January 6, 2013
Epiphany
Ephesians 3:1-6
Matthew 2:1-12
(prayer)
I suspect that a few of you (on entering the church this morning) may have thought: “Hey, they still have their Christmas Tree up.”
Well, it is not in honour of my spouse’s (and others) Ukranian heritage, it is not because we didn't have time to take them down... but because (as far as the church is concerned) the Christmas season does not end on December 25th, but in fact, starts then.
The 12 days of Christmas (on Gregorian Calendars begins on December 25th and continues for 12 days through January 5th.
So, Christmas didn’t really end until yesterday. Today (January 6th) is the next special day for the church: Epiphany – the day we remember the story of the magi (the wisemen).
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As a minister, a pastor, a preacher, I see it as one of my obligations to help fellow Followers of Jesus increase our Biblical understanding, our Biblical knowledge, our Biblical literacy. And so, as I have done before, I must note that the Bible does not support the visual tableau of having the magi visit Jesus at the manger (in spite of the words to some of the hymns we're singing today). Now, I know that is the way many of our Christmas card and manger scenes and crèches make it look (camels alongside sheep; three kings among the shepherds). It is not a bad amalgam of the Bible birth stories, but we have no Biblical indication that it ever happened that way.
Truth be told, the manger version is only told in the book of Luke; the magi and their star are only mentioned in Matthew (there is no star over the manger in the Bible). As we heard this morning, the Magi entered a house (not a stable) to see Jesus and Mary. A couple more facts (or lack of facts):
- ÿ The number of magi is never mentioned. The word is plural, so more than one, but the Bible says nothing about ‘three wisemen’. All it says is that there were gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Just because there were three different gifts doesn’t necessarily mean three wisemen. Maybe there were three magi, but maybe not. And,
- ÿ There is no indication that Jesus was a newborn infant when the magi came. In fact, when we read on in Matthew chapter 2 and hear about King Herod’s infanticide plans, he orders the death of all male children two years old or younger. At the time of Magi’s visit, Herod thought Jesus could be as old as two.
Luke’s and Matthew’s Christmas stories have only one minor contradiction (did Joseph and Mary formally get married before or after Jesus was born), but that's the only place where their stories don't match up. Our Christmas gospels are a bit different in their focus, but for the most part, these distinct versions can dovetail into each other:
Angels could have spoken separately to both Mary and Joseph,- Joseph could have considered calling off the wedding before that angel convinced him otherwise,
- Mary could have gone to live with Elizabeth while she was pregnant, feeling at peace and blessed in her unexpected pregnancy,
- Joseph and Mary could have traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem for a census when she was very close to her due date,
- Jesus could have been born in a necessary-manger and was visited by shepherds on the night of his birth,
- The family could have gone back to Nazareth a month later after offering the required levitical sacrifice at the temple for a woman who had given birth,
- For some unknown reason, the family could have ended up back in Bethlehem, living in a house, a couple of years later, where they were visited by generous magi,
- After an angelic warning, they could have moved (in a panic) to Egypt to escape the king’s jealous wrath and lived there until after King Herod died,
- Then they could have finally settled back in Nazareth, where Jesus grew in wisdom and stature gaining both God’s and people’s admiration.
It takes a little juggling, but Matthew and Luke don’t have to raise huge historicity questions as to the early events of Jesus’ life according to the Gospel tradition.
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That’s all well and good and (to be honest kind of interesting), but for me, the question people of faith should be asking (as we look at our Bibles) is “Why?” … not “How?”. Why, not how.
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Matthew tells us about Jesus and the Magi, not simply to re-tell an interesting event in Jesus’ early life, but to set up his entire Gospel and its wider message of Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah whose message and actions led to his crucifixion, but also resulted in his resurrection which solidified him as the Son of God in the eyes of his followers.
Why does Matthew’s gospel tell us about Magi following a star and giving gifts of:
power (gold [wealth] was a means to have power),- worship (incense was commonly used in the temple to symbolize prayers lifted up to God) and
- even honour in death (myrrh was used by the ancient Egyptians, along with other compounds, for the embalming of mummies). It also comes from a plant related to the one that is the source of the (so called) Balm of Giliad – a healing agent.
Matthew speaks of Magi and their gifts because he wants to go on to speak about Jesus being a powerful, prayerful and healing agent in our relationship with our God and that Jesus will be honoured in this way, even in death.
The Magi’s story are among the first words of the Gospel and they lead directly to the final words when the Risen Christ 28:18… said to the [remaining disciples], ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’
Where did the star come from; how did it move so specifically to show where Jesus was; how many wisemen were there; was Jesus two hours old or two years old?
Those are all interesting and wonderful ‘how’ questions. But they pale against the wonder-filled, spiritual searching that can result from an open-ended ‘why’!
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This day in the calendar of our church year (January 6th) – Epiphany – is dominated with the image of light. The word Epiphany has Greek roots meaing “to appear” or “to show forth” [Phan (to show) Epi (forth)]. Epiphany means something has been revealed or realized – we could say a light has gone on. A couple of dictionary definitions I read this week were:
a. A sudden manifestation of the essence (or meaning) of something.
b. A comprehension (or perception of reality) by means of a sudden intuitive realization.
A good synonym for Epiphany is… "Aha!" or "I get it!"
This is the time within the cycle of our year when we are encouraged to appreciate the ‘Aha’ moments of our spiritual searches – to wonder about the movement of God in our lives; to marvel at the influence that Jesus Christ has on who we are… and who we can become.
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When Paul of Tarsus wrote to the Christians in Ephesus, he was already under arrest for his anti-empire work as an Apostle of Christ Jesus.
Paul’s story is one of personal epiphany. He was zealously opposed to the sect of people who followed Jesus after the crucifixion. He saw them as teaching outside the traditions of Moses and the prophets (as blasphemers) – particularly because they seemed to revere this dead Jesus more than the live temple priests and leaders. Paul was so incensed about this Jesus-Movement that he volunteered to travel around to find and arrest any followers of Jesus’ Way and bring them back before the Temple Council in Jerusalem.
And yet, a few short years later, this same Paul was facing execution at Roman hands over his zealous involvement as a leader in this same Jesus Movement. What bridged that gap for Paul – he had an epiphany – a so-called conversion experience.
Paul never described the how or what happened to him; all we have from the Apostle himself is the reference to ‘mystery’ and ‘revelation’ in today’s letter passage.
About twenty years after Paul’s death, the author of the Gospel of Luke penned a second volume we have come to know as the Book of Acts. In Acts, Paul’s epiphany begins with a literal flash of light that knocks him off his horse while he is on one of his Christian hunting exhibitions. The light blinds him, but he hears a voice asking “I Am Jesus; why do you persecute me?” Up to that point, Acts had described the ‘how’ of Paul’s mission (he was given a letter of authority from the Council; he travelled to different places where the Christians were rumoured to be), but now he was asked [that more important question] ‘why’. The voice tells the now-blind Paul to find his way to a certain home in Damascus where a man said to him, ‘Brother, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’
When Paul opens his eyes, he literally and figuratively saw things in a new light.
Is that how it happened? What we know for sure is that this is what the story was twenty years after the fact.
For Paul in his lifetime, it was not the what and how of the experience that mattered but the impact of why whatever happened, happened.
As he wrote to the Ephesians, Paul, they ‘why’ had manifested itself to a ministry dedicated to sharing the story and experience of Jesus with the world beyond his own people (with gentiles). It is Ironic that at first, Paul couldn’t envision a place within Judaism for the Christians and then later, saw a place for Jesus in the lives of people from countless backgrounds. In our reading today, we read Paul’s realizations that Gentiles were fellow-heirs of God’s promise (originally revealed to the Hebrew people) – that all followers of Jesus, no matter how they came to that faith were members of the same body and sharers in the promises of Christ Jesus through the Good News. If you read back in Ephesians chapter two, you can hear Paul’s theories about how and why Jesus makes this possible: 2:14For [Christ-crucified] is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. 15He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, so that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, 16and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. 17So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; 18for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father.
Paul even symbolized his mission in how he referred to himself. His name is Saul, but after his conversion and his call to minister to the gentile (greek-speaking) world, he used the greek version of his name, Paul. That's a bit of the why behind how this Apostle was known.
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I am a detail-guy. I like the facts behind the facts – the trivia, the memorable moments along the way. I know as well as anybody that one can get lost in the details – miss the forest for the trees, so to speak.
And so, I appreciate those moments of clarity, those flashes of insight, those epiphanies and Aha experiences where all that matters is the impact – and trying to understand why I am such a victim of God’s grace.
That is an important ‘why’ of our faith: that we are loved and cared for by our God not out of anything we have done or made happen, but out of the gift and honour of the source of all that is.
Grace is our why!
Grace is our why.
Let us pray:
ad lib
***offering***
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