Epiphany

Beckoning God – who called the rich to travel toward poverty,

The wise to embrace your folly,

The powerful to know their own frailty;

Who gave to strangers a sense of homecoming in an alien land

And to stargazers true light and vision as they bowed to earth –

We open ourselves this epiphany to your signs for us.

This morning we celebrate Epiphany.  We remember the wise men’s visit to the baby Jesus.  We remember how they knelt before the Christ child and celebrated him as king of the Jews and the Gentiles.

However, as we look at that story, it may actually be Herod, Herod who is known in the history books as Herod the Great, who is the most interesting character.

Herod is not pleased when these wise men from the East arrive on his doorstep saying they have observed a star and have come looking for the child who was born king of the Jews so that they can pay him homage.

After all, Herod himself was King of the Jews and, like other leaders in history, spent most of his time as leader working hard to squash any opposition to his authority.  Over his almost 40 years in the position he had succeeded in taking Jerusalem, in removing and executing the king of Judea, and in beginning to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.  By all accounts he was a man who clung to his power, his wealth, and his position in the Roman Empire as King of the Jews, very carefully. 

So we should hardly be surprised that when Herod gets word that the Messiah, the King of the Jews, has been born in Bethlehem, he begins to scheme.  He sends these wise men to Bethlehem to find this child, telling them that they should return and tell him where the child is so that he too can go and pay him homage. 

Now we all know that Herod had no intention of paying Jesus homage.  We know that in time Herod gives the horrifying order that all male children in Bethlehem under the age of two should be killed.

But before all of that, the wise men go and visit the child Jesus.  And they bring him gold, frankincense and myrrh.  Terrible gifts for a baby but very fitting gifts for a king, for the messiah.  Gold and frankincense to show that he is much more than a simple baby born in a manager and myrrh, an ointment used in burial, to foreshadow the death he will eventually suffer on the cross. 

And having come, having paid Jesus homage as king of the Jews and Gentiles, the wise men are warned in a dream not to return to Herod.  And so, as today’s lesson ends by saying, they left for their own country by another road. 

For that short line tells us so much.  It tells us that their encounter with Mary and Joseph, with the Christ child, had a profound effect on them.  It suggests that having hailed Jesus as king they could not go back to serving the earthly king Herod.  They had to find another road. 

Over the Christmas season a lot of people came to pay homage.  But the question for us all, having journeyed to Bethlehem, having celebrated the birth of Christ, is have we had the courage to return to our own countries, our own lives, our own families and workplaces, by another road?

For that is the great test of Christmas.  Today, Epiphany, we are called to reflect upon what effect Christmas had upon us.  Having bought the gifts, sung the carols, prepared the meals, heard the scripture – having encountered the word made flesh in the form of the vulnerable baby Jesus – have we returned to our countries by another road?  Has this experience been transformative?  Has it caused us to question the Herods that we serve?  Has it caused us to think about what we need to do, how we need to change, in order that we might serve our true king, our Lord Jesus? 

An Epiphany is an ah-ha moment, a moment of clarity, a moment when we see things again for the first time, a moment that causes us to change course, to re-evaluate, to break out of our routine.  Epiphany should be a time when all of us as Christians have an ah-ha moment in our own lives.  A moment when we remember what is truly important, what is truly valuable In our lives.  But also a moment when we realise what in our own life we need to let go of.  A moment when we, like the wise man, realise that God may be calling us to choose another road, to go another way. 

As such, Epiphanies are not easy.  It’s always easier, less frightening, to go back the way you came than to find a new road, than to change paths. 

I’m sure it must have been frightening for the wise men to return to their country by another road.  For having disobeyed a direct order from Herod the Great, having failed to return to him with their news, their lives would most certainly have been in danger.  If Herod was willing to kill all the male children in Bethlehem, we ca only imagine what he would have done to the wise men.  But the wise men did return by another road.  Having had their Epiphany, having chosen to serve Jesus, they could not go back the way they came, they could not go on serving Herod, their lives would never again be the same. 

Similarly, it would be easiest for all of us here today to begin this new year the same way we began the last.  It would be easier for us to keep following our same old routines and patterns.  But at Epiphany we remember that sometimes God calls us to return by another road, to reevaluate, to change course. 

The church is at a juncture In history where once again, as we have done many times in the past, we need to find a new road, a new path.  Our old ways of being are no longer sufficient.  We are realizing how colonial they were and are, how they are no longer life giving in the same way they once were.  We are the most secular diocese in North America. 

We need to be like the wise men and encounter the Christ child and then be changed by that encounter.  To see the radical humility and vulnerability of God there in the manger and then dare to live differently.  To defy the Herods of this world, to walk away from privilege and power, to stop associating with empire and to instead walk the road of love, service and compassion.  This is our call as individuals; this is our call, collectively, as church. 

Let me offer a prayer for you all this morning: 

When the song of the angels is stilled

When the star in the sky is gone

When the king and princes are home

When the shepherds are back with their flocks

The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost

To heal the broken

To feed the hungry

To release the prisoners

To rebuild the nations

To bring peace among the people

To make music in the heart. 

Amen.