The Feast of the Epiphany - January 6, 2025
My friends, I speak to you this morning in the name of one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. Please be seated.
Good morning again, Epiphany. Welcome back to church, the second time in two days for many of you. And welcome back on a big day for us in particular as the Church of the Epiphany, a day that is packed with meaning and tradition, a day that is often neglected and overlooked in the wider Christian world in modern America, and even sometimes in the Episcopal Church. With the busyness and tradition and pageantry of Advent and Christmas, what even is Epiphany?
Well, I won’t be able to answer that fully in this brief homily today, which is different from a sermon mainly by its length. Epiphany is a subject broad enough that we could write a whole book on it (like this one) or have an entire season devoted to it, so I’ll just try to hit a few of the many highlights this morning. In part, important enough that I’ll likely repeat it throughout these next few months, Epiphany is the revelation of Jesus as the son of God, as Christ. While that epiphany happens in today’s particular story, yes, it also happens throughout the entirety of the gospel. Some, like our characters today, are able to pick up on Christ’s divinity quickly, but for others, like for some of us in the church even today, well, that realization can take a while, and that’s okay. We’ll plumb the depths of this day and this season and Christ’s divinity over the next few months.
Today though, we have the story of the magi, of the wise men from the East who came to
Jerusalem, and then by my and popular addition to sort of round out the story, we also have Joseph and Mary fleeing to Egypt to avoid persecution by King Herod. First, the magi. Though it never says so, church tradition holds that there were three wise men because of the three gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and that they rode camels, because, how else would you travel? I’m sure you’ve seen art depicting these three on camelback. I myself have ridden short distances by camel in Egypt, and I can tell you it is not the most comfortable mode of transportation. These camel-backed wise men were equipped with treasure chests, so this was not a “gap year backpacking through the Middle East” situation, and they follow a star – a light in the darkness, to use a phrase I’ve used repeatedly in sermons here – they follow a star to find Jesus and they have come to pay him homage, many translations instead say they have come to worship him.
There are several important images and messages to briefly touch on here. First, our presence as the Church of the Epiphany, as a star in the night in western Michigan, as a witness to the light so that some may find God... well that’s a big one, and that’s one I hope to expand on this year. The star features in our logo after all; I could preach an entire series of sermons on that image alone. So too is the imagery of the magi important: the wealthy, the learned, those wise men influential enough to meet with a foreign king, well, they too have a place with this Savior who was born in a manger and first appeared to shepherds... but it surely took an open mind for them to believe that this humble child, born in Bethlehem, was indeed born king of the Jews, was worthy of their devotion.
Now, these open-minded magi have a lively history in church tradition; these are the only twelve verses about them in the entirety of scripture, and yet they play such a large role in our Christmastime songs and stories. They were promoted to kings as early as the middle of the second century, they were key fixtures of European art throughout history, and they feature prominently in children’s pageants still today. I believe they play that large role because of the aspirational nature of the church; we want to believe that if we knew that God had come to be with humanity on earth, we too would travel great distances by whatever means necessary to offer all that we had at God’s feet in worship. I pray that is the case for us today, that at least we aspire to that level of devotion to God.
Additionally, I added three verses to the lectionary selection today (something I’m allowed to do, I promise), because they are key verses to this whole Epiphany story, and we never get to them in the lectionary outside of this one opportunity. Verses 13-15 tell of the holy family’s escape to Egypt. The magi have now returned home by another road, and an angel appears to Joseph warning him that Herod plans to kill him, and so, Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus here become refugees. This fulfills more Jewish prophecy, as I touched on yesterday with Micah and Jeremiah, this time out of the book of Hosea, but it also puts our God and Savior in a different light: born to a powerless virgin in a lowly stable, worshiped by poor shepherds and wealthy wise men alike, yes, and also, on the run from the state, from the powers that be, crossing borders to find safety.
Epiphany is a chance for us to fully understand that Jesus has been revealed as God, that God’s abundant love led to the incarnation and then God was fully revealed in the person of Jesus. And, because of this story, we know that Christ was himself a refugee baby, an illegal immigrant, with parents running from an unjust ruler, running from the law, running from an authoritarian state, one that would later put him to death on a cross.
Friends, I know that introduces yet another facet to an already full Epiphany story, and I promised I would be brief in covering the multitudes this morning, but as we daily try to figure out what it means to be Christ followers, to be a community committed to love and welcome and justice and peace, we must not forget that while we, like the star in the night, need to shine brightly with the abundant love of God for others, that while we like the poor shepherds, need to sing praises to God on Sunday mornings here in this building, that while we like the wealthy wise men, aspire to do everything we can to offer our own gifts at God’s feet, that God chose to start life on earth as an impoverished refugee, that Christ’s very parents fled their home, living in terror of the powers that be.
The feast of the Epiphany, the entire season of Epiphany, they give us a chance to recognize who Christ is, who God reveals Godself to be, and they give us a chance to live our lives in response to this revelation, this manifestation, this glory of God made flesh. May we continue to commit to explore the depths of that revelation here together as the Church of the Epiphany, and may we as a community live lives formed by a God who appeared to us as a baby in a lowly manger, as a refugee unsafe from those with earthly power, and as one worthy of our very lives as our offerings, our own gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Amen.
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