The Rev. Julie Guengerich Hutson
Isaiah 60: 1-6 + Psalm 72: 1-7, 10-14 + Ephesians 3: 1-12 + Matthew 2: 1-12
Christ, be our light. Shine in our hearts. Shine in the darkness. Amen.
Today is the day! It’s Epiphany! In the early church and still in the Eastern church, today is a grand celebration. It is one of three festivals that the church celebrated as primary festival days…Easter, Pentecost, and Epiphany. Because those were the days, it was widely held, that revealed the identity of God, who God truly is. Risen, with us, and Lord of all.
But in our house, it’s the day that the manger scenes are finally complete. When we first set the manger scenes out somewhere around the first Sunday in Advent, only Mary and Joseph get to come out. An angel if we have one. On Christmas Eve we try to remember to place the Baby Jesus out, amid all of the church services and meals of that evening. But that’s another sermon for another time.
But it’s on this day, the Feast of the Epiphany, the day that brings the Christmas season to a close, that we get to set out the Magi.
This afternoon when we go home, I’ll set them in their rightful places. Up until today they’ve been stuffed away in the closet. But this morning, they came along with me!
(Gets out the wooden magi). These magi are pretty unique. They were given to me many years ago by close friends who took it upon themselves to create this one of a kind nativity set out of felt, sequins, and two by fours. I don’t know where they got this idea; it was even before the days of Pinterist! But they are sturdy, solid characters.
And on the other end of spectrum are these glass magi. I suppose it would be obvious to say that they couldn’t keep their excitement about Jesus’ birth to themselves…you could see right through them!
And these are much more traditional…they look like three old white guys. I’m not sure how they would have had the stamina to make that long trek to find Jesus. They say it probably took two years.
As a counterpoint to them, I purchased a nativity set three years ago. All of the characters, Mary, Joseph, Jesus, the angel, and…the magi…are dark skinned, which is very likely closer to what they actually looked like. Contrary to what we’d like to think, they were not…Scandinavian.
And then there are the magi that belong to the nativity set from here at Luther Memorial. They have finally made the long journey from down near the kitchen where they started early in Advent, to the baby Jesus, with their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrhh.
Whoever they are, they have captured our imaginations as mysterious visitors to the Christ child. Poets have written of them. Artists throughout time have depicted them in paintings and sculpture and sketches. Garrison Keillor has imagined their story on A Prairie Home Companion. Songs are written of them, including the one we sang this morning.
But while the details are missing from their story, the significance of their story is very present with us, particularly on this day.
So, today, these magi, are going to offer to us some pieces of their story.
These magi want us to know that when they went to Jerusalem, they were searching for the King, the Messiah, the one who had been promised to the Jews. They weren’t Jews themselves, but there was something about this star. Something about the way this star kept appearing to each of them…they knew that they needed to go look for the King, to worship him. But this king that they found in Jerusalem? He was not what they expected. He was afraid. Afraid that someone else would take his power. Afraid that he would not always be in control. He was mean spirited, too. And crafty. They could tell just by looking at his eyes. And so, although he asked them to return to him and tell him where the infant King was, they didn’t. After they had worshiped the Christ child, they avoided Jerusalem and King Herod on their return.
These magi want us to know about the gifts that they brought to the child. Gold and frankincense, and myrrh. The gold was brought to him because it was a gift fitting for royalty. The frankincense was used in worship of a god. And the myrrh was an embalming oil, a rich oil used to anoint bodies for burial. In the giving of these gifts, the magi were acknowledging who this baby was and what his life would hold. He was God. And he was the King of the Jews who would die at the hands of the very government who was seeking to destroy him even now.
These dark skinned magi want us to understand that they were outsiders. They were foreigners, from the east, legend puts them from India, Persia, and Arabia. But the specific country of origin is less important than their role as ‘the other’. And this is no small point, in fact, it may be the most crucial part of this story. Because in their “otherness” the magi show us something of the wisdom of God in its rich variety. God does not come only to the Jews. God comes to all people, to all nations. And in Jesus, God is fully revealed. Even these foreigners come to worship him. The God in the nativity story and in the story for this great feast of Epiphany is not a God to one people only, but a God whose love is wide and deep.
And these magi, their message is one of revelation. God as revealed to us, to all people, in Christ Jesus. In our second reading today, Paul notes that this mystery has been revealed through the spirit, and that now all people, even the Gentiles, and friends that is us, have become heirs.
It’s startling to remember that we were not always God’s elect. As Americans of some socio-economic status, we are used to being the insiders. We are accustomed to being among the “haves” rather than the have nots. But it is only in Christ Jesus that we are sharers in the promise.
Paul goes on to say that it is the job of the church, and that is us, to make known the wisdom of God in its rich variety. In its rich variety. It means that we, as the church, must open our hearts and our minds and our doors to the possibility, no to the Scriptural certainty, that in Christ, all nations come to God. That we, in this great nation, are not the only ones, in fact we are those who came late. We are those who were grafted in, adopted into the family of God. Scripture tells us this over and over and we rejoice and give thanks for that. And that makes it all the more reason that we, of all people, should understand and embrace the Biblical truth: that the Gospel, as it was born that day, is for all people. We say it over and over, but we must live like we believe that it is true.
This feast of the Epiphany is our call to action. Epiphanies do not sneak up on you, they arrive suddenly…BAM! BOOM! Or as the prophet Isaiah put it…ARISE! SHINE! Because soon nations will come to the manger. All nations. Many nations. From east and west, north and south. This will be the call. This will be the time.
God is not ours to hold onto and claim as our own. If the magi teach us anything it is that we are all called to follow the light of God’s revelation. We may journey with strangers and with people with whom we share nothing in common. We may be uncomfortable and we may be stretched. We may be asked to gather together our precious gifts and follow the light to an unknown place, in search of this newborn king. But how blessed will we be when we arrive there at the manger and can worship him. May we, like the magi, be overwhelmed with joy.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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