Epiphany: God's Plan Revealed

Sermon for Epiphany of the Lord Sunday
Matthew 2:1-12 & Ephesians 3:1-12

Typically, I am a planner and a list-maker. I like to have an agenda set out. I like to have an idea of where we’re going. I believe in plans. I think they help us to move forward and be faithful – even if we find ourselves re-evaluating and changing the plan mid-way. For this reason, I loved this year’s Vacation Bible School theme, “God’s Plan for You,” because God does have a plan for creation and for us specifically. We’ve talked about this before, but it bears repeating: God has a plan for you, as individuals and as a church. And the individual, specific plan for you and me works towards God’s ultimate plan of salvation for all the world.

When I arrived this summer, I preached about God’s plan for creation seen in God’s promise to Abraham that he would be blessed to be a blessing for all the world in Genesis 12. Out of Abraham’s descendents, God made the people called Israel, whom God chose to be bearers of God’s grace to everyone. Yet, things weren’t quite as simple as all that, and the people of Israel failed to be the blessing God intended for creation. (Still, we must also realize that, as the Apostle Paul said, “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” [Rom 3:23]).

So, in the fullness of time, God took on flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and physically dwelt among God’s people. We celebrated this recently on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. However, it is often the case that we have poor memories, for we soon forget the reason for the season, so to speak. We forget the foundational importance of Jesus in God’s plan for the world.
For example, consider the movie Talladega Nights starring Will Ferrell. In one of its funniest scenes, racecar driver Ricky Bobby (played by Ferrell) is saying grace at the family dinner table. He begins, “Dear Baby Jesus, thank you for this food…” and he goes on. “Dear tiny, infant Jesus,” he continues, before his wife interrupts him, “Um…Honey, Jesus did grow up. You don’t always have to call him ‘baby.’ It’s a bit odd and off-putting to pray to a baby.”

Ricky Bobby counters, “Well I like the Christmas Jesus best, and I’m saying grace. When you say grace you can say it to grown up Jesus, or teenage Jesus, or bearded Jesus, or whoever you want.” And he continues with an especially absurd prayer beginning, “Dear tiny, Baby Jesus with your golden, fleece diapers –” before his father-in-law interrupts him, “He was a man! He had a beard!”

Obviously, Ricky Bobby got overly focused on the Baby Jesus celebrated at Christmas. He forgot the importance of Jesus’ birth for God’s ministry. And this is precisely why the Church calendar is organized in the way it is – to help us remember how Jesus reveals God’s love to us and connects us to God.

Since the Fourth Century, we Christians have been celebrating the Epiphany of the Lord roughly twelve days after Christmas, as a way of remembering the meaning of Christmas. As you can see on the screen, the word epiphany means manifestation or the appearance of a divine being. And, because I don’t typically use manifestation in everyday conversation, I also looked it up: as an adjective, it means readily perceived by the senses or easily understood; as a verb, it means to make evident by showing or displaying. So, a manifestation is a public demonstration of power or purpose. Thus, it is on this day that we celebrate the way God’s power and purpose for creation is made known, revealed, manifested, in Jesus. Further, the day of Epiphany is traditionally associated with the Magi, or Wise Men, who brought gifts to Jesus.

Epiphany is about unveiling or manifesting God’s plan of cosmic salvation in Christ. It is not simply a story of God putting a star in the sky as a huge “come and see my baby” invitation to men from the East. The birth of Christ makes known (manifests) God’s plan of salvation for all.
The Magi in Matthew’s Gospel make clear (manifest) God’s plan of salvation for all through Jesus by their coming. They were Gentiles, not Jews. Yet, these men from afar came bearing gifts to the child whose birth and authority was seen in the stars. And remember, God hung the stars in the sky. So it was God who led the gentile Magi to Godself, just like God led the shepherds to Godself as we read on Christmas Eve. These groups of people were on the fringes if not completely outside Jewish society, and yet it is to shepherds and astronomers that God chose to reveal Godself first in the birth of Jesus. This shows God’s inclusive love for all creation.
Yet again, the Magi make clear (manifest) God’s plan of salvation through Jesus by the very gifts they bring to the Christ child. Their gifts symbolically reveal and proclaim the Christ child’s identity:

• they brought gold – certainly a gift for a king,
• they brought incense – used in religious services in that culture, especially by priests, and
• they brought myrrh – used as a perfume or to anoint priests into service, as well as to prepare dead bodies for burial.

“Thus,” says theologian L.H. Stookey, “by the gifts they bring, the Magi identify Jesus as the supreme ruler of the world; as God’s anointed (= messiah) high priest; and as the suffering servant who dies as a fragrant and beautiful offering before God” (Stookey, Calendar, 113).

In addition to the Magi and their gifts, the Apostle Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus also makes clearly known God’s plan for creation. Paul is called the “Apostle to the Gentiles,” because, like the star, he was called to “bring to the Gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ, and so to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things” (Eph 3:8-9). He proclaimed that God’s plan of salvation was once a “mystery,” but that in Jesus, it has “been revealed” by the Spirit, and that the “Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (Eph 3:5-6). Jesus, whose birth is celebrated at Christmas, reveals God’s love and connects us to God, so that we can share God’s grace with others. Jesus is the epiphany of God’s salvation of the world. What is more, Jesus continues to reveal Godself and connect us to God through his body, the Church. And Paul says that Jesus, through the church, makes known the wisdom of God to all creation (v.10): Jesus connects us to God; Jesus makes God known to us; Jesus is the epiphany of God’s love.

Jesus reveals God’s love as fully as we can see, and Jesus is always with us, through the Spirit. But, Jesus is also present with us in those we meet, as we heard in the story The Fourth King by Ted Sieger that I told to the children.

King Mazzel, another stargazer, set out to visit the baby born the King of Kings, but he arrived too late and without any gifts. He kept getting side-tracked. He got stuck in a dust storm, from which he saved a small child and returned her to her family. He led a lost caravan of traders through the desert to their destination. He watered a plant with the last of his water in the desert; he worked with children enslaved to build a wall and then freed them from captivity. He even met and hid Jesus, Mary, and Joseph as they were fleeing to Egypt (even though he didn’t know it was them).

And then when he was despairing because he found the stable/cave empty, a voice spoke softly to him, “King Mazzel, you have not come too late! You were always with me. When I was lost, you showed me the way. When I was thirsty, you gave me water. When I was captive, you freed me. When I was in danger, you saved me. You were always there when I needed you, and I will be with you forever.”

The king set out following the star to go visit the Christ-child and give him gifts, but on the way, he actually met Christ in those in need as he helped them, offering his time and his gifts to them. This is a beautiful connection of the story of the Magi and Matthew 25in which Jesus says, Whenever you did it to the least of these, you did it to me. Jesus connects us to God through our service to others.

That’s the beauty and the blessedness of Jesus’ birth – it is an epiphany, a great making-known of God and God’s love. In Jesus, God comes into our lives in an intimate, real, physical way. Today, God’s love is manifested in Jesus’ body, the Church. God’s love is manifested around Christ’s table at Holy Communion. God’s love is manifested in the fount at Baptism. God’s love is manifested when we serve the least and the lost. God’s love is manifested when we preach and read scripture.

Epiphany is about identifying who the baby is whom we celebrated at Christmas. (This is true for the coming weeks as well). But more than that, Epiphany is about identifying and making clearly known God’s plan of salvation for the world. God’s plan is, and always has been, that all the world will be drawn into connection with God and experience God’s grace as fully as humanly possible. God created the world out of grace, just so that God could share God’s love. God’s plan has always been, as with Abraham, “Blessed to be a blessing.”

Yet, this is just God’s general plan for creation, isn’t it? Well…yes and no. I’ve been thinking a great deal about God’s specific plan for us as a church. I’ve been praying for it. I’ve been listening for answers. And you’ve been praying and listening for answers too. What have we come to? Like Paul, and like the star seen by the Magi, God has placed us in this community to make known God’s plan of salvation for all people. We are about loving into God’s kingdom all God’s children. We are the church, the body of Christ, called forth to bring the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ to all we meet. Jesus connects us to God, and then sends us out to share that gift with others. Jesus reveals God’s love and plan so that we can share God’s love. Jesus revealed God’s character and love in the fullness of time through his life, death, and resurrection, and continues to do so through us, through the Church by the Spirit. May God make it so and may the world see God’s good news.