May the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ be praised! Today we celebrate the feast of the Epiphany whereby God manifested or revealed His only begotten Son to the peoples of the earth by the leading of a star.
Our first lesson this morning comes from the book of the prophet Isaiah. “Arise and shine!” The prophet calls to the people of Israel and to us this morning. “For your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you!” (60:1). This is a wake-up call that carries with it a lot of optimism, spoken to a people that were just returned from exile and who may have given up and most probably would have wanted to pull up the covers and continue in their slumber of the status quo. The prophet Isaiah presents a vision of hope and restoration, not just for the people of Israel but for all the nations… us included! He offers a vision of timeless majesty and the power of God’s reign breaking into our world and into everything.
Isaiah is trying to renew the hope of a community familiar with the imagery of light. Although this portion of the book, usually called 3rd Isaiah, was written slightly after the first wave of exiles had returned home from Babylon, they still needed encouragement so that they could become fully alive to the doings of God. The imagery helps move them from moments and clouds of confusion and despair to a brightness full of illumination and splendor. Isaiah reveals for them the morning sunlight streaming in as through a window after a dark night and shouts to them that the glory of the Lord is shining, “Wake up and shine along!”
As mentioned at the beginning, today we are celebrating the feast of the Epiphany but a day earlier. We gather in search of our own personal epiphanies, be they big or small, in the light of the greatest discovery of all by the arrival of the 3 wise men, otherwise known as the Magi, who followed the star to the Christ child. The story is about people going on a journey to see Jesus which is a great metaphor for all people of faith. We are on a journey; we are on this journey together, to find and worship Jesus! This is a great way to start the year, together, seeking and searching for God. Both Matthew in the gospel passage for today and Isaiah in our first reading are trying to remind us that the start of yet another calendar year is more than making resolutions. It is about God’s self-revelation to the world.
Let us accompany the Magi for a bit in their journey. After they began their journey, the Magi went to the wrong place. For them the logical place to go to was Jerusalem, the capital where the kings of the Jews resided but unfortunately it was the wrong place! This indicates that as early as his birth, Jesus is teaching that he will be a very different kind of king, a king full of surprises. His would be a kingdom characterised by contradictions to expectations, a kingdom that will first see him enthroned on a cross as a failure before he occupies his heavenly throne.
Wise as the Magi were, their wisdom and even the star alone did not lead them to Jesus. The Magi needed the Word of God to find the newborn King. They needed the chief priests and scribes to search and interpret the scriptures for them; in other words, people who knew the Word of God to help them along their journey or search. And so it is for us; however knowledgeable we are, we need the Word of God and each other to find Christ.
In His self-revelation, God starts with people where they are. For the Magi, their curiosity was sparked by the appearance of a new star. God can use and does use every event in our lives, be they good or bad, to get us on our way to find the Savior. But once on the way, we need more. We need God’s Word, we need each other. The stars alone won’t get us there, whatever got us on our journey alone won’t get us to our final destination. God alone through the guidance of His Word will.
Once the Magi left Jerusalem, they followed the star once again to Bethlehem, where they found Jesus and his parents and they paid homage to him. They had come all this way for one reason and one reason alone… to worship the newborn King. This is a beautiful description of worship, that is, simply paying homage to God without any other kind of agenda.
After they finished their act of worship, they returned home by a different road because they had been warned in a dream to avoid Herod. The significance of this is the fact that the Magi’s encounter with Jesus has forever changed their lives. They will never be the same again. They return home different people!
When we encounter Christ, our lives too are changed forever. At times this change which emanates from the truth of encountering Christ demands we take another route, a different route from the the one that will lead us back to where we came from, even at times away from the people who guided us to Christ in the first place.
People change, their understanding of Christ might at times change and hence the need to be vigilant; but the truth that is Christ and His word never changes. Once we encounter this truth, we will never go back to worldly guides, however powerful, educated, wise or eloquent they are. At times, the holy and wise thing to do is to totally separate ourselves from them (as advised by Paul in 2 Corinthians 6:14-17).
Isaiah reminds us this morning of the many ways through which God breaks into our world and illuminates our existence. He tells us to look around and pay attention because God is here, and He is here right now. He is Emmanuel, God with us, He is Jesus, He is alive and He is present here and now and bids us arise!
Now what gets you up every morning? For most people, if you are like me, is it the alarm clock with the knowledge that your day is fully booked? Is it the desire to get as fast as possible to your to-do list, or go for a run/walk or a cup of coffee? Is it the desire to catch the sunshine with a newspaper in hand or just the sheer leisure of enjoying the morning view and fresh air? Isaiah is this morning steering us to a new direction where our days should begin with eagerness for what God is doing or intends to do in our life and in our world. If we adopt this perspective each morning, our days will be different because we will be looking for God’s glory in the world, instead of worrying, and hence living the moment… we will be able to bask in the light of God’s glory and become radiant with hearts that are thrilled and truly rejoicing (Isaiah 60:5).
For the 3 wise men in the gospel passage today, what helped them see the glory of God was a star’s light that caught their attention. As soon as they decided to focus on that light, everything else was put in motion. Somehow deep within, they knew that this was a different kind of star, something significant. After they decided to follow it, they discovered for themselves and for us the greatest happening of all, God became human!
By becoming human, Jesus has given his life to me. His presence is with and in me, and this makes all the difference. We can only shine with Jesus and there is no way we can shine without him. We no longer have to be trapped in the frustration of living with only our own resources. Naturally we all fail but we can shine through his life in us.
We need to arise and shine because people are living in darkness. There is a lot of darkness hovering in people’s lives and on the horizon. There is moral darkness, spiritual darkness, emotional darkness and even financial darkness. In so many areas of our lives, there is the darkness of despair hovering and, as people who have encountered Christ, we are called to be a star to lead them to Him who is the solution. The good news however is that the darker it becomes, the easier it is to see the light. Light attracts and people want to see something that is real.
Paul in the letter to the Ephesians reminds us this morning that if we make that first effort towards Jesus, he will shine upon us and that is what is required in this morally corrupted and difficult age! It is to the church that the treasure that is the good news of Jesus is entrusted and in turn the church has entrusted it to faithful stewards like Paul. The revelation that has been handed down is that Gentiles, meaning you and I, have equal access to and privileges in the body of Christ and, as the visit from the 3 wise men indicates, God calls His own from all corners of the earth.
As this new calendar year begins, it is quite a blessing once again for us to start it together. Truthfully, none of us knows what this year holds for us or for the world but we don’t have to. This is because we know that wherever it takes us, Jesus will be with us on the way, guiding us along because we have found him and have worshipped him and now we travel on our way by new and unexpected roads with that consolation that we have Emmanuel, God with us, on our side. May he who created the stars, who gave us His only Son, bless us and keep us. May He shine His face on us and give us peace.
…. presents a vision of hope and restoration, not just for the people of Israel but for all the nations… us included!
Thank you