Sermon

St. Philip's Episcopal Church, Durham, NC

1/5/06 - Eve of the Feast of the Holy Epiphany

The Rev. Sarah Ball-Damberg

Matthew 2:1-12

A number of years ago, when our girls were still quite small, we went on a trip with our extended family. We were staying in a lovely old farmhouse, a little ways out from the nearest town. It was far enough out in the country that when night fell, it really fell. It got dark outside and even darker inside.

One night while we were there I heard our younger daughter, Marika, cry out from the room where she and her sister, Hannah, were sleeping. I ran in, but it was pitch black and I couldn't see a thing. I felt around in Marika's bed, then in Hannah's bed, and then on the floor between their beds, but I couldn't find her. I could hear her breathing and finally, desperate, I cried out, "Marika, where are you?"

From underneath her bed came the despairing answer, "I don't know."

When Rich came in a minute later, she told him, "I woke up and I didn't know where I am."

It's a bad feeling to get lost in the dark. I haven't gotten trapped under a dark bed in a dark room recently, but I have spent the first week of 2006 waiting for my calendar to arrive. I'm not physically lost, but until my calendar gets here, I'm definitely in the dark.

Feeling lost in one way or another isn't all that unusual. In fact, I'd guess that the vast numbers of self-help books, and "how-to-get-organized" advice, and various lifestyle gurus are all evidence that many of us are trying to find direction. We're trying to not feel lost.

It might be a stretch to call the wise men from Matthew's Gospel "lifestyle gurus," but they were in the business of seeking and giving direction. We've gotten used to thinking of them as "three wise men" or "kings," but that has more to do with tradition than with what Matthew wrote. The Greek text doesn't say "wise men," or "kings," or even "three." The word Matthew uses is magi - which is where we get our word "magic."

In this story, the Magi play an important role, but elsewhere in the Bible they don't come off so well. In other places in the Old and New Testaments Magi give bad advice and false prophecies and are usually seriously misguided. More positively, Magi were astrologers and tried to divine the future by reading the stars.

Now, I don't mean to knock tradition, but when we lose the meaning of the word "magi" we also lose the some of the wonder of this story. This is an account of God and a bunch of men who've been casting around in the dark, looking for answers in the stars. Using one of those stars, God leads them to the newborn baby Jesus - He draws them out of the dark, into the light. Tonight we celebrate that moment when Jesus Christ -- the author of our salvation -- was revealed to men who expected to find salvation in the stars, not in a manger. Tonight we celebrate Epiphany, the manifestation of Jesus Christ to the peoples of the earth.

The Feast of the Holy Epiphany is one of the Principal Feasts on our Calendar of the Church Year - a handy guide to which can be found starting on p. 15 of the Book of Common Prayer. Epiphany continues the celebration of Jesus' Incarnation we began in Advent. On Christmas we celebrated Jesus' birth and tonight we celebrate God's revealing him as His Son to the outside world. On Sunday we'll celebrate Jesus' baptism, and over the following Sundays of Epiphany we'll celebrate his public ministry and, finally, his transfiguration. Then we'll move on to Ash Wednesday and Lent. Our Calendar of the Church Year helps us locate ourselves in liturgical time and in the events of Jesus' life and ministry.

But Epiphany - and all the liturgical seasons - are about more than keeping track of time. They're more than a structure for meditating on Jesus' life and death, and they're certainly more than what one theologian described as a "particularly successful lesson plan for churchwide Christian education." (Leonel Mitchell)

Epiphany is the celebration of a new reality - the reality that God sent His only Son to live and die and be fully human and fully God, revealed for all the world to see. This is our celebration that we, like the Magi, have been drawn out of the dark of sin and despair and being lost -- into the light of Christ. From this moment on - as the poet W.H. Auden wrote - "we are bold to say that we have seen our salvation. . . we may no longer desire God as if He were lacking."

What difference does that make for us in the here and now? For one thing, it means that God's revelation belongs to the whole world. None of us has an inside track on God's grace and the salvation He offers in Jesus. When God drew the Magi in from the dark, He made it clear that Jesus had come for all people, that all nations would come to his light, as Isaiah says. It's no accident that Matthew's Gospel, which has the story of the Magi near the beginning, ends with Jesus giving his disciples the Great Commission - to go and make disciples of all the world. Once we've seen Jesus revealed as God's Son, we're to spread that joyful news far and wide.

Epiphany means we are a people of the light. We are those to whom Isaiah says, "Arise, shine; for your light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you." We are those of whom Isaiah says, "Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn." Not because of anything we've done or who we are, but because of what God has done and Who God is. Because the star stopped here. Because God gave us His Son, and we see his glory face to face. The joy of living in that light is ours and ours to share, now and forever. Amen.

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