Sermon for the Epiphany of our Lord
Sermon for Epiphany
Augustana 2012
10 Sermon for the Epiphany of our Lord
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
I think the facts of the Epiphany are fairly well known by most folks. The events get conflated with the Christmas story but it’s pretty clear. God used a star, the Scriptures, and a dream to guide magi from the east to Bethlehem and to get past the treachery of Herod. They are the first of many Gentiles to worship Jesus and this is a good thing because it reveals the will of God to include the Gentiles in God’s plan of redeeming the world and restoring His rulership on earth. But the Epiphany is not so much about story telling as much as it about gathering around the Word of God to hear again how God the Father guides all kinds of people to Christ and to be thankful that we have been so called and gathered and like the magi.
It was always the plan of God to bring in the rest of the people. Look at the reading from Isaiah for tonight. “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. 2 For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. 3 And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. Lift up your eyes all around, and see; they all gather together, they come to you;” Isaiah goes on to say that people from all over will come and not just come but come and bring their wealth into the city of Jerusalem to give thanks to God for what He has done for them in redeeming them. Paul too, says “This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” Paul’s whole purpose for living is “to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9 and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things.” This is God’s plan. He sent His Son to redeem the people to buy them back from slavery to darkness and to bring them into His unapproachable light.
God has not cast us aside. We are not cast aside like something unimportant to Him but rather, we are of such great value that He sent His Son to die for us. Contrast then the two kings. King Herod and God the King sending Jesus to claim His throne. King Herod has no regard for human life. He kills the boys of Israel under 2 years old because they might be in the way. For him human life has only relative value. He weighs the usefulness of a person with whether that life is of relative use to him or not. Herod’s claim of sovereignty over life in clear contradiction of the Word of God has an important moral implication for us today. What we know to be the objective truth of God that human life has value because it is human life is challenged at every front. Think of the whole range of ethical problems centered on new and emerging medical technologies. Think about how the law of our land exalts the rights to happiness of the mother over the right to life of her unborn child. The value of human life must not ever become relative to its usefulness or even its quality. The value of a human’s life resides in the fact that God created that person in His own image. To think in any other way is to head down the road of wicked tyrants like Herod and to claim for ourselves the sovereign right over what God himself has created.
Whom does God call to see the Christ and how? The magi came from the east. I’ve often wondered why. Some have speculated that the magi were descendants of those who had learned from the exiled Jews that a messiah was coming. If so, and it’s probable, then they had learned from the Scriptures. They knew He was born and were led to Jerusalem by the divine leading of a peculiar star. They were not led there by their own astrological wisdom or intuition; they were led there miraculously by God. Whom does God bring today to see what He done for us, for the world, in Christ Jesus? Just as God brought Gentile magi from the east through His Word and the star, so He, and He alone, calls, gathers, and enlightens people into the lovely light of the Christian Church by the preaching and teaching of His Word and by the leading of the bright morning star, Jesus Christ.
And so we redeemed ones, we who have not been cast aside, we are gathered tonight by the mighty hand of God to give thanks to Him for what He has done for us, that He has called us from out of the darkness and gathered us into the light of His Son Jesus who is the Light of the world. We surrender our claims on any sovereignty over what God alone has sovereignty. We are enlightened in the mystery of God that He would do such a thing for anyone, much less we poor sinners and we rejoice and give thanks. In fact we might rejoice exceedingly with great joy over the knowledge of God’s tremendous saving love for us. Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus. Amen.
