A promise of true hope
Epiphany | Matthew 2:1-12
One of the most memorable things from my childhood in the church occurred around the Creche during Advent and Christmas. Like many churches, we had a nativity scene absent the baby Jesus. And then, on the eve of Christmas, he would appear. We didn’t parade him in; it was more subtle and humble. We were like the shepherds, coming to see the one who had appeared.
In a way, more memorable for me were the Wise Men, who traveled from the back of the church to the front, arriving, of course, on Epiphany.
My little eyes would notice them come, window sill by window sill each week.
Their presence, finally, at Epiphany brought a kind of completeness to the scene.
About those Wise Men
Many Christmas pageants have sought to include the Wise Men. And many liturgical snobs have sought their exclusion.
But I think this embodiment of the story, with these Wise Men coming to visit a king who is not their own, purely by a vision in the stars is alluring. And it casts a vision for what Epiphany itself is to us.
It is both wonderful and discouraging, however.
Because the Epiphany isn’t about the Wise Men. It, too, is about Jesus. And the arrival of these travelers is more than simply evangelism.
These men follow a sign.
A sign that we know reflects the very manifestation of God. We might wonder if they knew what they were following. But to that, I’d probably say something like “do we?”
And like most of us, these supposedly wise men don’t go to the people that we know who know about the Messiah: the shepherds. They go to the people they assume would know about him.
The people in the capital.
In our world it is like going to the politicians, the judges, the business men. The titans.
These people must know about the birth of their future king. Because they are the ones who ensure kings are like them.
And it is the current king who uses these men to get the information he will need for a genocide.
The Rest of the Story
As much as we try to remove the Wise Men from Christmas, we do this long after removing the massacre of the Holy Innocents from our minds.
And these cowardly Wise Men don’t warn anyone of the vision they have of Herod. They’re willing to share the happy vision of a future king to strangers and withhold the frightening vision of a present one to those who are threatened. Even when the slaughter of children could be prevented.
So just as much as the Wise Men are a part of Christmas, so is the massacre of innocent children in the genocidal rage of Herod. And so is the flight of the Holy Family to Egypt as refugees. And their return years later.
Our erasure of the evil prevents us from seeing the very manifestation of God’s reign. Because we want so desperately for the message of the Incarnation to be wanted by all people. And the story shows that all people want it except for the powerful. For the promise of this Messiah is that they will be brought low.
Epiphany is more than a message to the gentiles.
That’s how this principal feast is often described in the western church. And why we focus on the story with the Wise Men rather than the baptism of Jesus. That even people who weren’t part of Israel would recognize the reign of this Messiah.
But such a vision seems too small. It doesn’t even try to wrestle with the evil shown in the story!
And how can we if the church has spent 1500 years avoiding this most elementary part of the story?
That a new king being born would kinda upset the existing king!
Our Fear
I suspect our own reluctance to dwell on our own expectations of power, influence, and control make this all pretty plain.
There is a kind of inevitability to this response that is natural to our vision of power, not God’s. Our fear and avoidance or our need to universalize the good and erase the division reflects our desire to control God and this world.
When the light of the world is manifested, he comes as love. As a means of making our divisions cease. As the truth we long for.
Our need to keep divisions divides us. Just like our need to maintain power over others ensures there are haves and have-nots in this world. Even while following a Messiah who preaches that we all must be haves or we will all be have-nots.
We are the source of our own division.
So as long as there are refugees in the world, we are Herod. Or else we are Egypt.
And in Jesus God seeks to redeem both!
What then is Epiphany for us?
It is a light when what we see is darkness. It is the manifestation of God in our midst.
This is the other way we refuse to see.
And it is a vision that makes shepherds in the field sing with joy and young couples trust in the word of angels.
It is a sign that the world can see and even in our own confused state, we can see and hear it too. And long for its truth to be revealed in our world.
Even when our own fears may overwhelm us, the promise that God’s love wants better for us and everyone is the most important message of all.
Because it is hope.
The evils of the world like us divided and controlled. Fearing for our next meal and the future of our institutions. They like us at each other’s throats and frustrated with our leaders.
And what they like most of all is despair. When we’re convinced that nothing can change. Because we’ve come to believe we can’t change. Even convincing us that we hate change and love comfort.
All things that destroy Christian hope. The bedrock of faith.
Hope is our everything. It is life itself.
And what Jesus promises in the gospel of John: eternal life. Present, vibrant living. Now. That is built on hope.
It isn’t about predictions about tomorrow. Or the faith that people will be different tomorrow. None of that is actual hope. It’s masked skepticism and feigned ignorance.
Hope is knowing that the light is more powerful than the darkness. And the light has already come into the world.
And we can hold a piece of it in our own hands.
For when it feels dark. And when our neighbor is sitting in the dark.
May God’s grace be with us, Christ’s peace be with us, and the Spirit’s outpouring be with us, now and forever. Amen.