January 4, 2009
(Second Sunday after Christmas)
An Epiphany Epiphany
By The Very Rev. Terry White, Dean
Jeremiah 31:7-14 • Psalm 84 • Ephesians
1:3-6,15-19a • Matthew 2:13-15,19-23
(From
The Lectionary Page)
It was the week before Christmas, and it was shaping up to be one of those weeks. I felt like a magnet attracting bad luck. The heating element in the oven went bad right as cookie baking was to begin. I discovered the next morning that frigid temperatures had frozen the water pipes in my shower, and suffice it to say, several other events led me to feel very sorry for myself.
I was looking for a sign that my luck had changed. The day after the frozen shower, I finished several calls in time to head home ahead of predicted freezing rain. With the way my luck was going, I did not want to be driving on ice. I had two homilies for the coming Sunday and Christmas Eve to write, so loaded down with books I started home. Traffic was light, and my mood began to improve. The heating element would have been delivered today, and if my fortune had changed there was a chance I could install it in time for Linda Sue to bake a batch of cookies while I created a homily.
I was a couple of miles from home and decided to top off my car’s gas tank since bad weather was predicted for the following day. I pulled up to the pump, hurried out of the car, twisted the cap off the tank, and went to reach for my wallet and credit card.. . but it was not in my coat. Panicked, I peeked through the driver’s side window and sighed in gratitude when I saw the wallet on the seat. Relieved, I lifted the latch. . .but the door didn’t open. In my haste I had locked the door as I left the car, and there, perched majestically next to my wallet, was my car key.
Now I was prepared for such an event. I have one additional key, and keep it in a safe place. The trouble was, I always imagined I would need this key here at the cathedral, so it was safely tucked in my office desk. My mood was not good. I called home, Tim came and picked me up, and we headed back to the cathedral. By now it was raining. Rush hour traffic had begun, and I came dangerously close to taking the Lord’s Name in vain.
About ten minutes into the drive to Kansas City, I had experienced a revelation. In the midst of feeling very sorry for myself, being put out at my carelessness and how the stars seemed to be lined up against me – at that moment it was made clear that I had received a gift in the form of a solid hour with my son who was driving me to pick up a car key while working hard to cheer me up and doing a pretty good job of it. And the darkness I had created for myself began to give way.
All of us have had such moments. And we often call them epiphanies, revelations that help us see truths.
The Feast of the Epiphany arrives Tuesday, along with the magi who offer the child Jesus three gifts. Enshrined in poem and song, we know much about the journey to Bethlehem, the star, the homage paid Mary and the Child, and the offerings of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The Epiphany celebrates the manifestation of Christ to the whole world, to the gentiles as represented in the Magi.
But Matthew’s account describes another epiphany. The magi, having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod,. . . left for their own country by another road.
How true it is that nearly everyone who encounters Jesus ends up going home another way.
Sam Portaro writes that “the encounter with Jesus changes people, makes them different. After they have met this Jesus, they seem incapable—or certainly unwilling—to go back the same way they had come.” (Daysprings, p.55)
This is what Christmastide offers us each year, an encounter with Heaven so powerful that we take another road, journey another way. Once leaving the manger, the altar, the soup kitchen, and the myriad places where the Christ Child is found, we decide the time has come to travel by another road, and with God’s grace we choose another path.
We pray mightily this morning for new roads to be chosen, that violence will not be chosen this year in the streets of our city, and along the Gaza strip. But old paths are familiar ones, and they are too often traveled out of fear for trying something new.
A phrase I have heard repeatedly over the last several weeks says, “We are not living in normal times.” Whether managing one’s personal budget, one’s department or business, or the cathedral’s budget, there is plenty to be anxious about. And yet we must not forget that Light from Light has come to us, Emmanuel, God-with-us, has come to save us not only from the darkness of the grave but from the darkness that is a part of life. Whether it is darkness created by anxiety, illness, loneliness, violence, or locking our keys in the car.
Like the Magi, we are constantly on a pilgrimage seeking the Light, we bend our knees and wills and hearts before the Holy One. We humbly worship, and then, we seek to head home by another road. We are no longer content with the same scenery, with the same choices. We hear Isaiah’s call to make the crooked straight and the rough places a smooth plain.
From today’s reading from Jeremiah:
Thus says the Lord:
I am going to gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, . .
.
and with consolations I will lead them back, . . ..
in a straight path in which they shall not stumble;
Each of us is here today to encounter again, in Word and Sacrament, the One who is the Hope of the World, and the particular hope we each desire with all our heart. Draw near and adore him.
And hold fast to this promise as Christmastide gives way to Epiphany:
When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among brothers,
To make music in the heart.*
May we adore the Word made Flesh this morning, and head back into the world by another way.
A blessed new year of grace to us all.
* Howard Thurman 1899 - 1981
Honorary Canon of the
Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York City
Star of Wonder
by The Rev. Carol Sanford,
Priest Associate
Happy eleventh day of Christmas. We do not have with us eleven lords a-leaping as the song would have it, but we do have with us the three wise men. Although we celebrate the Epiphany on January 6, the day after tomorrow, the wise men are with us tonight in our gospel. As a child, I wondered about the magi and was especially curious about their country, “Orientar.” You know, We three kings of Orientar. As an adult, I wonder how it was that these characters entered our great story of the Incarnation, the Nativity of Jesus.
I have wondered if they were real persons or if the wise men were narrative devices that Matthew used to impress upon us the magnitude and world-wide importance of Jesus’ birth. As I look at the figures in our nativity scene, I wonder what they might really have looked like, these astrologers or sages or court counselors, as they variously have been identified. Would they have ridden camels? Did they pack their gifts ahead of time or buy them in Jerusalem? And, for me, a wondrous question, did they really follow a star?
Did a heavenly light really move and then stop over the place where Jesus was born? I searched the web for “star of Bethlehem” and came up with all sorts of intriguing possibilities, from a comet or meteor to an alien visitation to a miraculous act of God. We most likely will never know with certainty what engendered the story of the star, but I do have a pet theory of my own regarding that guiding light. My theory is that what we know as the star of Bethlehem remains a miraculous gift of God. After all, whatever may have happened in the night sky two thousand years ago, a light still shines for us today, guiding us to find the place where Jesus is. We see the star when we look for it together and we each have our own ways of recognizing the star.
There is, of course, only the one light, the light of God, but individuals often discover and respond to that light in a unique and personal way. My guess is that most of us here tonight have seen the star that draws us to the love of God in our midst. Surely most of us have felt a tug upon our conscience to donate some time or money to a worthy cause, to find a way that we can help out some part of God’s Creation in need, whether that be a hungry stranger or a downcast friend, an ill relative, a polluted river or a homeless pet. If we have ever felt that urge, we have seen the star.
Perhaps we have experienced wonder in something commonplace, like a fresh blanket of snow on a winter morning or the first crocus bulb pushing forth in early spring or a baby sneezing. Again, the star. Some of us may have felt the desire to amend a bad habit or address an addiction or mend a family quarrel or forgive someone who has hurt us. Perhaps our hearts have swelled along with a beautiful Christmas carol, or maybe we have looked forward to coming to church and felt peace or beauty here. That’s the star, drawing us to come to the place where Jesus is born in our midst.
The star may or may not have been an actual visible event. Perhaps neither miraculous nor astronomically fortuitous, the star may be a literary key to understanding the events that follow in the gospel of Matthew. The three wise men may have been real personages or they may be fictional personifications of important truths. As people living in a science-based culture, we want to know the facts. In the case of the star and the travelers from the east, we may have to settle instead for knowing the truth.
The truth is that, as St. Paul puts it, with the eyes of our hearts enlightened, we may know the hope, the riches, and the immeasurable greatness of God’s power. We might say that with the eyes of our hearts enlightened, we, too, can follow the star to behold the place where love has come to be with us, and we, too, can bring our gifts and lay them before the manger, the cradle of hope and source of all joy.
Let us each take a few moments to sit quietly and consider how the star shines in our own hearts and lives, and what gifts we bring to lay before the Christ child.
Amen. Happy New Year!
