Epiphany --A:                Isaiah 60:1-6, 9; Ps 72; Eph 3:1-12; Mt 21:1-12
St. Martin’s, Kalamazoo                                      Fr. Joseph Neiman (1/6/08)

Homily: "Arise, shine for your light has come" (Is 60:1)

My brothers and sisters in Christ, ministers also in Christ’s name.

Merry Christmas, or should I say “Merry Epiphany”?

We just finished the twelve days of Christmas between December 25^th and today, January 6^th. The twelve days originated because early Christians could not agree on when to celebrate the birth of the Lord.

To us, Christmas and December are inseparable. But for the first three centuries of Christianity, Christmas wasn't in December or on the calendar anywhere. If observed at all, the celebration of Christ's birth was usually lumped in with Epiphany (January 6), one of the church's earliest established feasts. Some church leaders even opposed the idea of a birth celebration. Origen (c.185-c.254) preached that it would be wrong to honor Christ in the same way Pharaoh and Herod were honored. Birthdays were for pagan gods.

Not all of Origen's contemporaries agreed that Christ's birthday shouldn't be celebrated, and some began to speculate on the date (actual records were apparently long lost). Clement of Alexandria (c.150-c.215) favored May 20 but noted that others had argued for April 18, April 19, and May 28. Hippolytus (c.170-c.236) championed January 2. November 17, November 20, and March 25 all had backers as well. A Latin treatise written around 243 pegged March 21, because that was believed to be the date on which God created the sun. Polycarp (c.69-c.155) had followed the same line of reasoning to conclude that Christ's birth and baptism most likely occurred on Wednesday, because the sun was created on the fourth day.

 The eventual choice of December 25, made perhaps as early as 273, reflects  a convergence of Origen's concern about pagan gods and the church's  identification of God's son with the celestial sun. December 25 already  hosted two other related festivals: natalis solis invicti (the Roman  "birth of the unconquered sun"), and the birthday of Mithras, the Iranian  "Sun of Righteousness" whose worship was popular with Roman soldiers. The winter solstice, another celebration of the sun, fell just a few days earlier. Seeing that pagans were already exalting deities with some parallels to the true deity, church leaders decided to commandeer the date

and introduce a new festival.[1]

We’re familiar with the visit of the three kings, and unfortunately we often put this account, found only in Matthew, together with the birth narrative in Luke and make a holy scene with lots of sentiment.

Two things are important in the story about the kings. First they were Gentiles, that is, they were not Jews. They were not part of the people of the covenant who were to inherit the promises of God. Second, they followed the star and came to Jesus.

Have you ever wondered why there is an ox and a jackass in the traditional nativity set? The answer has nothing to do with history, but with prophecy. Listen to chapter 1 of Isaiah for a moment:

“Hear O heavens, and listen O earth; for the Lord has spoken. I reared up children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s manger, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand” (Is 1:2-3).

The kings, or wise men as they are called, came, as Matthew tells us, not to a stable with Jesus in a manger, but to “a house” where they “paid him homage.” As Family bookstores put it, the wise still seek Him. They came to “feed” so-to-speak just like the donkey in the prophecy from Isaiah. Following the star, they came to the one whose words and deeds would shine, would illuminate the meaning of life.

We’ve heard a lot about star power this past week. The political realm is making stars out of some presidential candidates and they had Hollywood stars helping them out. They are speaking about vision for the future and asking us to listen to them, to follow their star.

I once heard a Methodist bishop say in a sermon: “We should live our lives not pushed by our problems, but led by our visions.”  We often say Advent, which ended with Christmas, is a period of time to help us prepare for Christmas. In English that means in the waiting, watching, and listening, we grow more able to grasp the full reality that God became human in Jesus on the first Christmas, and that the risen Lord remains present with us through the power of His Holy Spirit to change our lives for the better. As we begin the new year, we are waiting to see if life will become better or worse, both in the personal sense of what we see and do each day and in the cultural sense of what world events will bring about.

Fr. Henri Nouwen writes: “Waiting is even more difficult because we are so fearful – not just as individual but as whole communities and nations. Fear explains why it is so hard to wait and how tempting it is to act. That is the root of a “first strike” approach to others. Those who live in the world of fear are more likely to make aggressive, hostile, destructive response than people who are not so frightened. The more afraid we are, the harder waiting becomes.”[2]

Henri Nouwen says further: “Being contemplative means peeling off the blindfolds that keep us from seeing (the Lord’s) coming in us and around us, and learning to listen in the spaces of quiet we leave for God.”[3]

Waiting and watching, living fully in the present moment in the Divine Presence, is possible if we believe we are headed somewhere, if we believe what we are experiencing now in the present leads to a future worth waiting for. The ancient proverb in the Bible says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Prov 29:18). So what is your vision?

Over the first three weeks of Advent we have had great visions presented to us form the ancient prophet, Isaiah.

Isaiah, we heard several weeks ago, spoke of the coming of a time when nations “shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks” and when no “nation shall lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Is 2:4). Then we heard from Isaiah that the coming of the expected one will ultimately bring about a transformation even of nature, and “the wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion cub feed together…, the cow and the bear make friends, their young lie down together…. They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Is 11:6-9).

Finally we heard that the “desert shall rejoice and blossom,” that “the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped,” and most especially that “a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way” and “it shall be for God’s people,”  “the redeemed shall walk there,” and “they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away” (Is 35:1-10).

Living as Jesus teaches us through his words and deeds is walking on that highway, that “Holy Way,” letting the star of his words and deeds guide us day by day. In the Acts of the Apostles the first disciples were called persons “who belonged to the Way” (Acts 9:2).

What path are you following in your life? What star guides you? To whom to you turn for illumination when you seek answers to the basic questions of life?

I am doing research into what the scholars are saying about the historical Jesus as the prelude to writing a book on that subject. There are all kinds of things being written and explored using the tools of history to see what Jesus said and did, and sometimes that becomes overwhelming.

When I was working on a doctorate in systematic theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, I wanted to graduate with the degree and be able to say in sermons and lectures: I have a doctoral degree in systematic theology, and I still believe in God!

We can get so caught up in discussions and reflections about what Jesus said and did that we forget the true reality of the personal relationship wit the risen Lord. When I ask what star guides you, I am not looking for a learned answer, not even a theological formula. I hope you are guided by the risen Lord in your daily prayer, in your weekly worship, and in your service in His name.

For your homework for this weekend (I give homework and let the good Lord do the testing): take some quiet time, light a candle if that helps, put yourself in the presence of the good Lord, pray the Lord’s prayer thoughtfully, and consider what is your vision of life? What motivates you to do and say the things you do and say each day? Are you developing the habit of seeing God at work in your life? Are you listening to what the Lord might be saying to you in the quiet of your heart? Are you on a path that is leading to greater peace and joy, greater appreciation of the beauty and worth not only of yourself but also of all whom you meet? Are you walking on the Holy Way guided by the light of Christ?

As Isaiah said in the first lesson this morning: “Arise, shine, for your light has come.”

God bless you and keep you this day and always, and remember that the good Lord does indeed love you more than you can ask for or even imagine. Do you believe it?