First Sunday after Epiphany, 2010

St. Matthew 2:1-12

The Rev. Jerry Kistler

St. Stephen’s Reformed Episcopal Church

Montrose, Colorado

“Keep the Lights On!”

“Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.”

Here we are in the octave of “The Feast of Lights,” as it was called early-on in the life of the Church. The Epiphany. The Manifestation of Christ to all the world.

By this point, according to our cultural calendar, we’re supposed to have taken down our trees and lights. I wish it wasn’t that way. Because this is the season, according to the church’s calendar, that we announce that the Light of the World has been manifested for the life of the world. And this is the season that we ought once again to say to those who were spiritually asleep through another Christmas, “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.”

You might say that, whereas Matthew and Luke’s Gospels begin with the nativity of Christ, St. John’s Gospel begins with the Epiphany. In chapter one Christ is revealed as the Eternal Word who was from the beginning with God, and who was God. All thing have come into being by him. And nothing came into being apart from Him. In Him is Life, and the life was the light of men. He is the True Light who, coming into the world, is The Revelation to all men. He was manifested in the darkness, but the darkness did not comprehend Him. He came to his own, the Jews of Israel, but his own did not receive him. But as many as received him -to any at all, whether Jew or Gentile - he gave the right become the children of God. Not because they had the right blood-ties. Not because they were the physical descendants of Abraham. Nor even because they chose to be so. But because God sovereignly willed to give them new birth.

This grand panorama of Christ’s revelation to the Jews and the Gentiles, and the contrast between how these two groups received him, is what we saw in miniature when, through our Gospel lesson this past Wednesday evening, we went back to that strange night when a star shone down upon the city of Bethlehem, and magi from the east were inspired to worship, while the King of Israel planned a murder.

“And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising” said the prophet. And suddenly, there they were. The magi from the east were probably not kings, but they were indeed gentiles, and gentiles who were doubly illumined by God. Not only did they see the star in the heavens and recognize it as sign that a new king should be born in Israel, but they were given the light of understanding that this would be like no other king ever to be born in the world, and that, indeed, he should be worshipped by all peoples. How they received this wisdom is a mystery. But if they originated from the countries of Persia or Babylonia, as many commentators suggest, it seems very likely that these wise men were familiar with at least some of the writings of the Hebrew prophets which were available to them through the large Jewish communities that still remained there from the time of the exile. Prophets like Daniel who wrote of one like the Son of Man coming with the clouds - or the shining - of heaven; One to whom would be given dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages, should worship him.

Or perhaps the magi knew the passage we read from Isaiah tonight: “the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light.”

However they received this wisdom, the fact that these Gentiles had this double illumination just goes to point out the double blindness of the Jews. Isn’t it interesting that here’s a star shining down on the little town of Bethlehem and no Israelite seems to have noticed or (if he did) to have understood it’s significance. It took magi - astrologers from the east, Gentiles - to explain to Herod and the chief priests and the scribes what it all meant: that the King of the Jews had been born, and that they had come to worship him.

Then St. Matthew records that “When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.” He was troubled. A stronger translation would read that Herod was stricken in his soul with dread at the announcement that the true King of the Jews had been born. You would guess. Herod was a usurper king who had come to power through an alliance with Rome. And he wasn’t even a Jew. He was an Edomite. He was a foreigner whose descent was from one of Israel’s most ancient and hated enemies. But here in our passage Herod stands as the symbol of the whole of the nation of Israel, for Israel, like Herod, was in it’s last days. And although it was the natural born people of God, it was fast becoming Lo-Ammi, “not my people, says the Lord.” And the Gentiles, who were before “not my people”, would soon become “The people of God.”

Herod’s murderous enterprise to destroy the Messiah and keep himself on the throne is prophetic of the nation’s cry to crucify their king, for they would not have that man reign over them. In Jesus’ own parable they are described as the wicked husbandmen who, when the owner of the vineyard sent his own son to gather the fruits of their labors, said among themselves, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize his inheritance.” It is after telling this parable that Jesus announces to the Jewish leaders, “Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.”

Brethren we are that nation. I don’t mean America. No geo- political nation on earth is that nation. The Church is that Holy Nation to whom God has given the kingdom. The great mystery that we celebrate in this season of Epiphany is that God in Christ has been revealed to the Gentiles - to us - who Peter says were once not a people, but are now THE PEOPLE of God. The great mystery that had it’s first epiphany in the magi coming to worship the Christ-child, is that we Gentiles, who, in St. Paul’s words, were once without Christ, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenant of promise, having no hope and without God and in world, have been made one new man, one body, one holy temple in the Lord with the faithful remnant of Israel. Indeed, Paul says that God pruned out the natural branches and grafted us into the one vine, the vine that has its roots in God’s promise to Abraham that in his Seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed. And the means we are not a second people of God in addition to Israel; it means the Church IS the Israel of God - The True Israel - for we have been grafted into Christ, the Root of Jesse, The Branch of David, the Vine, the Seed of Abraham, the Seed of the Woman, the Holy One of Israel.

Why keep the lights on? Because “God, who commanded the light to shine out in the darkness, hath shined in our hearts [our darkened, Gentile hearts] to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Thanks be to God.