Thank you, Lord Christ, for guiding us by your light to come and see your great love for us. Amen.
We all know the benefit of having friends in high places. A well-placed connection can open all the right doors for you. Back in high school, I worked at a store in the mall that sold music back when we had to buy tapes and discs if we wanted to hear music on-demand. Well, when a hot new release was coming out, my friends would sometimes ask me to put one aside for them before it would sell out. Or when I worked in Washington, we had church members who worked at the Pentagon, the White House, and Congress – and if you had friends coming into town and wanted to impress them with a tour, we’d just call them up and it happened. Or maybe you know someone who has access to a box suite at Bank of America Stadium and if you want to watch the game in style, you just call up the friend and you’ve got tickets. We all know the blessing of having access to someone with power, and that sort of access is what the Epiphany of our Lord Jesus Christ is all about.
We
heard in Ephesians, “In Christ Jesus our Lord, we have access to God in
boldness and confidence through his faithfulness.” Sure, it might be nice when
someone can hook us up with concert tickets, or a dinner reservation at a fancy
restaurant on short notice, or stock market tips, but how much more that Jesus
Christ gives us access to the One who created all things, who tells the stars
to shine and the oceans to wave.
We’ve
become so accustomed to thinking of ourselves as Christians that we might forget
just how audacious and spectacular this is. For the last few centuries, people
have tended to think of religion as something we choose from the buffet of
beliefs. We think that following Jesus is an option that is out there, waiting
for us to choose that path or not. But this is egocentric and wrong. The fact
of the matter is that God chose us before we were born. Earlier in Ephesians,
we read that “God chose us before the foundation of the world.” Belonging to
Christ, though it is something we take for granted, is a true gift; one that is
bestowed upon us by grace, not taken or earned ourselves.
This
is especially the case for those of us who have no claims to the promise that
God made to Abraham and Sarah. Sure, some of us might have Jewish ancestors –
part of my family is Jewish. My grandfather’s name was Israel Weiss – doesn’t
get much more Jewish than that; but I am not Jewish, meaning that I was not an
heir to the promises of God. But in Jesus Christ, we have been brought by grace
into the story of God, into being a part of God’s chosen people. In
Romans, St. Paul writes about this using the metaphor of a vine – noting that
we, who were not a part of Israel, have been grafted in to share the rich root
of the olive tree. In Jesus Christ, all the world is brought into the story of
God’s saving and redeeming love.
That
is one of the primary meanings of the Epiphany narrative. It’s about magi who
come from outside of Israel, outside of the promise, to worship and adore the child
who has been born king of the Jews. The word “Epiphany” means appearing, and
the symbol for this feast is often that star – which shines for all to come and see God’s love for us all in Jesus. This light has appeared for all
the world to see and know that God intends to bless not only Israel, but the whole world as the promise made to Israel is expanded to include all people; and
this expansion happens through Jesus Christ who opens his arms wide to draw all
the world to himself. Epiphany is the great celebration of our inclusion in the
promises of God.
In
Ephesians, this is described in a few ways. The first is having access to God.
The word “access” here doesn’t simply mean that we have God’s number in our
phone and we can send a message when we want to. No, access means that we have
a right to speak, that we have been given an audience with the Almighty. Just
like a good friend can get you access to a Senator who might be able to help
with a passport issue you’ve run into, at an even higher level, Jesus gives us
access to God. This means our prayers do not go unheard, our sins do not go
unforgiven, our deaths do not go unsaved.
With
this access, we have boldness before God. We have full assurance of our
standing before God because of Jesus Christ. And so we can be bold in our
prayers – naming before God our deepest desires, regrets, hopes, and fears. We
can be bold in our actions, knowing that when we fall short, we will be
forgiven; when we are knocked down, God will raise us up; when we take the risk
of love, we are going with the grain of the new creation in Christ Jesus. We
are brought into the promise and are given a boldness in knowing that we are
forever and always a part of the beloved community of God.
In
addition to boldness, we read that we also have confidence. It’s a similar
idea, but confidence carries a connotation of a public orientation whereas
boldness is more of an internal disposition. Confidence means that we can be
courageous in faith in a world that is not always open to the mercy of second
chances, the love that accepts before it asks questions, the peace that insists
that enemies can be made friends, the trust that there is enough of all that we
need. We can be confident in faith because we have seen Jesus’ own faithfulness
in his life and Passion.
Being
brought into this story of God’s redemption with boldness and confidence makes
all the difference. This access to and inclusion in the promises of God changes
with is possible. When we see those stars – those signs that God is calling us
to follow, we can have the boldness to go where God would send us, or to stay
where we are and let the gifts God come through us just as the magi offered
their gifts. With confidence that we are a part of the story of God, we can
trust that all shall be well, that all shall be well, and that all manner of
things shall be well.
Just
imagine what God is doing with us and around us. Something like a star might be
an invitation to come and see the glory of God. Perhaps an invitation to coffee
will lead to a sense of God’s movement in our community. It could be that in
serving at Rowan Helping Ministries we will meet Jesus in the face of another.
Maybe it is that in an act of generosity we will find the peace that comes from
aligning our priorities with those of the kingdom.
The
glory of Epiphany is that we don’t have to imagine what God might be up to –
because we have seen it in the flesh of Jesus. Jesus is forgiving us, Jesus is
shepherding us into beloved community, Jesus is guiding us towards love, Jesus
is feeding us in the Eucharist, Jesus is seeking to bind up our wounds, Jesus
is empowering us by the Spirit to heal and bless in his name. The story of God
has been opened to us, we have been given access to abundant life in the Spirit,
and we are emboldened by Jesus, the light of the world. To paraphrase what we
heard in Isaiah, “Arise in boldness, and confidently shine; for we have access
to the light, as the grace of God has come to us all.”
