Epiphany 2019

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

Today is Epiphany. But like Christmas and Easter, Epiphany is not just a day; it is the beginning of a new season. It takes more than a day to immerse ourselves in the mystery of God-with-and-for-us. It takes time, real, lived time.

Though sketchy on detail, the story of the magi is well-enough known. A group, of unspecified number, of astrologers who had seen a star in the sky and interpreted it to mean the birth of the king of the Jews; and who had left all that was familiar and set out bearing gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh to pay homage. How exotic they seem to us, with their belief that the universe is interwoven; that what takes place ‘out there,’ ‘beyond’ has a bearing on our lives, and vice versa. We no longer hold to such primitive ideas. If we did, we wouldn’t be facing a global climate-change crisis of our own making.

A caravan of camels, ships of the desert, navigating by starlight, feeling their way in the dark towards their hoped-for goal. Missing the mark. Unintentionally endangering the very treasure that they have set out for, at least on the surface. And on the surface, again, it is all so exotic. But beneath the surface, it is so very ordinary. For if an epiphany is a revelation of God-with-and-for-us, don’t such moments almost always happen by starlight? When we are arrested by a beauty that is commonplace and yet invisible as we go about our daily business, and on a hunch move through the darkness towards the light? Moments such as births, weddings, deaths, in which the day-to-day no longer makes adequate sense and we come, together with others, before God, in all our hopes and fears, and, beyond them all, in wonder?

What we might just discover in such moments of epiphany, in the light of a star shining in the dark, is that God comes searching in the dark for his lost children. For we are all lost, in our eternal preoccupations, our endless distractions. And God comes searching, to bring sons and daughters home. If I may be so bold, I might suggest that our Sunday morning congregation bears testimony to a people who need to hear the clarion call to lift up your hearts, a people who have been waiting in darkness for light to come and for sons and daughters to return from far away. No?

As I read through the lectionary for the season of Epiphany, patterns emerged. Across our Old Testament readings, the recurring theme of people being gathered together by the Lord. Across our readings from the New Testament Epistles, the theme of being members of one body. And across our readings from the Gospels, a series of moments in which, in the footsteps of the magi, people commonly experience epiphanies. Next Sunday, 13 January, the Baptism of Christ. The following Sunday, 20 January, the wedding at Cana. And at Candlemas, 3 February, Simeon looking forward to a peaceful death, not a fearful one. Births, marriages, and deaths. Baptisms, weddings, and funerals. Occasions where a star explodes in the sky and we are drawn towards, drawn into, the mystery of God-with-and-for-us.

Paul, writing to the saints in Ephesus, declares that ‘through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known’ before the gods of this world, as we participate in the mystery that is that, in Christ, we have access to God in boldness and confidence. That is some bold claim! And yet it is shown to be made not in vain, for even in our pluralist, post-Christendom age, where people no longer feel any compulsion to be at gathered church Sunday by Sunday, and bow down before the gods of driven-ness—in leisure and in technology, at work and play—even still, epiphanies are given, and women and men find themselves setting out in response. Setting out, not necessarily in boldness and confidence, but in the reflected, fickle, starlight of hope that God might look kindly on them and theirs. Setting out, empty-handed, not daring to believe that they have any gift to bring.

But here is the thing that has been entrusted to us: access to God in boldness and confidence. Access to God, who has come among us, to seek and to save, to liberate us from whatever god oppresses us, and to accept the gift of our lives, offered to his praise. This is what has been entrusted to us, to share with the world. Not as information, but as invitation. When our neighbours come to us, do we see them as gifted by God, as those who might help us to give voice to praise, as our hearts thrill and rejoice (Isaiah 60:5)? Or are we troubled by their coming, by the manner in which it disrupts our comfortable life? In the insincerity of our welcome, in the manipulation of our words, do we give them good reason to return to their own country by another road, avoiding returning to us?

This Epiphany, we shall take our time. You cannot rush in the dark.