, the Omicron variant, corporate
greed, and climate change. In our personal lives, we struggle with debt, addiction,
anxiety, health issues. God knows these struggles, not only knowing about them
as God of all Creation, but in Jesus, God has been under that same shroud of
doom. And it is into this darkness that the light shines. Jesus is born into
our human flesh as the very light of God, bringing not only the hope of a dawning
light, but as a guiding light for our lives. When you are sitting in the dark,
having the brightness of a candle can be a great comfort. But more than this
comfort, the light of Christ guides us out of that gloom and into the perfect
light of grace and peace. The star is but the sign that points us to Jesus, and
he is the way that we are to follow into abundant life.
This
light though is not to enjoy ourselves and hide under a bushel, as it’s something
like the light that is received by solar panels – this light sparks energy within
us for the good of the world. Isaiah’s song says that “Nations will stream to
your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawning.” In other words, the
light that shines on us makes us radiant. It’s why people who radiate with the
light of Christ are so attractive – just take the various tributes about
Desmond Tutu as evidence of this. While Tutu might be a high bar for us, that’s
exactly what God guides us all towards, a life of joy and trust in God, a life
that reflects the difference that Christ makes.
Isaiah
then says that “Your gates will always be open; by day or night they will never
be shut.” This is a further way of saying that God seeks to guide us in the
blessings of his love. The prophet is speaking about the city of Jerusalem as a
way of talking about the people of Israel, and so a city with open gates is one
that is not worried about enemies coming in as well as one that has a flourishing
economic life. This isn’t to say that by following Jesus that we’ll have health
and wealth; often we won’t. But that doesn’t mean that God doesn’t desire all
good things for us.
I
was talking to a friend recently who told me about a conversation he heard
about state of the world that we are in right now. One person remarked, “After
the flood, God promised to Noah to never again destroy the earth.” And the
response followed, “But God never promised that we wouldn’t.” The shroud that
covers us is not from God; it is man-made. It reminds me of a line from the novel
The Poisonwood Bible, “God doesn’t need to punish us. He just grants us
a long enough life to punish ourselves.” God is our guiding light, but like
Herod and all those in Jerusalem who were afraid of the stars' appearing, we,
too, can be afraid of the light of Christ because of how pure, how brilliant,
how revealing it can be. And so we resist this light, we block it out, we close
our eyes to it. The presence of gloom isn’t indicative of God’s desires for us,
but rather is why the star shines in the night sky – to remind us that God is
with us and that God is giving us another way to follow.
This
Song of Isaiah concludes with, “The sun will no longer be your light by day; by
night you will not need the brightness of the moon. The Lord will be your
everlasting light, and your God will be your glory.” If God is our light, then
it means that can put away all of the flashlights that we carry with us. Our
bank account, our resumé, our accomplishments, our fitness level, our
reputation, none of these things will save us. None of them can stand against
the darknesses that we will face in life. None of them can guide us out of the shadow
of death. The light of God’s love alone can save us. And so instead of wasting
so much time and energy on making ourselves appear brighter, we can just enjoy the
light that God shines on us and reflect it to others.
The
way to do this, to receive the light of Christ most fully is to spend time in
places where we know that Christ tends to hang out. With the poor. In Scripture.
In the breaking of the bread. In acts of forgiveness. In generosity. It is to
those places of humility, of compassion, of love that the light of Christ guides
us because it is in those places where the shroud of gloom had been that we come
and see the glory of God’s salvation for us. “O star of wonder, star of night,
star with royal beauty bright; westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to
thy perfect light.”
