05 January 2014

Epiphany

January 5, 2014 – Nativity Lutheran

Isaiah 60:1-6, Ephesians 3:1-12, Matthew 2:1-12

Pr Martha Myers

Well, so here we are, already 5 days into 2014, the unknown future, the beginning of life without Pastor Bob.  It is a little like returning home after dropping the last child off at kindergarten or the last one off at college. The house seems a little empty and echoes.  But there is also that whiff of a sense (tiny, teasing hint, barely detectable,) of something  coming loose, something opening up.

In fact, we already have something to celebrate: we have completed the very first task of the interim period: saying good-bye to the one who has been pastor. And I have to say, I think that we have done an outstanding job of expressing our appreciation for these last ten years.  We have not shrunk from acknowledging our sadness and sense of loss in saying good-bye and at the same time we are turning toward the future with excitement and joy, along with the usual anxiety.(with our predictable anxiety well seasoned with excitement and joy.) So good job, Nativity.  You said good-bye and you did it well. And now we are start of our new journey.

In our scripture readings today we have a wide screen view of the journey ahead and abundant encouragement for our travels. The day we are celebrating today is Epiphany which literally means “to make visible”. (All through the Sundays after Epiphany, our gospel readings will center on times in Jesus’ life when people got a glimpse of God’s presence in Him.
 
Today is “making visible” Sunday, so it is not surprising that the first words of our first reading are “Arise! Shine!” “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.” The people that first heard these words from the prophet Isaiah lived roughly 500 years before Jesus’ birth. These people were in a slump, actually more than a slump.  They were tired and depressed, almost to the point of despair.  For 40 years this group of Jews had been living in exile in Babylon, the area we today call Iraq. But recently there had been new political developments.  The Persians conquered the Babylonians and took over their empire and their leader, Cyrus, offered them a chance to go home to their own country. Full of hope and excitement, these people had made the long trek (how long?) back to Jerusalem.  But when they go there they found that everything was still in ruins. The joy of regaining their freedom and returning home faded as they realized how enormous was the task of rebuilding their homes, the temple and the entire infrastructure.

To these weary, despairing people Isaiah says, “God’s word to you is arise from your despair, stand up. Look beyond the ruins that you see all around you, for God’s power is greater than the power that left your city in ruins.  Trust God’s promises. Act in faith. Arise, shine. Visualize the future that God has in mind for you. Reflect the light that God shines upon you and let God use you to reflect God’s glory in the darkness of this world. There are two important features of the future that Isaiah sketches: the first is a very tangible economic recovery, even wealth and prosperity and the second, which is a little more hidden is of the reflected light of the glory of God drawing all the nations of the world to Israel to worship the one true God.

Our gospel reading tells the very familiar story of the visit of the magi to Jesus.  Even though we include the magi in our manger scenes and on our Christmas cards with the shepherds and the angels, chances are that they showed up as much as a year after Jesus’ birth. We say they are from “the east” but there is an enormous amount of territory that lies east of Bethlehem, just as when we say “back east” we might mean Spokane or Chicago or Boston.  While there had been priests of the Zoroastrian religion that flourished in ancient Persia who were called magi, by Jesus’ time the word had a more general meaning. They are sometimes called wise men or astrologers or even kings. What seems to be most important about the magi in Matthew’s story is that they are “not from here”, they are outsiders, strangers.

The magis’ job is to observe the movements of the stars and the planets and to report anything out of the ordinary because it was generally believed in the ancient world that changes in the sky might signal important events on earth.  The one thing we know for a fact about the magi’s religion is that it wasn’t ours. The magi were not in any way connected to Judaism or the roots of Christianity. (So what are they doing in the middle of our Christmas decorations?)

The magi are at a disadvantage. They don’t know the stories of God’s promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  They haven’t heard the words of Isaiah and the prophets.  But what they do have is the natural world around them, the sky, the planets and the stars.  So when the rising of a new star speaks to them of something important happening in the west, they pack up and travel hundreds of miles to Jerusalem. The natural world gets them within close range, but to find the precise location of the event, they bring their question to the present king Herod: “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?”

But Herod doesn’t know. He is not from Judea but a little country to the south and while his grandfather had converted to Judaism, Herod has no use for the Jews or the Jewish religion. But if there is anyone who might be a threat to his power, Herod wants to put a stop to it immediately. So he calls in the Jewish authorities who tell him that Bethlehem is the place where the messiah is to be born and with that, the magi are on their way, with instructions to return with news of the child’s location. Herod’s intent, of course, is not to pay homage to this child but to get rid of him as quickly as possible as we learn from the rest of the story. To the magi’s great joy, the star appears again and leads them to the exact spot where they find the child and his mother. They can hardly have been an impressive sight, but the magi are overjoyed. They pay him homage, they honor him as someone of great importance and they offer their gifts. What are these magi doing at the birth of our Savior? As Matthew tells the story, the magi act like model believers.  In some strange way they “get” what God is doing in Jesus, at least a little corner of it.

Meanwhile, back at the palace, King Herod is overwhelmed, not with joy but with fear and the chief priests and the scribes share his concern. The balance of power is delicate and any insurgency will bring down the wrath of the Roman occupation. Herod cares about keeping his power more than anything else in the world. Ever suspicious he arranges the execution of anyone he suspects of intrigue, including his own children. (Herod is an illustration of the distortion and violence and meaninglessness that we create when nothing matters except getting our own way.)

What is more surprising, though, is that the chief priests and the scribes who have the scriptures are strangely lacking in curiosity about what has brought these pagans to their land, searching for their messiah. (Did they think, “If anyone is going to be born king of the Jews, we are the people who would know about it.” Did it never cross their minds that God might be at work in the lives of these wise men from the east? (The outsiders seem to know more about what God is up to than the insiders.)

Let’s drop back for a moment to our second lesson where Paul, the early Christian missionary is talking to people who are following in the footsteps of the magi.  They are Gentile Christians, people who unlike the first Christians are not of Jewish background. Paul, on the other hand, is Jewish through and through; he has observed all the laws and customs that separated Jews from Gentiles, that were intended to keep God’s people holy and uncorrupted. (so much so that he even persecuted the church) But God’s grace has interrupted his life, turned upside down all his assumptions about where God is at work and led him beyond his upbringing to an understanding of “the mystery of Christ” which has been hidden for ages in God.  And the mystery is that “the Gentiles have become joint heirs of God’s promises to the Jews, joint members of the same body and joint sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. (This is not shocking news to us today, but remember how shocked people were when Pope Francis insisted that God’s concern for human beings extends way beyond the borders of the church, that Christ died not just for Catholics but even for atheists? )

Not only has God in Christ upset all of Paul’s assumptions about how God is at work, but God’s grace has commissioned Paul to share the “boundless riches of Christ”,  to “make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things.”   And the point of all this is “that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might be made know to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. The Gentiles of Paul’s day believed there were other heavenly powers like fate. But you, says Paul, are part of making known this wisdom of God, of boldly proclaiming to whatever powers there be that the wisdom of God in Christ is stronger, the wisdom of God in Christ has got them all beat.

This passage is really dense, but it is my favorite picture of the church so this is how I imagine it.  The wisdom of God in Christ is pure, white light and the church is like a kaleidoscope with each of us like one of those multi-colored fragments of glass that reflects the light of God in a different way. And as that light is reflected through more and more people, the pattern just becomes more beautiful.

What are the magi, these strange wise men from the east doing at the birth of our Savior?  They are a hint ahead of time of the direction of God’s plan.  The star of Bethlehem as brought the magi to the light of Christ, to the side of the one who is born “king of the Jews”, but they themselves are a sign that God’s plan stretches out far beyond the Jews to include the whole creation. But the star has not reached its final goal until the light of Christ comes to rest in your hearts. The star has not reached its final goal until the light of Christ shines forth in the life of this congregation and sprinkles out across the community in each of your individual lives as well.


 What are they doing here at the birth of our Savior?