Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen!
Technically, today is the Second Sunday after Christmas and the 12th Day of Christmas … listen closely, can you hear the 12 drummers drumming!? Just the same, I thought we would jump right into the season of Epiphany one day early. We enter into the third phase of Christmas. Advent, Christmas and Epiphany all gather together to form the big season of the incarnation. Epiphany, also known as Theophany, is a season of “revealing,” of making things known. It carries on the Advent themes of expectation and the Christmas themes of Emmanuel, God with us. It’s the season of light as Christ our Lord continues to come to us, blessing us with His presence in our dark world, making Himself known to the world that did not receive Him.
As Lutherans, with our Western Church history, Epiphany begins with the Wise Men, the Magi who visit Jesus. The Eastern Orthodox Christians begin Epiphany with our Lord’s Baptism in the Jordan river. But we’ll get to that next Sunday. But there is an important Epiphany point here. Contrary to popular belief, it was quite some time before the Magi came to where baby Jesus was – not the ‘10 minutes after the shepherds arrive’ that we’ve seen in every Christmas pageant or Nativity scene! Following the star, because they were star-gazers of some kind, they are lead to the place where Jesus was. And St. Matthew clearly records that little detail for us. Does he say the Bethlehem stable? Does he say a cave in the hills? No. St. Matthew tells us “And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh” (2:11). Jesus is in a house when they arrive, not in the cattle stall of our Lord’s birth. So it is most definetely some time later that they come to visit. And, the gifts they bring reveal to us a lot about “he who has been born king of the Jews” (2:2). Gold is a gift fit for a king. Frankincense burned in the worship of God Almighty. And myrrh, a sweet smelling substance used to annoint a dead man. Jesus is revealed as the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords and the Messiah who would give His life on the cross for the life of the world. Annointed for burial, He would rise to life again 3 days later to defeat death once and for all. With the Wise Men, there is the revealing of the Jewish Messiah - but with another vital detail: He will draw not only the Jews but also the Gentiles.
These Gentile Kings travelled a great distance to behold the humble King. Our Old Testament reading prefigures this with the Queen of Sheba travelling to visit King Solomon. Often times the Bible will tell you things with lots of specific details and other times we wish it would tell us more things but doesn’t. Like who exactly were the Magi or this Queen of Sheba? How many of them were there? The Bible never tells us there’s 3 of them, that was just extrapolated from the 3 gifts they gave. Likewise this Queen. Where exactly was Sheba? The Jewish historian Josephus said she was from Africa, a queen of Egypt and Ethiopia. Others said she might have been a female pharaoh. Still others note that Sheba was a grandson of Abraham (Gen 25:3), making this a tribe of northern Arabs. It would be nice to know more details but we just don’t have them. But what we do have is the concept. What is God communicating to us in these readings? The main idea is that both of these visits from the Magi and the Queen illustrate perfectly what God had intended for Israel: be a shining light among the nations. Draw the people, the heathen nations, draw them so that they too might believe and have life in Christ. Draw them to this amazing manifestation, this Epiphany of the righteousness and wisdom of God on bold display!
For the Queen of Sheba, she beholds the opulent splendour of Solomon in all of his glory: “And when the queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built, the food of his table, the seating of his officials, and the attendance of his servants, their clothing, his cupbearers, and his burnt offerings that he offered at the house of the Lord, there was no more breath in her” (1Ki 10:4-5). It was quite literally breath-taking! For the Magi, they behold the glory of the star and then ultimately the humility of infant Messiah in the house. Both the glory of God and the humility of God are united together in the incarnation of Christ our Lord. And this is key for Epiphany. An emphasis on Evangelism accompanies this time of year. In us, God’s Baptized people, Jesus continues to reveal Himself. His Heavenly light shines into our hearts and minds in order that we can continue to shine it forth to others. The prophet Isaiah summarizes this for us when he writes “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and His glory will be seen upon you. And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising” (IS 60:1-3).
We are reminded that the world we live in is dark. Darkness is always symbolic for sin and death in the Scriptures. Think about little kids going to sleep. All is usually well if the nightlight is shining in the room. Or in the movies, dark is usually the time when the bad guys do their worst. If wild animals are encircling the camp, the heroes light fires to scare them away. This is ingrained into us from a young age. The darkness is scary and we desperately need light to make us feel safe and secure. The Bible tells us that “God is light” (1JN 1:5). And not only that but the Light has come to you. God’s glory has shone and risen upon you. We tend to forget that we have been made children of the light in our Baptism. 1st Thessalonians tells us “For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness” (5:5).
St. Paul reminds us of this calling in his letter to the Ephesian Christians. “For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them” (5:8-11). Now perhaps, zealous people upon hearing these passages think their job is to run around with a flashlight and shine it into other peoples’ lives exposing their sin and wickedness. But we need to think again. It’s not other people’s darkness we need to concern ourselves with. Rather, we ought to concern ourselves with our own darkness. We need to come out of the shadows ourselves that the heavenly light may shine upon us. And we do this by confessing our sins and repenting of them. As Lutherans, we have this built into our Divine Service. The first thing we do when we gather as God’s people is have a general confession of sins.
But here’s the hang up. How many general sins do we commit? None! We commit very specific sins in thought, word and deed. Naming them can be very helpful for us, especially if our consciences are troubled by something we’ve done. Unfortunately, we as Lutherans have quit confessing our specific sins and hearing forgiveness for them. It’s like those old boxes of Christmas decorations we don’t want to see anymore so we put them way at the back of the crawl space. They’re still there alright but we never see them or use them! It’s for our spiritual benefit to actually confess our specific sins. For in so doing we route out the darkness of sin from our lives. As St. Paul writes, “But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you” (Eph 5:13-14).
Through confession we are truly inviting our Lord to shine His heavenly light of forgiveness, life and salvation upon us. And as such, we want to make every attempt to ensure that our thoughts, words and deeds are of the light. This is the chief struggle of the Christian life. We still have a bit of darkness and sin lurking within us, ever trying to draw us back to the dark side of Satan. But in our Baptism, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within us. He makes His home within us and helps us to fight against evil, exposing it. And when darkness is exposed, it disappears. For there are no shadows when you are surrounded by light.
It is in this theme of Epiphany light that we all try to shine as much of Christ’s light and life into the world as we can. That all may know and see the glory of Christ our King of Kings. He truly is Emmanuel and His light has risen upon you. May His eternal blessings of forgiveness, life and salvation be with you in 2025 and always! Amen!
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