Epiphany of Our Lord

Sunday, January 6, 2008

(Matthew 2.1-12)

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem,  2asking, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage."  3When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him;  4and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born.  5They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:

6'And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who is to shepherd my people Israel.'"

7Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared.  8Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage."  9When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was.  10When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy.  11On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  12And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

What Hath God Wrought?

+ In nomine Domini.  Amen.

The title of my sermon this morning is, “What Hath God Wrought?”  It comes from thinking about three occurrences of January 6^th … three epiphanies (epiphany coming, of course, from the Greek compound word meaning to “show forth” or to “make manifest” or to “reveal” not necessarily beginning with the Epiphany of Our Lord, but in one way or another wrapped around the Story whereby, as we have just heard read in the Gospel portion from Matthew, the Magi come to visit the baby Jesus.

Epiphany #1: Morristown, NJ

On the 6^th of January in the year 1838, three men gathered at an ironworks factory just north of Morristown, NJ.  The men were: Leonard Gale, Alfred Vail, and Samuel Finley Breese Morse (whom we know in our history books as Samuel F. B. Morse, or simply as Samuel Morse). 

The purpose of this gathering was to demonstrate for the first time a telegraph that had been developed by Morse with Gale and Vail’s support.  A single sentence was sent over a wire for the distance of two miles: “Railroad cars just arrived, 345 passengers.”

Now most of us do not associate this date with Samuel Morse, but rather a date 6 years later: May 24,1844; when Morse transmitted over a wire strung from Washington, DC to Baltimore, MD the last part of the 23^rd verse of the 23^rd chapter of the book of Numbers: “What Hath God Wrought?”

An aside. 

[Actually this verse has absolutely nothing to do with telegraphs or the mightiness of God in the space between Washington and Baltimore … although one might indeed pray for the mightiness of God to wreak justice and mercy and understanding and tolerance and love and hope in that space these days; no, it all has to do with antiquity, when the Israelites make their way up the west bank of the Jordan, preparing to enter the promised land of Canaan, they find it necessary to dispatch a few recalcitrant native tribes.  As they reach the land of Moab and camp on the plains, across the Jordan from Jericho, the Moabite people are understandably anxious.

Their chieftain Balak summons an Eastern wizard, or professional curser, named Balaam, to put the kibosh on the Israelites. But Balaam has consulted various oracles and chatted directly with the Lord, only to discover that he will in no way be permitted to curse Israel.

The verse in its entirety in the King James Version reads:

Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel: according to this time it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath God wrought!

… that is, “Behold what a mighty people the Lord has made of Israel!”]

Back to our story. 

I doubt that Morse or his two companions on that January 6^th were thinking about the Feast of the Epiphany of Our Lord (as we are this morning); in fact in 1838 January 6^th occurred on a Saturday and so none of the three were violating any kind of religious ethic of skipping church in order to do an experiment with an electro-magnet and some wire and a sender and receiver.

But, what came from that first test on Epiphany in 1844 was something so remarkable that has become manifest, has shown forth, has been revealed in technology which Morse did not know in his time, could never even have imagined, where a sentence that once traveled two miles, then forty miles (Baltimore to Washington) now becomes a global possibility.

In fact, this sermon, once posted on our church website, can be read by someone as far away as China, and in the matter of seconds.

What Hath God Wrought? … indeed. 

Epiphany #2: Bethlehem of Judea

Going backward in time now, on the 6^th of January in the year 385 CE, we find that a rather famous nun from Spain was visiting the Holy Land.  Her name was Egeria and she is famous because she kept a diary of her journey, and it is from this diary that we have a record of the early practices of Christians in Jerusalem and the towns outside Jerusalem throughout what we now call the “Church Year”.  We will hear again about Egeria later on in our own Church Year, around the time of Holy Week and Easter, but for the moment … her visit in 385.  She found that the Nativity of Christ was celebrated in Bethlehem outside Jerusalem, not on December 25^th (which had become the Roman custom) but with a vigil the night before and a eucharist on the day of January 6^th. 

The pages of her diary that describe the liturgy have been lost sadly, but her narrative picks up at the point where she was in the procession accompanying the bishop back to Jerusalem on the morning of the Epiphany.  And in writing about this walk, she mentions that in Bethlehem through the 8 days following January 6^th, “the feast is celebrated in festal array and joyfulness by the priests and all the clerics there and the monks who are stationed in that place.”

Now, as it happened, one year later when [St.] Jerome settled in Bethlehem, he brought with him the Roman custom of celebrating the Nativity of Christ on December 25^th, but the church in Jerusalem did not quickly take to the change of date and continued to celebrate the birth of Jesus on January 6^th until the second half of the 6^th Century CE.

All this, of course, long before Morse would enable the development of rapid transmission of ideas and thoughts … the Church, as we have come to see and understand, did not develop itself uniformly in all places and in all times; that is, various customs and traditions s-l-o-w-l-y changed and grew and formed and shaped and reformed and reshaped and changed again until over centuries of practice things became somewhat standardized, and we should say “somewhat” with emphasis because as we know the liturgies of the Western Church (that which came from Rome; that is, our liturgical roots) were shaped differently than the liturgies of the Eastern Church (that which came from Constantinople, which we know today as the Orthodox Church).

So that, we have when considering the birth of Jesus and how to celebrate it, two different emphases: the one being centered on a former Roman secular day (the Saturnalia, the 25^th of  December, the Western Church) and the other centered on the Epiphany, or the day that came to be called the Epiphany, January 6^th.  Why?  Well the short answer is, that’s the way it happened in each place.

What Hath God Wrought?

Epiphany #3: Christ Lutheran Church in Santa Fe

And now we come to ourselves, on this January 6^th, this Epiphany.  After musing about a telegraphic event in 1838, and looking back at a 4^th Century celebration, the question remains, or rather now looms before us … what on earth does any of this have to do with us, our community, our faith, our ministry?  What Hath God Wrought in our midst, and why should we care, and what should we be about?

Because if it is not present and immediate, then all we are doing today and tonight is gathering ourselves around an ancient Story whose mythic roots can be found in the astral phenomena surrounding births of famous people (Herod the Great, Nero, Alexander the Great, Mithras, and many others).  “A comet which appeared in 12/11 BCE in Gemini with its head towards Leo (seen by many as a symbol of Judah) might have heightened messianic expectation or, closer to the time, conjunctions of planets in 7 BCE and again in 6 BCE in the region of Pisces, traditionally associated with the Hebrews, might have done the same.”[1]

Matthew’s story is dramatically different, this star moves across the sky and takes up a position above the place where Jesus was born.   That is, “World!  Take Note of this Birth, this Birth is different!”

The Magi arrive, the message is plain: not only is the Child adored and worshipped, but the Child is for all people.   Matthew is making a statement: “The Gospel is to be taught to all nations … Go and tell the Story, Go and Share the Good News, Live out what it means to follow this Jesus!”

So, do we?  That is always the question that rises before us on Epiphany.  It is our call to be faithful to the Christ Child, to do as he asked us to do, to love and not hate, to bring peace and not war, to make whole and not destroy, to welcome and not despise, to bring in and not shut out.  That is the Good News, that is the mission of the God’s people.  It sounds so very simple, and it is, yet we do these things in the midst of so much opposition, even by religious people!?

So, do we?  And, are we … are we willing and able to take this love from God into our hearts, into our heads, into our families, into our community?

Lately we have been welcoming some homeless women into our church a few nights for a few weeks.  It’s a start.  It’s the Gospel lived out.

There is more.  And it’s not just for a few weeks, it’s (as the earliest Christians called it) the “Way”.   The meaning of Epiphany is found in the Way that we follow, that we walk, that we talk, that we live.

The Christ Child is not just a precious baby we hold close to ourselves, he is the love of God we hold out to others.

So let us hold out this precious love of God, every day, in all we do.

The Lord be with you.  And also with you.

Let us pray.

Almighty God, by a Child you brought light into darkness and called us to follow that light and bring it into the darkness of life.  Help us, surround us with the light of the world, that we may be light in the world.  To you be all glory and honour and worship and praise, now and forever.  Amen.

Deo Gratia
The Rev. Benjamin Larzelere III