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SERMONS

Epiphany
January 6, 2008

By The Rev. Alston Johnson

The visit of the Magi

“Deja Vu” is a French word that we often associate with the feeling that we have been somewhere before; or that we have seen something before. We have that sudden flash of awareness; “wait, I have been here before, I have seen this before.” The phrase means “already seen.” I imagine that each of us has some story to tell about seeing something that we feel that we have already seen.

Traveling with the wise men in Matthew’s Gospel, there is something of a biblical deja vu taking place. If we are steeped in our Old Testament, we already know that God has chosen Israel to be a light to the nations, already spoken of one coming to save both the chosen people as well as the gentile nations. “Epiphanos” - means manifestation. This feast focuses upon the rising of divine light in our midst. Isaiah speaks of this light, “but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you . . . nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.”

The light seen in the East is not only the star which rises to mark the place of Jesus’ birth, but also the rising of the light of God through the ages. A light that will rise and shine in the life of this baby in Bethlehem.

The traveling kings, the magi, are something like our equivalent of a future’s analyst; or in this election season, political strategists. The magi peer into the present, into the stars, into nature, into dreams and omens, hoping to see glimmers of what is to be. Hoping to see enough of the future to know what to do in the present. Their practices would have seemed foreign, and perhaps, blasphemous, to many faithful Jews; because a faithful Jew would know the future lay in the Lord’s hands.

For Christians, these long journeying wise men are symbolic of a world that does not yet know Christ. They are the “ethnos,” the nations, the pagans, coming to the new light of the world. They are the foreigners who see God at work; while the baby, the light itself, has to be hidden and is rejected by his own nation.

The baby in Bethlehem is a deja vu of all the manifestations that God has promised through Israel’s history. The baby is one that we have “already seen,” who has come into the world so that everyone will have a way to God - so that everyone can stand in the circle of God’s light.

Just yesterday I made a trip to South Jackson to visit a baby who had come into this world without all of the bells and whistles; who came without a star, you might say. She was lying on a great double-wide bed in a run-down hotel off Terry Road. Outside there were what I took to be folks trading in drugs and/or prostitution, there were a few police cars going up and down the street. MTV playing on the hotel television in her room were her hymns. The baby’s father is away working, and the mother is alone; yet she is still grateful and hopeful.

I was not planning to go and see this baby until her mother said on the phone, “I wish someone would come by so that we have someone to share the blessing with . . .”

Driving back to the busy and safe streets of Madison, I thought about the feast we celebrate today; and how the sharing of the blessings of God continues across the ages. This little soul lying in a hotel room comes into our world with very little. But she comes with at least one thing; she arrives like this baby in Bethlehem - almost unseen and unheard by the world around. Though her surroundings are dark, she was born into a circle of light. Like the Bethlehem baby, she is recognized as a blessing from God; and she is loved.

The truth of Epiphany is that the baby in Bethlehem and the baby in South Jackson are brother and sister in the circle of God’s light.

One of the great gifts that God gives to us in Bethlehem is that it levels all of the playing fields and hurdles that human beings often build. Where we would put kings in limousines with body guards, or hand over the birth of royalty to the paparazzi, God comes into the world amid the grunting and groaning of barn animals and the people who care for them. It is a motley assortment of humanity in the mix as witnesses. It is a strange mix of people who meet the new born king.

The magi bring gifts and pay homage, and then they go home by another road. Matthew is trying to tell us something. A transformation has occurred in these visitors so that they go home by another road in their hearts and souls; transformation has taken place. One implication is that these ancient seekers of wisdom not only found their intuitions confirmed, an event for the ages lying beneath a star; they found something more. They found the truth writ not in the stars, not in tea leaves, not in the entrails of chickens sacrificed on the altar of some obscure pagan deity, but they found truth writ in flesh and bone, nursing with its mother.

What for the Magi were dark mysteries has become the mystery of the true light. A light which shines for foreign wizards and wise men, babies in the run down hotels, and shines even for folks living in the wide, green safety of the suburbs.

He has come to shine in all of our darkness - Come Let Us Adore Him.