Epiphany Sunday
Genesis 1:1-5
Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, on this, the day we celebrate the Festival of the Epiphany, the 12th Day of Christmas and the Celebration of Lights!
Our Gospel Lesson this morning is the very familiar Epiphany Story of the Wise Men. The MAGI followed the star and finally found the Christ Child and, of course, blessed Him the gifts of Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh. We love the story, I think, for two reasons. We love the way God led them by the Star, whatever the star was; and we love the way that God outwitted old King Herod. I also love the words of the Wise Men when they showed up in the Jerusalem looking for Jesus. “Where is He who is born King of the Jews? We saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him!” It’s the last words…..actually the ONLY words of the Wise Men recorded in Scripture, and they are wise, indeed. They followed the Light of the Star and it led them to the Light of the World. Their last words, as we have them, were words of worship.
It’s easy to find “famous last words.” Ready for some? The famous actor, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr, said, “I’ve never felt better!” Lord Byron, the famous writer, echoed a bit of Pauline theology in his last words when he said, “Now I shall go to sleep. Goodnight!” General Sedgwick was in a Civil War battle when he commented to his aides about the accuracy of the Confederate snipers, “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist……!” There’s Oscar Wilde, the writer, who quipped, “ Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.” And last, but not least, James French, as he was being electrocuted, uttered these prophetic words, “How about this for a headline for tomorrow’s paper? French fries!”
But what about “famous FIRST words?” We cherish the first words of our kids….usually ‘mama’ or ‘dada’ or “choo-choo” (and if they say “money” first, you’ve given birth to a teenager). FIRST WORDS are what we get in this morning’s Old Testament lesson, the very first words of all of history, spoken NOT by human beings, but spoken by the Creator when He created Creation. It was one statement: “Let there be LIGHT.” Without those words, WE would not exist. Without those words, there would be no creation. God spoke LIGHT into the darkness and chaos that was all there was outside of the Holy Trinity and brought all there is, to be WITH the Holy Trinity.
Think for a moment about the last four weeks. We’ve been lighting the candles Advent wreath, one candle each week. We added Christmas lights to our sanctuary and lights outside. We had little “tea lights” down the driveway on Christmas Eve. We enjoyed our beloved candle-light services, all of which illustrate what God meant when He said “Let there be Light.” That’s the nature and heart of God….not only to BE light, as John says in his 1st Epistle (1 John 1: 5), but to be LIGHT for the rest of us! There is NO darkness around God!
John wasn’t the only one to pick up on the theme of LIGHT. St. Paul reminded the Thessalonians….and all Christians as well…. that we are to be “children of the light and children of the day, NOT of the night or the darkness. (1 Thess 5:5)
There will come a time, Paul says, where in the “new creation” there won’t BE any darkness……there will only be LIGHT and Christ will be at the center of it all.
I don’t want to step on any toes here, but I’d like you to think about the neighborhood in which you live and how it was decorated over Christmas. Pam and I would drive down the 6 different blocks leading from Kempsville Road into our house and be AMAZED at the lights on most of the homes. You just KNEW those people were into the Christmas spirit…..whatever that meant for them. How could we tell? It was the LIGHTS! We couldn’t MISS it.
But then there were those homes that were completely dark; not a single Christmas decoration to be seen, no Christmas tree shining through the window. I know there can be extenuating circumstances where some people just don’t decorate, but what goes through MY MIND is this: they don’t “get Christmas!” They’re living in DARKNESS! I always HOPE its because they’re out of town or maybe not healthy enough to climb ladders and string lights, but it’s the idea. Light is contagious…..in a positive and even wonderful way.
Darkness is contagious too….and not in a good way. As God’s people created in God’s image, we are called to recognize these differences in our own lives. We live in darkness, for example, when we engage in sinful behavior, when we take advantage of other people, when we are bound up and burdened by guilt or anger or the hurts of the past. We all, every one of us, have those “pockets of darkness” where we tuck away some of our thoughts, words and actions from others…..and we may even think we’re hiding them from God! If we find that our lives are spinning out of control, we can be sure that the chaos of darkness, metaphorically AND spiritually speaking, is trying to drive us away from the Light of God’s love and out into the outer darkness, where, Scripture reminds us, there is nothing good…..nothing good at all.
That’s what happens when we stay away from worship. That’s what happens when we keep the covers of our Bibles closed. That’s what happens when we make excuses for sinful thoughts, words, and actions. That’s what happens when we refuse to be held spiritually accountable. It’s “darkness closing in,” and it’s that darkness that separates us from the Light of the World.
Whatever you are in your spiritual life, God wants to move you OUT of the darkness and INTO THE LIGHT. That’s what happens at the beginning of each worship service, as we confess those sins of which we are aware and even those of which we are not. We bring God’s LIGHT to bear on them…..the LIGHT of the world that exists to forgive, to heal, to bless and to sustain us in His love. Those words “you are forgiven” SHINE into our hearts, our minds and our lives.
Is there enough LIGHT in your life? It starts at the moment of our baptism, when the light of Christ comes to live within us and then, one part of our lives after another, spreads through us bringing HIS light to one part of our lives after another. Light is POWERFUL…..far more powerful than darkness. God MADE light. Darkness is simply what “is” when there is no light. A little bit of light goes a long, long way!
Once upon a time I was deep down in Mammoth Cave, far away from any natural light. It was off season and there were only a few of us, so we went farther “in” than normal. When we were way down deep, the guide brought us close around him and then, on the count of three, he turned off the lights. It was PITCH BLACK, the complete absence of light. Darker than I’d ever imagined it could be.
After what seemed like an eternity, as people around me were gasping from the experience, I reached down to my wrist and pushed the button on my “light up Thomas the Tank Engine Watch”…..and ohhh the change that little bit of light made!
The Light of Jesus Christ is in us, dear friends….it, or shall I say HE really is. He has, as Paul reminded us, brought us out of the darkness of unbelief into the realm of Light. God’s Light. Eternal Life. It’s that LIGHT that need to shine out of HIM first and into those still dark parts of our own lives…..bringing THEM into the Light. From us it also needs to shine into the lives of those around us so that they too can know that Jesus is the Light of THEIR WORLD as well.
