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January 4th, 2009 – Epiphany of the Lord
Readings: Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12
On New Year's Eve, Marilyn stood up in the local pub and said that it was time to get ready. At the stroke of midnight, she wanted every husband to be standing next to the one person who made his life worth living. Well, it was kind of embarrassing. As the clock struck - the bartender was almost crushed to death.
Only a few days ago millions of people around the world gathered in living rooms and pubs to watch thousands of others risk frostbite in city centers to inaugurate the ringing in of a new year. Many, myself included, watched the scene in NY’s Time Square as the clock counted down to midnight. The small gathering of friends I was with wished each other Happy New Year, toasts were made, hugs and kisses exchanged. I would suspect that many of us have experienced New Year’s in a similar fashion – though over the years I admit the excitement over the beginning of a new year is waning. When I was younger it was important for me to be with friends at a fun-filled party – but now sometimes I honestly would prefer to be in bed catching up on sleep rather than stay up late to watch the seconds tick by.
Maybe I’m just getting cynical – but isn’t New Year’s just the passing of one day into another? What makes it so special? Like at Christmas, we have expectations that the beginning of a new calendar year will yield something special. Some folks make resolutions to bring about positive changes in their lives, and most begin the year with at least hopeful expectations. For others of us, we are just grateful that 2008 is over. Many here today have had challenging years – we’ve said goodbye to loved ones, wrestled with relationships, faced a bleak economy and the threat of losing jobs. We want to hope that things will be better in 2009, but even in a season of holiday joy and hope we are reminded of the frailty of human life.
The Globe and Mail tells the Sparwood, BC story “A cold new year in the valley of tears”:
“At the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 81 erupts with paper bugles honking and ragged cheers. The hall is half-empty. The revellers, with their plastic hats and streamers, try to muster a good time in a town deep in mourning. The DJs keep the music upbeat for a mixed crowd of about three dozen. A few people are up dancing to Abba. Most, however, sit and nurse their drinks.
On any other New Year's Eve, partygoers in Sparwood, B.C. would be lined up outside the door. Not tonight. Most parties have been cancelled as the town of 4,000 prepares to bury eight men killed in their prime. The families of those men grieve at home tonight. But in a one-industry town where everyone is connected, there are people here sitting in the corners, quietly sharing stories about the co-workers and friends they've lost.
The survivors (Mr. Adams & Mr. Rusnak) from this tragedy recounted their efforts to rescue to their friends, specifically Mr. Drake when they heard the crack of another slide, sending them running for their lives.
“Don't leave me here. Don't leave me here,” Mr. Drake screamed. “We kept saying, ‘We're sorry,'” Mr. Adams said.
After the snow cloud settled, they went back for their friend. But there was not a soul in sight. They heard a signal from Michael Stier's transceiver, but he was buried so deep, there was no way to get him out. The slides had swept away all their survival gear…The trio made what Mr. Adams called the “gut-wrenching decision” to walk away. It was too risky to stay. They looked back one more time, but the mountain would not relent. A fourth slide buried their friends one last time.”
In a different place and in a different time, a group of young men work alongside the watchful eyes of their fathers as they expand their king’s extravagant palace. The seven young men were a mixed group of brothers, cousins, and childhood friends – ranging in age from 16 to 24. They were stone masons and carpenters, trades and skills learned from their fathers to sustain their young families and provide for their parents in their old age. As they worked at fashioning the stone they shared stories about Cousin Danny’s wedding and laughed over how drunk his father was as he toasted the bride and groom. Half-expecting to be scolded for joking on the job the young men instead hear the two older men arguing a short distance away. Danny leaves his place to peak around the corner where he can see the two older men in a heated exchange with what looks like a garrison of soldiers bearing the colours and flag of a foreign army. The lieutenant, stern-faced, indulges the pleas of the fathers no longer and motions his soldiers in the direction of the young men. By this time the others had joined Danny, and instantly they all knew what was happening.
These young men would be taken away as slaves to the latest conquering Empire – was it Babylonia or Assyria this time? It didn’t really matter. The young men would never see their families again – quite possibly they would be separated from each other, forced to learn to speak another language in different culture - their lives as they had known them, were over. The helpless fathers were held back by the strong arms and sharpened swords of the soldiers as they watched their boys hauled away as looted property. Their cries for mercy went unanswered, their stomachs twisted as grief set in, the shock and feeling of powerlessness of the moment took over. Eventually they would realize that they would have to explain what happened to their wives – later, they would return home and find that their young women had also been taken away.
All over their nation the sons and daughters of Israel are taken away to work as slaves in foreign lands leaving their homeland with a dearth of skilled labour, shattered economy, and broken hearts of elders left to fend for themselves. This was Empire at work – wars waged to expand political boundaries in order to conquer and plunder in order to accumulate more wealth. The people of God were now in Exile – estranged from friends, family, culture, religion, identity. In Exile one is isolated, cut-off from the familiar, from loving relationships, from a sense of purpose, from a future hope. People in exile are powerless and defeated, deflated, depressed.
Rob Bell in his book, “Jesus wants to Save Christians” talks about what the people of God do while living in Exile:
“The Israelites…cry out, in Babylon. And what happens when people cry out? ...Crying out reminds us of our dependence. Weeping leads us to reconnect with God. Our tears are sacred. They water the ground around our feet so that new things can grow. It didn’t take long for these exiles sitting by the side of the river in Babylon to connect their agony with the story of their ancestors who were slaves in Egypt. They knew that story. And now here they are, back in the same kind of oppressive situation. If God freed our people once before, couldn’t God do it again? And so it’s here, in exile by the river, amid the tears of despair, that God’s people begin to dream again. Their repentance gives them hope to see a future beyond the bitterness of all they have lost…Because it’s when we’re fully present in our pain, when we’re willing to sit in our tears, that we’re ready to imagine a different kind of tomorrow.” (Rob Bell, p 53-54)
This is the future vision God gives to his people living in Exile through the prophet Isaiah – a picture of God’s glory or light shining upon his people casting out the darkness of sin and despair. It is a future where the Exile is over – where “your sons shall come from far away, and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses’ arms.” (60:4) Families are reunited, wounds are healed, a great restoration takes place, a reversal of fortune is in store.
But for Isaiah there is also something radically new happening – things aren’t simply going back to the way they always were. He talks about the “wealth of the nations” coming to Israel bringing “gold and frankincense and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.” (60:6) Israel’s God-who-saves will be acclaimed by the ‘outsiders’, the Gentiles, by those peoples who previously had occupied Israel. The light which the Hebrew people held exclusive rights over is now being poured out over the whole earth. God will be revealed, and all, Jew and Gentile, will behold His light.
Epiphany is all about this revelation, a ‘showing forth’, a manifestation of God and his saving power. We heard in our gospel story the clear fulfillment of the Isaiah prophecy, right down to the gifts the wise men would bring Jesus. We hear of how these three astrologers from Persia, ‘wise men’ of their day, were led by the light of a star to the young boy. The ‘King of the Jews’ they sought was a sharp contrast to the cruel, power-seeking and paranoid King Herod they first dealt with – this Jesus was a young child of the poor working class. He would grow up to be a servant-shepherd-king that Isaiah envisions – one who gently and lovingly cares for and leads his people – a clear contrast from the cruel dictators who ran the empires that enslaved and imprisoned their victims.
And this King, the true King, the manifestation of God’s light and love, would come to powerfully and effectively save all of humanity, Jew and Gentile, slave and free, from the Great Exile of sin and separation from God. He established his kingdom not by military conquest and slavery but by giving himself to his people in life and in a cruel death. He came to bridge the gap between humanity and divinity – to deliver those who would cry out to him for mercy and salvation. Jesus’ saving activity was the greatest gift of love the world had ever seen – a bright light in the dark world. As Nietzsche says, “Love is not consolation. It is light.”
I can’t imagine the horrific torment the survivors of the BC avalanche must be experiencing – nor can I fathom the pain of the fathers and mothers of Israel experienced as they watched their children hauled off to slavery, powerless to prevent the injustice. But what I can understand is that we are all slaves to the Exile of human weakness, sin, ignorance, guilt, regret. And what I hold on to is that Christ is King – and this King is One the Psalmist describes who judges with justice and defends the cause of the poor, gives to the needy, and crushes the oppressor. (72:4) And no matter what traps we may find ourselves in, no matter the weight of despair, we may cry out to our King who is powerful and willing to save us. “God didn't promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, sun without rain, but He did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears, and light for the way.”
In this New Year may you find the light of Christ in the midst of the darkness of your life: “I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars.” (Og Mandino) Let us let go of the darkness of this past year, not in a way that minimizes our losses or ignores our mistakes, but in a way that allows the light of Christ to shine through us, good & bad, wounded & healed, to bring hope and peace to our community.
“Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.”
(Is 60:1) Amen.
From the Cutting Room Floor:
New Year Prayer for the Elderly
God, grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway,
The good fortune to run into the ones that I do,
And the eyesight to tell the difference.
“Now the remarkable fact that undergirds the entire portrait of the Magi—their searching, their guidance, their worship—is its character as the fulfillment of scripture. Isaiah 60:1–6 and Ps. 72:1–7, 10–14, two other texts for Epiphany, speak of the time of restoration when the wealth of the nations shall come to you. . . . They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord. (Isa. 60:5–6) The arrival of the non-Jews at Bethlehem turns out to be a part of the divine plan, an accomplishment of the promises made long ago. The Magi, as representatives of all non-Jews, belong here in the company of those worshiping the infant Messiah. In a sense they pave the way for the command the risen Christ gives to the eleven at the end of Matthew’s narrative: make disciples of all the nations. The account of the Magi’s visit to Bethlehem and their worship of the King of the Jews becomes a critical episode in the larger story of God’s redemptive plan for humankind. Salvation comes through Jesus the Jew, the fulfillment of the prophetic dreams, but it reaches far beyond to strangers from the East, to a Roman centurion, and to a Canaanite woman. At the end of the story it is no longer a matter of non-Jews coming to Bethlehem, but of Jewish disciples going out to all the nations.” (Texts for Preaching)
“Christmas is not a reminder that the world is really quite a nice old place. It reminds us that the world is a shockingly bad old place, where wickedness flourishes unchecked, where children are murdered, where civilized countries make a lot of money by selling weapons to uncivilized ones so they can blow each other apart. Christmas is God lighting a candle; and you don’t light a candle in a room that’s already full of sunlight. You light a candle in a room that’s so murky that the candle, when lit, reveals just how bad things really are. The light shines in the darkness, says St. John, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (NT Wright, pg 2 – For All God’s Worth)
“Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.” – Chinese Proverb
“There is not enough darkness in all the world to put out the light of even one small candle”
~ Robert Alden
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