Scriptures: |
Isaiah 60:1-6 |
I’m playing catch-up with these few Sundays. Last week was a Christmas sermon, even though Christmas was a week-and-a-half earlier; today is an Epiphany sermon, even though Epiphany was four days ago; on the liturgical calendar today is actually called “The Baptism of Jesus”, but because we’re going to be doing some baptisms next week I’m going to deal with that subject then. Fortunately, there are five Sundays in January, so hopefully by the end of the month I’ll be all caught up. Whew. And then, of course, we’re into Ash Wednesday on February 17, and then Lent…..and on-and-on it goes. What fun it is to be living the Christian life with all of these things happening all around you!
So, we come to that fun holy day known as Epiphany. What, you didn’t think Epiphany was a fun time? I know, I know, “We Three Kings”, even though it’s one of our most familiar hymns, is sung in a minor key, and with all five of those verses it sometimes seems like we’re slogging our way through heavy mud. But just think about those glorious gifts. Hear that repeated refrain: “O star of wonder…Guide us to thy perfect light.” The light is shining in the darkness and the darkness is not going to overcome it. The day of Epiphany is all about affirmation – and affirmation sure sounds like fun to me.
Affirmation is what happens when the light of God shines in the world and we are living in that light. Gordon Timbers, a Presbyterian minister in Markham, Ontario, recalls this story from his youth: “I remember a childhood experience of the power and mystery and attraction of light. One of the children’s ministry leaders at my home church many years ago gave a very important lesson about light and about making our Christian witness. Mr. Lockie gathered our group of five- and six-year-olds together in the downstairs meeting hall. He pulled down the blinds, closed the curtains, and turned out the overhead lights, plunging the room into darkness. As we sat there in the dark, he spoke to us quietly from the far end of the room, telling us how important it was for us to come to know the stories of Jesus so that we could come to know the person the stories were about. He told us that when we ourselves knew Jesus we could then make Jesus known to others by our own words and actions. And to demonstrate the effect we could have – even as one individual, even as a young child – he lit one small candle and we were all amazed at the dramatic effect of that one little light as it cast a contrasting glow in the darkness of the room.
“Mr. Lockie asked us to imagine the light of that candle, representing each of us saying a Christlike word or doing a Christlike action, and then to magnify it over and over and over again as our words and actions built the light of Christ in the world around us. This demonstration has stayed with me through the years as an affirmation and encouragement of personal witness and ministry.”
I think most all of us are familiar with the saying, made famous by The Christophers, that “it is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness”. And the corollary to that statement is that one small, lit candle so often leads to another one and another one and….. That’s the key point that Mr. Lockie was seeking to get across to those five-and-six-year-olds. It’s why Christmas Eve services where candles are lit and held high while quietly singing “Silent Night” have such a powerful emotional effect. The lighting of a candle is indeed an epiphany moment.
As I’ve said to you before, the word “epiphany” means “manifestation” or a “miraculous appearance”, and thus the day of Epiphany is intended to mark how Christ was shown, or made manifest, to the world. After an obscure birth in a backwater town, hidden back in a stable and attended only by lowly shepherds, suddenly here come these great and powerful wise men, who were even warned not to follow the star by Herod himself, and they attest to how significant this birth is going to be for years and centuries to come. The birth of Jesus was so significant on the world’s stage that a special spotlight was required. This was no quickly shot-off fireworks from atop seven casinos, to be oohed and aahed over by local Las Vegans along with tons of visitors alike and then forgotten, but this was a steady, long-lasting light for the whole world. As the last line of the familiar hymn’s chorus says it, “Westward leading,still proceeding, Guide us to thy perfect light.”
The hymn talks about three kings, and, of course, we are used to picturing them that way in our mind’s eye and in their artistic representations. In Gian Carlo Menoti’s opera, “Amahl and the Night Visitors”, they are clearly portrayed as kings, finely dressed and with great riches like the gold that Amahl’s mother lusts after (also, one of the kings keeps all kinds of things in his box – “this is my box, this is my box, I never travel without my box” – but I digress). However, in Matthew’s gospel the word that’s used is translated as “wise men”, or in the Greek “magi” or “astrologers”. From “magi”, of course, we get the word “magician”, and maybe since in more recent times “magician” and “astrologer” have taken on such negative connotations – activities to be pooh-poohed or ridiculed – that’s why the idea that they were kings (men of stature and authority) took root. And, actually, Matthew doesn’t tell us precisely how many of them there were – the number three probably entered our popularizing because Matthew does say that they offered three gifts – gold, frankincense, and myrrh – but there could have been many more who made the trip. Also, although Matthew does refer to them as “wise men”, “men” was a generic term in those days, and it doesn’t take too far a stretch of imagination to think that there might have been women among them, for women also studied the arts of astrology and did the work of magi in that first century.
But putting these speculations aside, there are three significant aspects of the magis’ stories that are important for us as we think about Christ being made manifest in the world and how our lit candles can continue to bring that light into all of our own worlds.
First, they were wise enough to discern a deeper meaning and purpose in what other people may have seen and dismissed or even missed seeing altogether. That Star of Bethlehem must have been HUGE in the nighttime sky; think of all those – for this was certainly a star-gazing people, with no neon lights to distract them – who looked up at this great thing…and then went about their business thinking, “Oh, now, that’s an interesting phenomenon.” Think about how many might have thought, “You know, that kind of an omen might actually lead me somewhere…but I’ve got things to do, and I can’t just get up and leave my work and my family right now.” The magi not only saw it but recognized that there was meaning and purpose here – AND they elected to do something about it.
Second, they prepared themselves for the journey, anticipating what they would find at the end of it. They collected gifts that would be worthy of a king, for that is whom they presumed they would find at the end of the journey. And then they made the journey. The commitment to follow through on the process that began from discerning the significance of the star was not abandoned, even though the journey was long and arduous; and they had the tension of possibly incurring Herod’s wrath if they did not return to him with news.
Third, as the text from Matthew reports it, “they were overwhelmed with joy” when they came to the end of their journey, saw that the star had stopped over the stable, saw “the child with Mary his mother”, saw that the only appropriate response was to kneel and pay homage and offer gifts. See, I said that Epiphany is all about fun – the kind of fun that comes from a deep and abiding sense of joy.
This is what these wise folk have to teach us as we seek our own response to the Christ-event in our lives: to be aware of and sensitive to the possibilities in a bright new light that has come into our lives; to prepare ourselves for the journey that is the Christian expression within our own lives and then to follow through with the commitment that we have made; to experience the meaningful and profound joy that sends us to our knees in wonder and awe.
How do we go about offering our own responses to the Christ-event based on awareness and preparation and experienced joy? Gordon Timbers, again, tells about hearing a radio interview of four young men from Victoria, British Columbia, who were planning to spend several months traveling across North America engaging people in random acts of kindness. As they traveled they would stop here to help a farmer mend a fence, and stop there to help a homeowner paint a shed, and then move on like that from place to place. That’s such a great concept: random acts of kindness – because they do indeed have a positive effect on the lives of other people.
But we can also have a positive effect on other people by living out our faith on a day-by-day basis, intentionally and purposefully building the light of Christ’s presence in the world. We can think about all the people who persist in prayerfully and faithfully making a positive difference by speaking and acting as they believe Jesus would want them to speak and act: Christian women and men and children and youth who will say and do the needful and helpful and grace-filled things, thereby becoming agents of God’s power and mystery and attraction, building the light of God’s presence in the world.
The whole time I’ve been working on this sermon there have been two little refrains that have been kicking around in my mind which seemed to have relevance for what we’re talking about – one negative and one positive. The first is a snatch of dialogue from Tennessee Williams’ play “The Glass Menagerie” when Tom Wingfield, the protagonist, expresses his hatred for the factory where he works, and he claims to envy the dead whenever he hears his mother’s all too hearty, yet whiny daily call of “Rise and Shine! Rise and Shine!” He’s reflecting on that experience all of us have had at one time or another of just not wanting to get out of bed to face another day. But the other refrain – quite the opposite -- is the opening line from that song I imagine most of us sang at church camp: “Rise and shine and give God the glory, glory” – which then repeats, and the whole experience of singing it just fills you with the desire – no, the need – to get out there and offer the light of God to everyone within shouting distance.
It is time for us to rise up and shine the light of God in every corner where darkness threatens – to make real the vision of Isaiah:
“Arise, shine; for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.”
Isaiah was also a realist about what awaits us when we make the effort, for in the very next verse he says,
“For darkness shall cover the earth,
and thick darkness the peoples;”
Nevertheless, nevertheless, he comes back to the promise:
“but the Lord will arise upon you,
and his glory will appear over you.
“Nations shall come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn.”
So, like Isaiah, we also must work to make sure that that light and that glory are truly conquering the darkness and letting the Lord arise within us. We need to confront the darknesses that are in the world and the darknesses that are in our souls – each of our souls, where evil and sin wait to snuff out the small light of a wavering candle or the great light of the Star of Bethlehem.
“O star of wonder…Guide us to thy perfect light.”
Amen.
Dave Pomeroy
First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ
Las Vegas, NV
January 10, 2010