This sermon was preached on Sunday, January 4, 2015. The texts for this sermon are: Isaiah 60:1-6, Ephesians 3:1-12, Matthew 2:1-12, and Psalm 72:1-7,10-14.
Today is the Sunday we celebrate the feast of Epiphany. I didn’t grow up celebrating Epiphany so I’ll have to be honest here—I had to look up what it means. I’ve always understood epiphany as a brilliant flash of insight, a scientist in a white coat shouting, “Eureka!”. When we talk about Epiphany today, though, we’re referring to the moment God first revealed himself in human form to the world. But that feeling of that first meaning of epiphany—the glorious moment when the world clicks into place—still taints my understanding of the second, original meaning we celebrate today.
With my first direct experience with physical manifestations of God, for instance, I was expecting a bit more of the first kind of epiphany moment. I was raised partially Catholic in my early childhood, and when it came time for my First Communion, I had a lot of high expectations. First Communion is a pretty big deal after all—it’s the ceremony in which seven or eight-year-old Catholic children are finally allowed to take part in their first Eucharist. I may not have known much about what it meant, but I did know that it was a special, sacred moment. So holy that you needed to go through a confession to be pure enough to receive it, so powerful that my Protestant mother wasn’t even allowed to leave the pew.
The day before the big day, we practiced the sacrament with unconsecrated wafers. They tasted terrible, like cardboard. I couldn’t believe that the little circles of Styrofoam were really what we’ve been waiting for. So I held out hope that the reason they were so bland was so that in the actual moment I’d be able to taste Jesus. But when the body of Christ was placed on my tongue, it didn’t taste any different than before. The consecrated wafer didn’t feel any different on my tongue at all. I was disappointed. Yet Christ was there. I just hadn’t learned to look.
There has never been, throughout all of human history, a person with such high expectations placed upon him as the Messiah. Generations of prophets exalted him; King of Kings, Prince of Peace, Savior of the World. A person so amazing that wise and learned magi dared to journey possibly thousands of miles just to glimpse him as a baby.
Matthew doesn’t tell us much about these mysterious travelers we celebrate today. We are left with a lot of questions about who they were and where they came from. What were they anticipating when they started out on their journey? We’re told they travelled all this way to meet a future king and that they went first to the most logical place to find one—King Herod’s palace. It would make sense to find such an honored prince living in luxury in the capital city, being doted on by servants. But that’s not where he was. The magi are told that prophet wrote about a ruler born in Judah, in a small town called Bethlehem. So they shift their expectations, change course, and continue on.
Matthew tells us that the magi were overwhelmed with joy when the star they had been following finally came to a rest. But he doesn’t tell us how they felt when they opened the door and saw Mary and the child. What would it have been like to finally lay eyes on the one they had been dreaming of for so many nights? Was he as beautiful in person as they imagined in their hearts? What did it feel like to find the long-awaited Messiah being raised in poverty by a lowly carpenter and a teenaged mother? Were they disappointed? Whether they were or not, what we celebrate today is their recognition of the divinity and humanity of Christ. We remember how they fell to their knees to worship him and offered him the most precious gifts they had. Christ was there, and in that moment, they looked past the dirt floor and the cobwebs in the corners and the spittle down the baby’s front, and they knew him.
I can tell you for certain that the first time I was ever offered a Bible verse as a direct source of comfort and guidance I did not experience that first meaning of epiphany at all. I was seventeen, a senior in high school, and had just heard back from the college I had had my heart set on for months. Applying to college had felt like a long, arduous journey, miles of forms, tests, and interviews, with a ton of high expectations for what lay at the end. Right when I opened the link, my twin sister, sitting next to me, had gotten into an Ivy League school a couple days ago, my parents standing behind me, well, they had been working hard for this moment, too, since before I was born. And here I was, staring at a webpage informing me that I had not been accepted. Deferred. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen.
I don’t remember the first thing I did, but I remember the second. I ran away to my best friend’s house and hid in his room, until his mother gently knocked on the door and slipped a small piece of paper into my hand. Jeremiah 29:11. “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” I wish I could tell you that I found immediate peace in those words, that I felt that sudden burst of insight and realized what I know now—that things were going to work out, that this was just another bend in a long road and all that mattered was that I kept walking toward whatever bright light I could find to guide me. But I didn’t have that kind of epiphany. That moment never happened. God’s words were printed right there for me, I held exactly what I needed to hear in the palm of my hand, but I was too focused on what I thought was supposed to have happened, too caught up in my visions of the future that wasn’t to be, to know it.
The magi in Matthew’s story are open to a change of plans, to twists in the road that lead them farther away from what they first thought they had come for, to dreams that guide them back along another road entirely. But how often am so I blinded by my own expectations that I don’t see the signs pointing in another direction? How many times am I so distracted by what could have been that I forget to appreciate what’s already there? What if I have such high expectations about what meeting Christ is like, that first “ah-ha” epiphany moment, that I’ve missed encountering him in the ordinariness of my own life?
Christmas and New Year’s Day are holidays all about celebrating hope and expectations. The birth of a baby, the start of a new year. Each December 25th, I fall under the spell of beautiful colored lights and sparkly stars. Each January, I get caught up in imagining the new potential of the next twelve months ahead of me. But Epiphany is a different holiday.
On Epiphany, we get to celebrate the quiet presence of Christ, and his miracle of incarnation, away from the triumphant choruses of angels and prophetic declarations, after the tinsel and ornaments are tucked away. We get to find him in slips of paper and tasteless wafers, and in ways that defy our expectations.
I know there are many ways I’ll be disappointed by 2015. There will be lots of things that won’t go the way I pictured, the way I planned. There will be phone calls with bad news, deals that fall through at the last second, frustratingly unproductive meetings. There will be polite rejections, declined invitations, and emails that never receive a reply. I’m learning that being an adult is much more about thinking on your feet than anyone ever let on. That it’s not about creating the most foolproof plan—it’s about being open to strange directions from a greedy King you probably shouldn’t trust and to the dreams that tell you to go home another way. And that moment of Epiphany? That moment we realize Christ is right here with us? It might not be as glorious as I imagine. It just might be about choosing to look past disappointment, letting go of expectations, and falling to my knees to praise God anyway.
Today is the Sunday we celebrate the feast of Epiphany. I didn’t grow up celebrating Epiphany so I’ll have to be honest here—I had to look up what it means. I’ve always understood epiphany as a brilliant flash of insight, a scientist in a white coat shouting, “Eureka!”. When we talk about Epiphany today, though, we’re referring to the moment God first revealed himself in human form to the world. But that feeling of that first meaning of epiphany—the glorious moment when the world clicks into place—still taints my understanding of the second, original meaning we celebrate today.
With my first direct experience with physical manifestations of God, for instance, I was expecting a bit more of the first kind of epiphany moment. I was raised partially Catholic in my early childhood, and when it came time for my First Communion, I had a lot of high expectations. First Communion is a pretty big deal after all—it’s the ceremony in which seven or eight-year-old Catholic children are finally allowed to take part in their first Eucharist. I may not have known much about what it meant, but I did know that it was a special, sacred moment. So holy that you needed to go through a confession to be pure enough to receive it, so powerful that my Protestant mother wasn’t even allowed to leave the pew.
The day before the big day, we practiced the sacrament with unconsecrated wafers. They tasted terrible, like cardboard. I couldn’t believe that the little circles of Styrofoam were really what we’ve been waiting for. So I held out hope that the reason they were so bland was so that in the actual moment I’d be able to taste Jesus. But when the body of Christ was placed on my tongue, it didn’t taste any different than before. The consecrated wafer didn’t feel any different on my tongue at all. I was disappointed. Yet Christ was there. I just hadn’t learned to look.
There has never been, throughout all of human history, a person with such high expectations placed upon him as the Messiah. Generations of prophets exalted him; King of Kings, Prince of Peace, Savior of the World. A person so amazing that wise and learned magi dared to journey possibly thousands of miles just to glimpse him as a baby.
Matthew doesn’t tell us much about these mysterious travelers we celebrate today. We are left with a lot of questions about who they were and where they came from. What were they anticipating when they started out on their journey? We’re told they travelled all this way to meet a future king and that they went first to the most logical place to find one—King Herod’s palace. It would make sense to find such an honored prince living in luxury in the capital city, being doted on by servants. But that’s not where he was. The magi are told that prophet wrote about a ruler born in Judah, in a small town called Bethlehem. So they shift their expectations, change course, and continue on.
Matthew tells us that the magi were overwhelmed with joy when the star they had been following finally came to a rest. But he doesn’t tell us how they felt when they opened the door and saw Mary and the child. What would it have been like to finally lay eyes on the one they had been dreaming of for so many nights? Was he as beautiful in person as they imagined in their hearts? What did it feel like to find the long-awaited Messiah being raised in poverty by a lowly carpenter and a teenaged mother? Were they disappointed? Whether they were or not, what we celebrate today is their recognition of the divinity and humanity of Christ. We remember how they fell to their knees to worship him and offered him the most precious gifts they had. Christ was there, and in that moment, they looked past the dirt floor and the cobwebs in the corners and the spittle down the baby’s front, and they knew him.
I can tell you for certain that the first time I was ever offered a Bible verse as a direct source of comfort and guidance I did not experience that first meaning of epiphany at all. I was seventeen, a senior in high school, and had just heard back from the college I had had my heart set on for months. Applying to college had felt like a long, arduous journey, miles of forms, tests, and interviews, with a ton of high expectations for what lay at the end. Right when I opened the link, my twin sister, sitting next to me, had gotten into an Ivy League school a couple days ago, my parents standing behind me, well, they had been working hard for this moment, too, since before I was born. And here I was, staring at a webpage informing me that I had not been accepted. Deferred. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen.
I don’t remember the first thing I did, but I remember the second. I ran away to my best friend’s house and hid in his room, until his mother gently knocked on the door and slipped a small piece of paper into my hand. Jeremiah 29:11. “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” I wish I could tell you that I found immediate peace in those words, that I felt that sudden burst of insight and realized what I know now—that things were going to work out, that this was just another bend in a long road and all that mattered was that I kept walking toward whatever bright light I could find to guide me. But I didn’t have that kind of epiphany. That moment never happened. God’s words were printed right there for me, I held exactly what I needed to hear in the palm of my hand, but I was too focused on what I thought was supposed to have happened, too caught up in my visions of the future that wasn’t to be, to know it.
The magi in Matthew’s story are open to a change of plans, to twists in the road that lead them farther away from what they first thought they had come for, to dreams that guide them back along another road entirely. But how often am so I blinded by my own expectations that I don’t see the signs pointing in another direction? How many times am I so distracted by what could have been that I forget to appreciate what’s already there? What if I have such high expectations about what meeting Christ is like, that first “ah-ha” epiphany moment, that I’ve missed encountering him in the ordinariness of my own life?
Christmas and New Year’s Day are holidays all about celebrating hope and expectations. The birth of a baby, the start of a new year. Each December 25th, I fall under the spell of beautiful colored lights and sparkly stars. Each January, I get caught up in imagining the new potential of the next twelve months ahead of me. But Epiphany is a different holiday.
On Epiphany, we get to celebrate the quiet presence of Christ, and his miracle of incarnation, away from the triumphant choruses of angels and prophetic declarations, after the tinsel and ornaments are tucked away. We get to find him in slips of paper and tasteless wafers, and in ways that defy our expectations.
I know there are many ways I’ll be disappointed by 2015. There will be lots of things that won’t go the way I pictured, the way I planned. There will be phone calls with bad news, deals that fall through at the last second, frustratingly unproductive meetings. There will be polite rejections, declined invitations, and emails that never receive a reply. I’m learning that being an adult is much more about thinking on your feet than anyone ever let on. That it’s not about creating the most foolproof plan—it’s about being open to strange directions from a greedy King you probably shouldn’t trust and to the dreams that tell you to go home another way. And that moment of Epiphany? That moment we realize Christ is right here with us? It might not be as glorious as I imagine. It just might be about choosing to look past disappointment, letting go of expectations, and falling to my knees to praise God anyway.
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