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Epiphany Message
Vicar Shemwell Sermon Text: Matthew 2:1-12 January 10, 2021 |
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Something to ponder: "And they bowed down and worshiped Him. And they offered Him gold, a gift for a king, frankincense—incense—a gift for a priest, and myrrh, a gift for a condemned man or terminal case, that is, for a sacrifice. And it’s this final gift, this myrrh, this oil used ceremonially to anoint dead or dying bodies, it is this gift which suggests that the Magi somehow knew that not only was this Child to be the King of the Jews, but that He would also die a sacrificial death."
A BRIEF HOMILETIC DEFENSE
OF THE LITURGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GENTILE CHRISTMAS
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Dear brothers and sisters in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, boy do I love Epiphany. Now I’ve got a lot of favorites when it comes to feast days, but this one, it’s at the top of the list. And I suppose some less-liturgically minded folk might find that kind of funny. Why Epiphany? Why not Easter or Christmas? They are so much better! Even Pentecost or Reformation Sunday! C’mon man! And I mean, obviously I love all those too – and I would be lying if I said I loved Epiphany more than Easter or Christmas. But I do love it dearly. And moreover, I feel like it’s the most underrated of feast days. But you’re probably wondering: “why, Vicar? What’s your great defense of Epiphany? Whatever it is, whatever your point is, get around to it already! … (Though we know you won’t without first running us through a few wordy digressions, right?…)” Well, dear faithful, I think I love Epiphany so much, and feel it so undervalued, for two primary reasons. The first of which is actually simple enough: Epiphany, friends, is the Gentile Christmas; it’s all about the manifestation of God in Man to the Gentile world, bringing the good news of salvation for all mankind to all mankind. And you know, I’m about as Gentile as it gets. My blood is all Anglo-Saxon, Dutch, Mestizo-Mayan, and Conquistador. I’m painfully Gentile, as it were. And so this feast day especially, it’s for me! And looking around, you can all probably relate here, as most of us—and most Lutherans for that matter—are of Gentile stock, generally of good German and Scandinavian stock.
Therefore, if it weren’t for the Good News of Epiphany, we might still be hopelessly lost heathens and barbaric pagans. But thanks be to God, Christ came for us too! And I feel like Epiphany doesn’t get enough credit as being the primary joyous liturgical celebration of this all-encompassing—even Gentile-encompassing—nature of salvation. But it really should. That’s reason number one.
The second reason, the more complicated reason, is this: it’s that Epiphany, when you really get down to the heart of the matter, it’s really all about humility. That is, it is all about the humility of faith. And that’s a topic very near and dear to my own heart, and particularly my own theological interests and academic concentration. I hope to even stick around Fort Wayne for an extra year after my graduation to get an STM degree on the very topic. So it’s personal for me. You know, we live in a world which prides itself on allegiance to science, facts, and the supposed “surety of reason.” Yet this world also fails to see how all that stuff, everything taken for granted as truth, is all predicated on simple faith. All knowledge is ultimately faith. All of it. It really is. And all reason is based in faith. Whatever you believe about the world around you, it is all ultimately taken on faith. René Descartes proved that four hundred years ago. To believe even that the sun will indeed rise tomorrow morning, at the end of the day, it’s a matter of faith. And we so often, in our society, we so often fail to recognize or acknowledge that uncomfortable reality. And we thusly pit reason and faith against one another, as if reason has some magisterial use apart from faith itself, apart from being the handmaid to the Queen of the sciences, theology. But really, what the world needs, then, what we need, is true humility. The humbling, that is, the humiliation, of the idol of independent reason. Yes, we treat reason like an idol. But what we so desperately need is the humility to recognize the place of simple faith in every single aspect of life.
And most importantly, we need the wisdom of faith. But what exactly does that mean? What is the “wisdom of faith” and what use does this overly reasonable—increasingly secular—world have for it? Well, that’s exactly what I’d like to touch on in my sermon this morning. And toward that point, let’s take another look now, then, at our reading so as to get a better idea of what this feast of Epiphany is really all about.
So, in our reading, we hear that, sometime after Jesus’s birth in Bethlehem, a handful of “Magi” come from the east to Jerusalem in search of the newborn King of the Jews. Mean old king Herod, of course he catches word of this entourage of curious Magi and, being deeply concerned, calls together his very best men to interpret the prophesies and determine the location of the new King’s birth. When they inform him that the location is indeed Bethlehem, just as Micah had prophesied, he then meets with the curious Magi and, playing nice, inquires about the star they had seen which piqued their curiosity in the new King’s nativity. He then sends them off to Bethlehem with the command that they are to return to him afterwards with the Child’s exact location so that he, too, may visit the new King and pay Him homage. That’s what he tells them, anyhow. So, the Magi head off, following the star, and eventually make it to where Christ and His family are staying. And upon reaching the house, St. Matthew tells us that the Magi are “overjoyed” at seeing the regal Child. The text tells us that they bow down and worship Jesus and offer Him their three presents of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And finally, having been warned in a dream not to return to the deceptive king Herod, as he’s really just intent upon killing the True King of the Jews, they return to their own land by an altogether different route, thereby disobeying Herod’s command.
Now the first thing to address here, beloved, is the identity of these “Magi.” The word “magi,” or the singular “magus,” in ancient Greek, from which it derives, it basically means magician. You can clearly see the etymological connection. Yet many translations render the word as “wise men,” I think with the understanding that, at that time in history, magicians, or those well-versed in things like astrology, primitive oneirology—that is, dream interpretation—and even ceremonial magic, men well-versed in these sorts of things were indeed considered wise men, upon whom many depended for their understanding of the world around them; consider the use of Daniel’s skill at interpreting dreams for the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar in the Old Testament, for instance—and there are plenty of other similar examples in Scripture. So, suffice to say, these guys were wise magicians, in a certain sense. But they were moreover, and most importantly here for us, they were Gentiles. They came not from the land of the Israelites but from the east. Now we don’t know exactly where in the east they came from, but we do know they would have been Gentile, likely pagans from somewhere near modern-day Iran perhaps. To recap, then, these three wise men—well, we assume there were three because of the three gifts—gold, frankincense, and myrrh, right?—but really, the text doesn’t say how many there were, but traditionally, we’ve assumed there were three—but these wise men, they were foreign pagan magicians. And think about that for a second, dear faithful. We hear that Herod’s learned religious scholars, those faithful Jewish scholars who know the Torah so well, they understand the prophesies and know that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. They know it. Yet we don’t hear anything about their making a pilgrimage to see the Child. And Herod, the so-called king of the Jews, the earthly king of the Jews, not only does he not really intend on paying homage to Jesus, he actually just wants Him dead, as he deems Him a threat to his worldly power.
Thus, the main representatives of the Jewish people in the area, they don’t seem to have much love for the newborn King of the Jews. Our text even suggests that all of Jerusalem was “disturbed” at the prospect, presumably, of the King’s delivery. Instead, it is a handful of pagan magicians from the east who are eager to worship the neonatal Messiah. How this so clearly foreshadows Christ’s eventual rejection by His own people…
But, brothers and sisters, what made these men wise? I mean, they were deemed knowledgeable and reliable in their age on account of their astrological proficiency and magical acuity. However, why do we still consider them wise? What is the wisdom these pagan magicians still hold for us? What do these fellow Gentiles have to teach us? Well, as I see it, their wisdom lies precisely in their faith – in their willingness to humble their reason and trust in faith alone. But what do I mean? Consider this: as first century astrologers, the Magi had every reason to trust in the stars. That was kind of their whole thing, after all. Astrologers trust in the stars. But why would these pagan magicians and astrologers, why would they be putting their faith in Jewish prophesies? They were not Jewish. Yet they knew the prophesies. Not only did they know them, but they also believed them, for whatever reason. And it seems they had more faith in them than the Jewish hierarchy at the time – maybe even all of Jerusalem. But all their reason should have led them to disregard this prophesy about a newborn Jewish king, especially since, in that time, the Jewish kingdom was not that big of a deal on the world stage, on the global scale. And the Jewish people did not dominate the culture of the empire – the Romans did. Therefore, pagans were still in power, not the other way around. But… the wise men, they didn’t listen to their reason. Instead, they followed the star. They followed the star to a little home where they found a peasant Jewish family, a virgin, her husband, and a newborn, the latter understood to be God in the flesh.
And they bowed down and worshiped Him. And they offered Him gold, a gift for a king, frankincense—incense—a gift for a priest, and myrrh, a gift for a condemned man or terminal case, that is, for a sacrifice. And it’s this final gift, this myrrh, this oil used ceremonially to anoint dead or dying bodies, it is this gift which suggests that the Magi somehow knew that not only was this Child to be the King of the Jews, but that He would also die a sacrificial death.
So again, to recap once more, these pagan magicians from the east followed a star to reach and worship the Jewish infant of a peasant family, understanding Him to be God made flesh and the King of the Jews, and brought Him a gift which prefigured His sacrificial death. Were these men so wise and prescient that they knew Christ would die on the Cross? And if so, how much more remarkable their faith and their willingness to humble their reason was. These Gentile men accepted not only that God had become Man, but that He would die for mankind. But… why on earth would a god do that? Particularly for wise men coming from a pagan world, in their thinking: what kind of god does that? What kind of god takes on human form all in order to die a gruesome death? In their pagan society, such a thing would be patently absurd – it would be the epitome of foolishness!. That’s not what Zeus, Jupiter, or even Odin would do. Not at all! And certainly all this contradiction and paradox crossed the minds of the wise men at some point – they were so wise after all. Yet… they followed the star anyways, they bowed down and worshipped, and they offered their gifts to the sacrificial King. And then, they listened to the wisdom of a dream, of all things, and ignored Herod’s command. That is faith. That is a genuine leap of faith – as the brilliant and melancholic Danish theologian, Søren Kierkegaard, would put it.
And that’s why those men were so wise. Not on account of their worldly knowledge. But because of their faith. You know, the author of Hebrews tells us that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” These Gentile men, they wanted a real savior, a redeemer, someone to come and rescue them from sin and death and meaninglessness. They hoped for salvation, even among the offspring of a peasant family belonging to a people not their own in a faraway distant land, only identified for them by a seemingly random star in the sky. They hoped for it, and that hope formed their faith. They followed the star out of a conviction of something not yet seen, but hoped for – hoped for in earnest, hoped for by eager men, by men who, like all men, suffered under the weight of sin and death – men who shared a longing, shared among the Chosen Israelites as well as the pagan, a longing for a true flesh and blood Savior. And because of their hope, because of their faith, we now celebrate Epiphany, the Gentile Christmas, that feast day when we joyfully acknowledge the manifestation of God through the virgin birth not just to the Jew, but to the Gentile too, for all mankind. Yes, that’s wisdom. The wisdom of faith. And that, friends, is why I love Epiphany.
You know, epiphany, the word itself, means “manifestation” or “theophany.” It’s when God reveals Himself to man – for us, in the very flesh of a Man Himself. And you know, Epiphany is not just a celebration during which we look back to God’s once having revealed Himself to mankind in Christ. It is also a day when we look to the Epiphany still presently before us. For Christ, He is still being manifested among us Gentiles today. He is still coming to us, revealed to us in the Word of God, and enfleshed in the Holy Sacraments.
This morning is the first day of the Epiphany season, but really, every Sunday, and every celebration of the Holy Mass, is an epiphany of sorts – a Little Epiphany, so to speak, just like this particular day is the Gentile Christmas, the so-called “Little Christmas.” Every celebration of the Holy Mass is an epiphany – a Little Epiphany; and thus, dear flock, God is revealed to you, manifested before you, epiphanized just for you, each and every time you eat and drink His True Body and Blood. You Germans, Swedes, Finns, Danes—or Anglo-Saxon/Mestizo-Mayans—of whatever stock you may be, the King of the Jews, the King of All, is manifested before you in Word and Sacrament, right here and now. And so, taking our cue from those wise men, those foreign pagan magicians who led the way by following a star and heeding the wisdom of—of all things—a dream, let us, too, bow down and worship Him. Let us worship our King… the King of the Jews and the King of the Gentiles… the King of all creation. Let us bow down and worship and offer our gifts to Him – our gifts of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving. Let us bow down and worship before the Epiphany of our Lord. And yes, let us be as wise as those wise men of old, those faithful magicians from the east. Let us be as wise as those Gentiles of yesteryear. And let us be as wise as all those who have preceded us in the faith, all the saints and martyrs and all, all who’ve clung to Christ, despite—and yet in boastful glorification of—the sheer foolishness of the Cross – all who’ve clung to the True King, born in a manger, enthroned on the Cross at Calvary, and now seated gloriously at the right hand of the Father in heaven. In short, let us be wise in faith.
I really do love Epiphany. I love this feast day and I love this season, the entire season of Epiphanytide – and not just because it’s a nice theological and liturgical excuse to keep my Christmas decorations up for another month. No… I love it for all these dear… perfect reasons. Oh, how I hope and prayer that you do too.
And so, my brothers and sisters in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, my dear fellow redeemed ones, of both Jew and Gentile stock, with these words, words of joyful celebration, given this day from the holy evangelist, St. Matthew, through the inspired Word of God, to us, the Church, the Body of Christ, with these words, shared this cheerful Epiphany day, between but a lowly saved sinner and other saved sinners, toward greater appreciation for the all-encompassing nature of our salvation and toward a more grateful heart for the manifestation of God in man by a newborn King and the manifestation of His salvation through the Cross upon which that King suffered and died out of love for us, with these words, may you now, by the grace of our God, by the presence of that Savior and King of ours in both Word and Sacrament, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, may you be forever kept in the eternal security of Our Lord’s Heavenly Bosom. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
OF THE LITURGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GENTILE CHRISTMAS
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Dear brothers and sisters in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, boy do I love Epiphany. Now I’ve got a lot of favorites when it comes to feast days, but this one, it’s at the top of the list. And I suppose some less-liturgically minded folk might find that kind of funny. Why Epiphany? Why not Easter or Christmas? They are so much better! Even Pentecost or Reformation Sunday! C’mon man! And I mean, obviously I love all those too – and I would be lying if I said I loved Epiphany more than Easter or Christmas. But I do love it dearly. And moreover, I feel like it’s the most underrated of feast days. But you’re probably wondering: “why, Vicar? What’s your great defense of Epiphany? Whatever it is, whatever your point is, get around to it already! … (Though we know you won’t without first running us through a few wordy digressions, right?…)” Well, dear faithful, I think I love Epiphany so much, and feel it so undervalued, for two primary reasons. The first of which is actually simple enough: Epiphany, friends, is the Gentile Christmas; it’s all about the manifestation of God in Man to the Gentile world, bringing the good news of salvation for all mankind to all mankind. And you know, I’m about as Gentile as it gets. My blood is all Anglo-Saxon, Dutch, Mestizo-Mayan, and Conquistador. I’m painfully Gentile, as it were. And so this feast day especially, it’s for me! And looking around, you can all probably relate here, as most of us—and most Lutherans for that matter—are of Gentile stock, generally of good German and Scandinavian stock.
Therefore, if it weren’t for the Good News of Epiphany, we might still be hopelessly lost heathens and barbaric pagans. But thanks be to God, Christ came for us too! And I feel like Epiphany doesn’t get enough credit as being the primary joyous liturgical celebration of this all-encompassing—even Gentile-encompassing—nature of salvation. But it really should. That’s reason number one.
The second reason, the more complicated reason, is this: it’s that Epiphany, when you really get down to the heart of the matter, it’s really all about humility. That is, it is all about the humility of faith. And that’s a topic very near and dear to my own heart, and particularly my own theological interests and academic concentration. I hope to even stick around Fort Wayne for an extra year after my graduation to get an STM degree on the very topic. So it’s personal for me. You know, we live in a world which prides itself on allegiance to science, facts, and the supposed “surety of reason.” Yet this world also fails to see how all that stuff, everything taken for granted as truth, is all predicated on simple faith. All knowledge is ultimately faith. All of it. It really is. And all reason is based in faith. Whatever you believe about the world around you, it is all ultimately taken on faith. René Descartes proved that four hundred years ago. To believe even that the sun will indeed rise tomorrow morning, at the end of the day, it’s a matter of faith. And we so often, in our society, we so often fail to recognize or acknowledge that uncomfortable reality. And we thusly pit reason and faith against one another, as if reason has some magisterial use apart from faith itself, apart from being the handmaid to the Queen of the sciences, theology. But really, what the world needs, then, what we need, is true humility. The humbling, that is, the humiliation, of the idol of independent reason. Yes, we treat reason like an idol. But what we so desperately need is the humility to recognize the place of simple faith in every single aspect of life.
And most importantly, we need the wisdom of faith. But what exactly does that mean? What is the “wisdom of faith” and what use does this overly reasonable—increasingly secular—world have for it? Well, that’s exactly what I’d like to touch on in my sermon this morning. And toward that point, let’s take another look now, then, at our reading so as to get a better idea of what this feast of Epiphany is really all about.
So, in our reading, we hear that, sometime after Jesus’s birth in Bethlehem, a handful of “Magi” come from the east to Jerusalem in search of the newborn King of the Jews. Mean old king Herod, of course he catches word of this entourage of curious Magi and, being deeply concerned, calls together his very best men to interpret the prophesies and determine the location of the new King’s birth. When they inform him that the location is indeed Bethlehem, just as Micah had prophesied, he then meets with the curious Magi and, playing nice, inquires about the star they had seen which piqued their curiosity in the new King’s nativity. He then sends them off to Bethlehem with the command that they are to return to him afterwards with the Child’s exact location so that he, too, may visit the new King and pay Him homage. That’s what he tells them, anyhow. So, the Magi head off, following the star, and eventually make it to where Christ and His family are staying. And upon reaching the house, St. Matthew tells us that the Magi are “overjoyed” at seeing the regal Child. The text tells us that they bow down and worship Jesus and offer Him their three presents of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And finally, having been warned in a dream not to return to the deceptive king Herod, as he’s really just intent upon killing the True King of the Jews, they return to their own land by an altogether different route, thereby disobeying Herod’s command.
Now the first thing to address here, beloved, is the identity of these “Magi.” The word “magi,” or the singular “magus,” in ancient Greek, from which it derives, it basically means magician. You can clearly see the etymological connection. Yet many translations render the word as “wise men,” I think with the understanding that, at that time in history, magicians, or those well-versed in things like astrology, primitive oneirology—that is, dream interpretation—and even ceremonial magic, men well-versed in these sorts of things were indeed considered wise men, upon whom many depended for their understanding of the world around them; consider the use of Daniel’s skill at interpreting dreams for the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar in the Old Testament, for instance—and there are plenty of other similar examples in Scripture. So, suffice to say, these guys were wise magicians, in a certain sense. But they were moreover, and most importantly here for us, they were Gentiles. They came not from the land of the Israelites but from the east. Now we don’t know exactly where in the east they came from, but we do know they would have been Gentile, likely pagans from somewhere near modern-day Iran perhaps. To recap, then, these three wise men—well, we assume there were three because of the three gifts—gold, frankincense, and myrrh, right?—but really, the text doesn’t say how many there were, but traditionally, we’ve assumed there were three—but these wise men, they were foreign pagan magicians. And think about that for a second, dear faithful. We hear that Herod’s learned religious scholars, those faithful Jewish scholars who know the Torah so well, they understand the prophesies and know that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. They know it. Yet we don’t hear anything about their making a pilgrimage to see the Child. And Herod, the so-called king of the Jews, the earthly king of the Jews, not only does he not really intend on paying homage to Jesus, he actually just wants Him dead, as he deems Him a threat to his worldly power.
Thus, the main representatives of the Jewish people in the area, they don’t seem to have much love for the newborn King of the Jews. Our text even suggests that all of Jerusalem was “disturbed” at the prospect, presumably, of the King’s delivery. Instead, it is a handful of pagan magicians from the east who are eager to worship the neonatal Messiah. How this so clearly foreshadows Christ’s eventual rejection by His own people…
But, brothers and sisters, what made these men wise? I mean, they were deemed knowledgeable and reliable in their age on account of their astrological proficiency and magical acuity. However, why do we still consider them wise? What is the wisdom these pagan magicians still hold for us? What do these fellow Gentiles have to teach us? Well, as I see it, their wisdom lies precisely in their faith – in their willingness to humble their reason and trust in faith alone. But what do I mean? Consider this: as first century astrologers, the Magi had every reason to trust in the stars. That was kind of their whole thing, after all. Astrologers trust in the stars. But why would these pagan magicians and astrologers, why would they be putting their faith in Jewish prophesies? They were not Jewish. Yet they knew the prophesies. Not only did they know them, but they also believed them, for whatever reason. And it seems they had more faith in them than the Jewish hierarchy at the time – maybe even all of Jerusalem. But all their reason should have led them to disregard this prophesy about a newborn Jewish king, especially since, in that time, the Jewish kingdom was not that big of a deal on the world stage, on the global scale. And the Jewish people did not dominate the culture of the empire – the Romans did. Therefore, pagans were still in power, not the other way around. But… the wise men, they didn’t listen to their reason. Instead, they followed the star. They followed the star to a little home where they found a peasant Jewish family, a virgin, her husband, and a newborn, the latter understood to be God in the flesh.
And they bowed down and worshiped Him. And they offered Him gold, a gift for a king, frankincense—incense—a gift for a priest, and myrrh, a gift for a condemned man or terminal case, that is, for a sacrifice. And it’s this final gift, this myrrh, this oil used ceremonially to anoint dead or dying bodies, it is this gift which suggests that the Magi somehow knew that not only was this Child to be the King of the Jews, but that He would also die a sacrificial death.
So again, to recap once more, these pagan magicians from the east followed a star to reach and worship the Jewish infant of a peasant family, understanding Him to be God made flesh and the King of the Jews, and brought Him a gift which prefigured His sacrificial death. Were these men so wise and prescient that they knew Christ would die on the Cross? And if so, how much more remarkable their faith and their willingness to humble their reason was. These Gentile men accepted not only that God had become Man, but that He would die for mankind. But… why on earth would a god do that? Particularly for wise men coming from a pagan world, in their thinking: what kind of god does that? What kind of god takes on human form all in order to die a gruesome death? In their pagan society, such a thing would be patently absurd – it would be the epitome of foolishness!. That’s not what Zeus, Jupiter, or even Odin would do. Not at all! And certainly all this contradiction and paradox crossed the minds of the wise men at some point – they were so wise after all. Yet… they followed the star anyways, they bowed down and worshipped, and they offered their gifts to the sacrificial King. And then, they listened to the wisdom of a dream, of all things, and ignored Herod’s command. That is faith. That is a genuine leap of faith – as the brilliant and melancholic Danish theologian, Søren Kierkegaard, would put it.
And that’s why those men were so wise. Not on account of their worldly knowledge. But because of their faith. You know, the author of Hebrews tells us that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” These Gentile men, they wanted a real savior, a redeemer, someone to come and rescue them from sin and death and meaninglessness. They hoped for salvation, even among the offspring of a peasant family belonging to a people not their own in a faraway distant land, only identified for them by a seemingly random star in the sky. They hoped for it, and that hope formed their faith. They followed the star out of a conviction of something not yet seen, but hoped for – hoped for in earnest, hoped for by eager men, by men who, like all men, suffered under the weight of sin and death – men who shared a longing, shared among the Chosen Israelites as well as the pagan, a longing for a true flesh and blood Savior. And because of their hope, because of their faith, we now celebrate Epiphany, the Gentile Christmas, that feast day when we joyfully acknowledge the manifestation of God through the virgin birth not just to the Jew, but to the Gentile too, for all mankind. Yes, that’s wisdom. The wisdom of faith. And that, friends, is why I love Epiphany.
You know, epiphany, the word itself, means “manifestation” or “theophany.” It’s when God reveals Himself to man – for us, in the very flesh of a Man Himself. And you know, Epiphany is not just a celebration during which we look back to God’s once having revealed Himself to mankind in Christ. It is also a day when we look to the Epiphany still presently before us. For Christ, He is still being manifested among us Gentiles today. He is still coming to us, revealed to us in the Word of God, and enfleshed in the Holy Sacraments.
This morning is the first day of the Epiphany season, but really, every Sunday, and every celebration of the Holy Mass, is an epiphany of sorts – a Little Epiphany, so to speak, just like this particular day is the Gentile Christmas, the so-called “Little Christmas.” Every celebration of the Holy Mass is an epiphany – a Little Epiphany; and thus, dear flock, God is revealed to you, manifested before you, epiphanized just for you, each and every time you eat and drink His True Body and Blood. You Germans, Swedes, Finns, Danes—or Anglo-Saxon/Mestizo-Mayans—of whatever stock you may be, the King of the Jews, the King of All, is manifested before you in Word and Sacrament, right here and now. And so, taking our cue from those wise men, those foreign pagan magicians who led the way by following a star and heeding the wisdom of—of all things—a dream, let us, too, bow down and worship Him. Let us worship our King… the King of the Jews and the King of the Gentiles… the King of all creation. Let us bow down and worship and offer our gifts to Him – our gifts of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving. Let us bow down and worship before the Epiphany of our Lord. And yes, let us be as wise as those wise men of old, those faithful magicians from the east. Let us be as wise as those Gentiles of yesteryear. And let us be as wise as all those who have preceded us in the faith, all the saints and martyrs and all, all who’ve clung to Christ, despite—and yet in boastful glorification of—the sheer foolishness of the Cross – all who’ve clung to the True King, born in a manger, enthroned on the Cross at Calvary, and now seated gloriously at the right hand of the Father in heaven. In short, let us be wise in faith.
I really do love Epiphany. I love this feast day and I love this season, the entire season of Epiphanytide – and not just because it’s a nice theological and liturgical excuse to keep my Christmas decorations up for another month. No… I love it for all these dear… perfect reasons. Oh, how I hope and prayer that you do too.
And so, my brothers and sisters in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, my dear fellow redeemed ones, of both Jew and Gentile stock, with these words, words of joyful celebration, given this day from the holy evangelist, St. Matthew, through the inspired Word of God, to us, the Church, the Body of Christ, with these words, shared this cheerful Epiphany day, between but a lowly saved sinner and other saved sinners, toward greater appreciation for the all-encompassing nature of our salvation and toward a more grateful heart for the manifestation of God in man by a newborn King and the manifestation of His salvation through the Cross upon which that King suffered and died out of love for us, with these words, may you now, by the grace of our God, by the presence of that Savior and King of ours in both Word and Sacrament, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, may you be forever kept in the eternal security of Our Lord’s Heavenly Bosom. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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