“Seeking the One”
January 5, 2020 Epiphany Sunday
On Christmas Eve, following our candlelit service, a couple of the children helped me put all of the Jesus’s who had been laying in the hay-filled manger up here on the chancel step in their rightful stables throughout the church and Bailey Hall. Interestingly, once all of them were accounted for including the ones that I brought over from the Parsonage, we ended up with a couple of leftover Jesus’s. They probably belong to sets we didn’t unpack this year and eventually they will find the box they’re meant to lay in alongside angelic-looking Mary, upright Joseph, a mixed bag of livestock, rumpled shepherds and majestically-clad wise men until next Advent when we prepare ourselves and our space for Jesus to arrive all over again.
Yesterday afternoon there was a wedding that took place here in our sanctuary and today you may be noticing that things look a bit different. The big Christmas tree here spent the wedding ceremony out in Bailey Hall and then was brought back in afterwards which accounts for the lack of ornaments on it. They hung our banners back up but in different places. The poinsettias got moved around but the thing I am still searching for is the nativity scene that was up here on the altar table – I looked everywhere I could think of and have a message left for the groom’s family with whom the arrangements for the wedding we’re made. It wasn’t until this morning when some astute detectives found the whole cast of characters. Isn’t it kind of awesome that here we have the story of the three traveling magi who are looking for the place where they would find Jesus, the King of Kings and we were also searching for that oh-so familiar scene captured in white ceramic figurines?
The mystery and beauty of this story as told by Matthew is where most of the attention is paid. It is focused on Herod and these travelers from the East and what they’re looking for. It is believed these wise ones may have come from somewhere in the Persian Empire which we would now know, interestingly given this week’s news, as Iran and Iraq. Back in Jesus’ time, magi were a caste of very high-ranking political/religious advisers to the rulers of the Persian Empire. They went seeking the new King of the Judeans and they figured the palace in Jerusalem would be the best place to start, not fully appreciating that the powerful Herod, puppet of the Roman Empire, viewed himself as King and wouldn’t look too kindly on a baby stealing his thunder.
Obviously this king that these Gentiles from a totally different culture are searching for based on the stars they followed, the scripture that foretold such a messiah, and their own determination to make a journey which may have taken many months through the desert was because they were moved by this new king’s importance and relevance to them, even coming from a foreign land and different culture and faith tradition. They brought amazing, valuable and totally impractical gifts with them and were so elated to have finally found this young king that they were brought to their knees in homage – not a gesture to be taken lightly as I know that a few of you are like me and getting down on our knees takes tremendous effort. Since we know so little specifics about that visit, isn’t it possible that Mary and Joseph, upon welcoming these well-dressed wise travelers who came bearing such lavish gifts might have also asked them, “Would you like to hold him?” And there, awkwardly at first and perhaps not too practiced in how to hold a baby, would have Jesus laid in their arms and the wonder of a King, this God Incarnate, who entered the world like every other one of us, might have gurgled or smiled or stared wide-eyed or slept in their arms and this is what may have confirmed for them that they were to take a different route home as a way to protect this little one who had come to change the world. They would heed their dream and go home by another way and in so doing not give any more assistance to Herod in his insecure need for domination.
These wise ones went looking for Jesus and we mark the day they arrived as Epiphany – a revelation of God in the world. And so we now begin the season of Epiphany when we will consciously seek out God in our world, relying on the stories from scripture from now until Lent begins where God’s light shines in the world. I invite you to enter into this season with your God glasses on, seeking out God’s presence, glimpses of Jesus that surround us every day and then consider what sign they are offering you.
As a jumpstart on Epiphany, I know I glimpsed God at work in the world on Friday afternoon when I was warmly welcomed by the 3 lead staff members at the Bennington County Coalition for the Homeless whose passion for and knowledge of and responsiveness to those in need was so clearly evident. This was contrasted with the other way I glimpsed God two days earlier and that was in the homeless man, surrounded by what appeared to be all of his earthly possessions, laying on the middle of the sidewalk while a few feet away the participants in the New Year’s Day parade there in Philadelphia were dressed in elaborate costumes, making music for those of us who carefully walked around this man who slept on the cold, hard sidewalk. This was a Jesus nudge for me. All sightings of Jesus aren’t warm and fuzzy but that doesn’t make them any less important or worthy of our attention. The wise men chose not to assist Herod in the desperate act we would come to know as the murder of the innocents when Herod would try to hold onto his power using cruelty and heartlessness. God, too, dwells within that man on the sidewalk in Philadelphia and our neighbors here in Bennington County who have no place of their own to lay their heads.
The wise men saw the star that led them to Jesus because they were looking for it. In this season of incarnation, let us not forget that Jesus came to us first as a vulnerable baby to share the knowledge that God is with us, within us and working through us. Let us not lose sight of the Divine that dwells in everybody, including ourselves, and that is what draws us to each other and hopefully to the table where we are about to share this meal, remembering not just the infant Jesus but the whole of his life and work which was his message. As we enter into Epiphany, may this prayer from Thomas Merton help us begin this leg of the journey:
Lord Jesus, assuage our blindness
and activate our hearts,
so that we may find your presence
hidden in ourselves.
May we unveil the mystery of Christ-with-us
and work toward the true restoration
of the whole world in your image.
Let your light shine in our hearts
so that we may always know
the truth of your love.
Maybe I’ll just keep that spare Jesus or two around and unpacked as a visible reminder that we never know where we might find Him. Amen.