“An Epiphany in an
Ordinary Setting: Under the Night Sky”
January 6, 2013
Matthew 2:1-12
Stephens City UMC
Slide 1
Grace and peace to you
from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
I.
While they were
standing under the night sky, Slide 2 which was a very ordinary thing for the magi to do, they
looked up and saw an extraordinary star.
A. They wondered about the meaning of the star.
1. Without the help of the internet they did research on
the extraordinary star that had appeared in the ordinary night sky.
2. They began to follow that star. Slide 3
3. Eventually it led them to an ordinary looking baby
whom by faith they perceived to be extraordinary. Slide 4
4. Their entire experience has a term connected with it
“Epiphany” which means “revelation.”
B. During the season of Epiphany we Christians celebrate
our belief that God, who could remain hidden, has of His own free will chosen
to reveal Himself to us.
1. During the next 5 weeks I will preach on a number of
epiphanies that can be found in the Holy Scriptures in which God, in some
ordinary settings, made some extraordinary revelations about Himself.
2. This morning we will consider the story of the magi
and there are two aspects of this story on which I want to focus: the matter of
gifts and the matter of wisdom.
II.
Let’s turn now to
the first and that is while the magi brought gifts to the Christ Child, it is
even truer that God gifted them.
A. In the carol “We Three Kings” we sing about three very
well-to-do men from the East bringing gifts of Slide 5 gold and frankincense and myrrh.
1. In the carol “The First Noel” we again sing of the
gifts of gold and myrrh and frankincense.
2. Those who wrote those carols based their lyrics on
Matthew 2:11 which describes how these wise and gifted men found Mary and the
baby in a house (apparently some time has passed since the birth as the wise
men, not too surprisingly, were running a little behind schedule) and “they
knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasurer chests, they
offered him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.”
B. Those gifts point to this child being King of kings
and Lord of lords as well as to his sacrifice and burial.
1. But those gifts were only presented to the baby Jesus
because God had first gifted the magi with an epiphany, a revelation.
2. In Isaiah 43:19 God says, “Behold, I am doing a new
thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”
3. While standing under an ordinary night sky Slide 6 the wise men
perceived that a sign had been given that God was doing a new thing.
4. The extraordinary new thing God was doing was that He
was going to come to earth in human form to dwell with humanity.
5. He would reveal His majesty as a new born babe wrapped
in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. Slide 7
6. It took an epiphany, a revelation, for the magi to
recognize that God had gifted them by allowing them to see the face of God in
human form.
7. Because of the gifts of the baby Jesus and God
revealing Himself the magi were able to respond by offering their gifts.
8. The magi model for us an appropriate response to the
experience of an epiphany.
C. The wise men got it right as had Moses and the Hebrews
centuries earlier who after God delivered them from Pharaoh’s army by parting
the Red Sea Slide 8
sang “This is my God, I will glorify him; The God of my father, I will exalt
him.” (Exodus 15:2)
1. Instead, as the late Abraham Heschel wrote: “The
normal situation is expressed in the words of Job: Slide 9 Lo, he goes by me, and I see him
not; He passes on also, but I perceive him not.” (Job 9:11)
2. Our God is a God of epiphanies.
3. Rather than being like Job who “perceived him not,”
may we be like Moses and the Hebrews at the Red Sea and like the wise men who
followed an extraordinary star that they saw in an ordinary night sky that the
extraordinary God might be revealed to us in the ordinary form he took – that
of a tiny baby who was born on Christmas Day. Slide 10
III.
Which brings me
to the second matter and that is that the wise men proved to be wise because after
their epiphany they went another way.
A. We make fun of the wise men because it does appear
they did not arrive on Christmas morn but a number of months later.
1.
Another group of
men having difficulty following directions. Slide 11
2. It probably hurt their ego to have to stop and ask
directions but asking King Herod Slide 12 “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?” (Matthew 2:2) really wasn’t very wise.
3. Wise men should have easily figured out that Herod
would not find the birth of a new king to be “good news.”
B. So in the beginning they struggled but in the end the
wise men did become wise because after worshipping the new born King Slide 13 they allowed the
epiphany of God revealing Himself in this manner to change their lives which is
part of what the change of direction was about.
1. Rather than returning to earthly power they followed
the guidance of the divine power to go a different way as they were obedient. Slide 14
2. Wise people go a different way in life after they have
experienced an epiphany of God.
3. It seemed like an ordinary set of circumstances – get
on your camel and head home the same way you came, but instead they did the
extraordinary as far as the world is concerned because they followed the
guidance of God who had revealed Himself to them.
IV.
Let me quickly
wrap this up with a couple of observations.
A. First, today we will install those who will serve as
Church Council members for 2013.
1.
They need to be
effective leaders so it would be good for us to pray that they have some
epiphanies. Slide 15
2.
But it is also
true that all of us, committee members and non-committee members, need to be
open to God’s epiphanies – those times God in an ordinary setting chooses to
reveal Himself to us.
3.
We at Stephens
City UMC in 2013 need such epiphanies if we are to be wise according to God and
go in the direction He would have us to go.
4.
That probably
means (actually it undoubtedly means) that we will be changed so we’d be wise
to embrace that change if we want to be found faithful and to be effective
servants for Christ our King and His Kingdom.
B. And second, today we can start to go in the right
direction (and we know it is the right direction) by following the ordinary
signs that bring us into the extraordinary presence of Christ and that is by
journeying with our wise brothers and sisters to the Lord’s Table. Slide 16
1.
Oh my, who are we
to encounter God in such a holy mystery?
2.
Bread and a cup
become the body and blood of Christ.
3.
What an epiphany!
4.
And may our
experience today lead us to sacrifice and to nurture and to proclaim and to
share and to be empowered as Christ’s servants who want nothing more than to go
in the direction he would have us to go.