6 January 2013

“On the twelfth day of Christmas … there’s more HOPE”
Matthew 2:1-12
Sunday of the Epiphany
6 January 2013


Well, all right. Today would really the thirteenth day of Christmas … the twelve day cycle of drummers drumming and maids milking and partridges in pear trees having come to an end last night, Twelfth Night.
But here we are together today on Epiphany … ON Epiphany … and the church is still decorated twelve days after Christmas Day because of the once every seven years happy calendar-circumstance that brings this third most important festival of the Church into our weekly worship.
Third most important festival? Yes … for this is what Epiphany – which means “showing forth” … this is what Epiphany is … first, Jesus’ rising - Easter, then, his gift of the Holy Spirit- Pentecost, then Epiphany; these were the festivals the Christian Church celebrated together for its first three centuries of existence. The historical purists are quick to point out that Christmas wasn’t widely recognized or celebrated until the fourth century … but Epiphany was.
Personally, though, I don’t think it should be an “either – or” … setting Epiphany over and against Christmas. Both stories have such an important word for us to hear, that we need them both, to round out and make clear how the infancy stories of Jesus are Good News For Us.
Because everything Jesus is to become in his life, and death, and resurrection, is laid out in these two stories, of his birth, and of his epiphany.
The Christmas story from Luke’s Gospel, ah, we certainly know it well. Jesus comes to the world in a way that the religious of his time would least expect … to the people, in the place where he’s least expected … God chooses to come to most humble people in the most humble of ways … born a poor baby to homeless parents in a strange, mean place … his birth, announced to more homeless people, shepherds, who lived out among their flocks on the hills surrounding Bethlehem.
But there is one common thread that ties them all ... religious, parents, shepherds, the Christ child ... that ties them all together.
In the Christmas story, the first words about “The King of the Jews” come only to Jews.
Mary, Joseph, the shepherds … they are all Jews ... God’s special people, of God’s special promise.
Ah, but in the Epiphany story … God shows forth that Jesus is for the rest of us, too.
Yes, there is a prominent Jew in this story … Herod, who is the recognized King of the Jews. But he is only a puppet king, in name only. The Roman occupiers pull his strings; they keep him on his throne and in line.
The other kings get our attention here in Matthew’s Gospel.
We don’t know much about these three … who, by tradition, we call Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar … though those names are nowhere in the Bible … we don’t know who they are or how they came to Jerusalem in the first place. All we know is what they say: they know about the promised child who was to be born the king of the Jews; they saw a star; they put these things together and came West.
Tradition says that the three came from a place called Parthia, which we call Iran today.
This place that the three kings came from is about fifteen hundred miles east of Jerusalem, the roads going mostly through desert and mountains. It probably took about three months for them to get there.
So these kings aren’t Jews at all. They represent, they show forth something else … that Jesus is not only “King of the Jews” but also “Emmanuel” … God With Us … God, For Us … For All The World.
And there are more perplexing words in this story. We aren’t sure why Herod didn’t go himself to find out about Jesus in person. After all, Bethlehem is only about ten miles from Jerusalem – think, here to Bellevue Square – and even on camel, it would take only a couple of hours. But Herod doesn’t go himself; he decides to send these others in his place.
These others … who are … astrologers. Star gazers from the East. People who speak of the king of the Jews, who had come fifteen hundred miles to see this king of the Jews, but they were not Jews.
It’s an epiphany … a showing forth … of God’s Good News in Jesus to all the world.
We do know why Herod is frightened. He is the king of the Jews, all right, and he doesn’t need rumors about a baby being born to take over his choice position floating around. We also know why “all of Jerusalem” is also frightened to hear this news … although it isn’t likely that it’s everyone … but primarily the religious leaders, the chief priests and scribes, the ones who because of their positions, knew the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem.
But you have to wonder … why are they of all people frightened, if this news ... this very, very Good News ... is true?
Unless … of course … unless, they had been behaving in a way that was not Godly … not right for God’s people ... perhaps believing in God, but not believing God ... not trusting in the saving power of God, for them.
Hmn.
And so it is from this state of affairs, that Herod sends the three Wise Men on their ten mile journey, to check out this new threat to his power. Of course he gives a very political reason to them ... “go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.”
And so the Wise Men go, and find the house where Jesus is.
House? Well, of course. You wouldn’t expect Jesus to have stayed in the stable for his whole childhood, would you? Remember that it took the Wise Men at least three months to come from the East. That would have been long enough for Mary and Joseph to find a place in town, and move out of the barn. By now, they have probably started to settle in to the regular daily life of the community, the amazing events of that time of Jesus’ birth slowly sinking into memory, a regular sort of life rhythm now starting in for the little family.
But then along come the Wise Men, and the whole cycle of amazing events starts over again. Treasure chests are opened, expensive gifts from the East which Herod, if he knew about them, would have insisted the Wise Men give to him, the apparent king of the Jews, rather than this baby.
Shining gold.
Frankincense – a fragrant resin.
And myrrh – also a fragrant resin, but most often used … for embalming the dead.
Thus ends Jesus’ “regular” life, his being inconspicuous. The glimmer of the gold, the smell of the frankincense and myrrh … the sight of these three strangers showing up in their little town … now all those memories of that amazing night months earlier came rushing back for the little family, and the people of the town. People start to talk. Word would get back to Herod. What would happen?
The Wise Men weren’t called Wise for nothing. They knew. After blowing Jesus’ cover, they leave town; “having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their country by another road.”
But not before they become part of God’s great showing forth … in this simple, short time together … everything here, a microcosm of all that is to come for Jesus, in his life, his ministry, his death and resurrection:
• For Jesus is God come among us in the ordinary, the usual, the everyday … he’s just another member of the community … showing forth God’s love and care for us, as God chooses to come to us through that which is common and ordinary: and so our faith points out, practices, shows forth this ordinariness, this everyday faithfulness, of God’s love for us; in gifts and signs such as water-Baptism, bread-and-wine-Communion, words and texts proclaimed for faith, forgiveness, healing, wholeness and service to neighbor …
• And community – blessed community – not God-alone-and-set-apart but God Who Lives In A House, As part of a Family, to remind us that Home is the Cradle of Faith, and Church is meant to uphold Home. Church is meant to be the community which helps Faith-Home grow so that we are as comfortable and as ready to speak and show forth Jesus in our homes and all that flows from them … workplaces, schools, among family and friends … as we are in this holy hour.
• And Epiphany also shows us that God Is For Us … Us, we who are not part of the original tree of God’s chosen people, but we, who are grafted in through these gifts we call Sacraments, and Word, and Forgiveness, and Welcoming Grace, and Faith ... we are also and NOW part of God’s family of faith too. God brings astrologers from Iran to kneel at his feet in awe and wonder and worship. So can we dismiss any people, any word of worship, faith and hope and service which shows forth the love, grace, peace, blessing of Christ, just because they “come from the East?” Just because they come from a place or people we wouldn’t expect? NO.
So let us not be like those priests and scribes … or Herod. God is alive and active and at work in the world outside the Church, too ... sometimes, perhaps often, in spite of the Church. And we are called to see and support those “other roads” where faith is being formed and made alive.
Epiphany most certainly calls us to ask ourselves, “What other roads might we be missing, as we seek to live and serve as Jesus’ disciples, his followers, his do-ers and be-ers in this world, this time, this place? What other roads might we be missing, where Jesus is already at work?
• And so our Epiphany prayer is a simple one: Lord, as you showed yourself forth to the Wise Men, so show yourself to us, this day ... surprise us with your Word and Work which is already and always alive and moving and active in the world ... your Word and Work which is HOPE ... in the flesh, in Jesus, in others, and IN US ... so send us, we who have seen and heard, been washed and fed, send us to go and tell, to show forth your love to the world you love.
This is, simply, more HOPE for us … HOPE as we are shown forth God’s plan for Jesus in miniature, here in these Christmas and Epiphany stories … God is faithful, God is consistent, and so the hope borne here through these Wise Men as they go back home by another road … the light shone forth from that star, now shining forth from them … that light, that hope, is our gift, today ... given to us, to share, to live, into the world God loves.
So, as we heard at the outset of worship today, now, be sent forth in the words of the prophet Isaiah, from long ago, looking ahead to this Epiphany, this showing forth of all that God wants and wills to be about, through Jesus …

Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

Today this Word is For You, full of hope and joy, light and life ... God Is Most Certainly With You, as you are that Epiphany, that showing forth, into God’s world.
Amen.