Happy Epiphany to all of you! It has been a wonderful Christmas, which ends today with the great Feast of the Epiphany.
After Christmas one year, Linda, Rebecca, and I spent a few days in Key Largo, where friends had loaned us a place to stay. Key Largo is the first key heading toward Key West at the southern tip of Florida. During our stay there we had an opportunity to go out on a boat a few miles into the Atlantic Ocean. It was a cloudy day, and the temperature was in the upper 60s, so we wore jackets to keep us warm.
The boat moved very slowly in the “no wake” zone as we passed homes and then the main docking area on the key. As soon as we passed through the “no wake” zone the boat picked up speed considerably, and we were glad we had our jackets on. The water was calm, and we were the only boat in sight. It was exhilarating and peaceful at the same time, as we looked out over the calm, dark sea.
Finally, we reached our destination. The key was far behind us, only barely visible on the horizon. There were five other boats anchored at this same spot. I took off my jacket and shirt, put on flippers and held a snorkel in my hand. I jumped into the water, put on the snorkel, and began to swim slowly, looking down into the water, which was not dark any more in the least, but quite clear. What I saw in the water was utterly amazing. We were in the coral reef, and what I saw were hills of coral of many different colors, various plants, and, the most amazing of all, fish of every size and variety and color: round, bright blue fish; long, striped yellow and black fish; orange fish, spotted fish, none of them concerned in the least by my presence. It was like being in a huge aquarium. Who could have guessed that beneath that dark expanse of water there would be another world of such great beauty?
Snorkeling that day was, ironically, a mountaintop experience—at sea level! It was deeply moving. It led me to an even greater appreciation for God’s creation. You might say the experience for me was an epiphany; something of the vast beauty of God’s creation had been revealed to me. Not only do “the heavens declare the glory of God,” as the psalmist proclaims, but also the seas, and all that is in them.
Have you ever had an epiphany, an experience in which something of the nature of God or of his creation was revealed to you? If you have, the result was that your mind was expanded. You understood in a greater way the purposes of God, or even better, you understood in a greater way God’s purpose for your life, what he intends for you to do and to be.
Long ago, most likely in what today is the country, ironically, of Iran, there were some astrologers who, in watching the heavens, noticed the appearance of an unusually brilliant star. These astrologers, whom Matthew called wise men, were also familiar enough with Hebrew prophecy to know that the Jews were looking for the messiah to come and reign as king. We cannot be certain what star it was that they saw, but in 6 B.C. three planets—Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars–appeared as one brilliant object in the sky. That could have been the star the wise men saw. If so, of course, that would make our present dating a little off by six years, having Jesus being born about 6 B.C., but that actually is believed by scholars to be the case for other reasons as well. At any rate, the wise men had an epiphany: they saw something of the purposes of God as they looked at the heavens, and that epiphany led them to take decisive action. They were led to want to worship the One born King of the Jews.
The significance of the visit of the wise men, or Magi, is that this child in Bethlehem was to be not just the Messiah for the Jews, but the Savior of the world. While St. Matthew doesn’t tell us how many Magi there were, tradition has it that there were three, apparently because there were three gifts. Tradition has also given them names: Casper, Melchior, and Balthasar. Three different races were they as well, one black, one white, and one brown. How old were they? Some say one was young, one old, and one middle-aged. And why gold, frankincense, and myrrh? Gold is for the universal kingship of Christ, as the hymn states it, “over us all to reign.” Frankincense proclaims his divinity. And myrrh, the spice used to anoint the dead, foreshadows his death to atone for the sins of the whole world.
The message is clear: Christ is for all people and the mission of the Church is to do what Jesus commissioned us to do—preach the Gospel to all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The Feast of the Epiphany is thus a celebration of the universality of the Gospel, but not only that. It’s also a proclamation that Christ is not just a Savior, not just a messiah, but the Savior of the world.
One might say that when the Magi set out for Bethlehem they were about to discover a whole new world, more wondrous even than the world I discovered under the surface of the sea, a world more wonderful than anything they could imagine, a world with the pure, unbounded love of God as its base, love so amazing that this child would take the sin of the world upon himself and die for that sin. They had an inkling that this child was very special, as their gifts indicated. But I wonder what their lives were like after their visit to Bethlehem?
After all, that’s the critical question, isn’t it? Like the Magi, we’ll meet Christ this day at the altar and take him into our lives once again, when we receive him in his Body and Blood. Will we allow him there to reign? As one Epiphany hymn states so beautifully, “May all who seek to praise aright through purer lives show forth your light. To you, the King of glory, now all faithful hearts adoring bow.”
Sermon preached by the Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota Florida
6 January 2020
The Epiphany