The sermon for January 6 was based on Matthew 2:1-12.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Grace and peace to you . . .

Speaking to Jesus, about 750 years before Jesus was even born, Isaiah said, "The Gentiles shall come to your light, And kings to the brightness of your rising." Not only was that prophecy right on the mark, but it was also some very good news for you. Unless you have been keeping your family tree a secret, I assume that none of you gathered here this Epiphany night is Hebrew; none of you is a Jew. That means, obviously, you are a Gentile. Your roots, your genealogy, your family tree might go all the way back to India or Africa, or to England or Scotland, or to Germany or Romania or Scandinavia. But you are not, as far as I know, Jewish.

So, if it weren't for Epiphany, what meaning would Jesus' birth have for you? If it weren't for the message of Epiphany proclaimed in the Scriptures and preached in the Church for almost two thousand years, you might wonder whether or not this Baby born in Bethlehem-this very Jewish Baby, born to Jewish people, born of royal Jewish stock, born of a kingly Jewish line whose lineage and recorded family tree stretches all the way back to King David and to Adam-you would have to wonder whether His birth means anything to you at all.

After all, why would God want to have anything to do with people who were not the people of God? I don't know about your ancestors, but they were probably quite pagan and into things that God abhorred. If mine were not Celtic and worshipping trees as my maternal grandmother informs me, then they were off worshipping some Nordic gods; with horrid pagan ceremonies trying to please these gods with customs that would disgust all of us. And it certainly disgusted God. There's an old saying, "How odd of God, to choose the Jews." But how much more odd for God to choose the Gentiles!

Yet, that happened, as St. Paul wrote: "The Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel." Paul called this a mystery, and no wonder. You were among no people, a pagan people. But now, by grace, you get to be among the people of God. You were sitting in darkness, but now the Light has come. The apostles proclaimed it. The prophets foretold it. And God demonstrated it and brought it to light, when He invited Gentiles, the Magi, these Wise Men from the East, to come and worship the Baby born in Bethlehem. That is what Epiphany means. God brought it all to light.

Well, that was then and this is now. But it seems as though the world is in just as great a need for Epiphany as it has ever been. Oh, I know, I know. You won't hear this message from the media, especially now at the beginning of a new year, when people are hopeful for a better future. As society looks back on the past, it too often boasts of what wonderful progress has been made. How much more enlightened we are than were our ancestors, as though every one of us went out and invented the light bulb or discovered the cure for small pox. The human race has always been pretty good at patting itself on the back and indulging in self-praise. But have we really made that much progress?

We have arrived at a new year; and still this world still doesn't seem to have solved its problems. What problems? You don't need me to tell you that. The news media can do that. In a rather self-contradictory way, while it praises mankind's feats, it's also very good at showing mankind's failures. Just pick up your newspaper or flick on Fox News. For all the talk of peace, you still have war. For all the boasting of better health, you still have disease. For all the emphasis on youth, you still age. For all the bragging of how much longer humans live, you still have death. And what in the world has anybody done about death?

Nothing. The world and its leaders refuse to talk of the thing that causes death. It's unmentionable, forbidden, and taboo. It wouldn't do to spoil everyone's delusion that dreamily promises that your world is getting better and better. But it is not. And down deep, you know it. And you know why, even if the world out there won't admit it.

It is because you sin. And there is no such thing as a little sin. How can you possibly think a sin is little when, whatever it is, it is rebelling against God? You do what you like, grab what you please, and go where you have no business going, virtually telling God, "I'm doing it my way," as the Old Testament says, "Everyone did what was right in his own eyes." And if the human race is good at anything, it is excellent at justifying what we do-at least to ourselves. You think you can get whatever you want, saying, "But don't I have a right to get what makes me happy?" You think your life, your body, your mind is your own, to do with as you choose. And usually you choose to do what everyone around you chooses to do. Thus you become as selfish, as envious, as jealous, as aggressive, as lustful as everybody else. And so, you fall under another condemnation from the Old Testament, where God says, "You have become just like the nations."

You have become just like the nations, but so unlike God. By this rebellion, this war against God, you have cut yourself off from God, the very Source of life. And you wonder why you have disease and death? Like it or not, believe it or not, the Scripture is still correct when it warns, the wages of sin is death.

Things have not really changed that much in 2006 years, except for one thing. And at first, it looks like a very small and insignificant thing: a Baby, a Baby born in Bethlehem. He may have had the blood of princes in His veins, but to look at Him there, you would think He came from peasants, not princes. Born in a barn; moved to some humble house by the time the Magi arrived. Who would think that this Baby Boy could un-do all the damage sin has done and take on all the sin you have sinned? Who would think that this Baby could face the death you must face and win?

Apparently the Magi thought so. And so they brought gifts, strange gifts for a Baby: gold, yellow clumps of incense, and a reddish-brown gum resin called myrrh. Are these gifts fit for a Child? No. But the Magi knew something that most of the world did not. They knew it because the prophets proclaimed it long before. Gold was a gift for a king, and this Child is a king-despite the way things look. Frankincense was used by priests in the temple to signify the presence of God. And this Child is God-despite the way things look. Myrrh was used in the tombs of the dead to preserve the body and hide the smell of decaying flesh. And this Child is going to die, not at Herod's hand, but later on. He would die, not in Bethlehem, but in Jerusalem, outside the city walls, on Golgotha. This Child would die on a cross on that Friday we call Good.

There, that Man hanging there, is all loaded up with sin. Not His, for He had no sin of His own, but your sin and the world's. "Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." He took it away from you. But where did He put it? Onto Himself, onto His own body, paying what you could never pay: the wages of all sin. There, on the cross, the Innocent dies for the guilty. The King is killed for the criminals. The Son of God came to die, so that you will live forever.

Why would God dare do that for you, who were of no people, who didn't want Him, ignored Him, and wished, by nature, to live your life without Him? But He came, born unto you, died for you, anyway. Why?

The answer is a mystery, a mystery that does not make sense. This mystery is the love of God. Like a shepherd who goes out seeking one lost sheep, it doesn't make sense. Like a father who waits for his prodigal son to come back home, it doesn't make sense. Like a king who throws a wedding banquet for his son, and invites the poor, the lame, the maimed, and the blind to come and celebrate, it doesn't make sense. It sounds so foolish to the world. But God so loves the world, nevertheless. He makes that perfectly clear at His Son's Epiphany.

This is why you celebrate this night. Despite all the darkness and death around you, you have this Light and Life from God, thanks to Jesus Christ. And so you will celebrate, in just a moment, at His Table, where Jesus comes to feast with you. He comes in Person, in the flesh, to your all-too-human flesh.

It's not as though you come bringing Him gifts. No, in this Supper He comes and brings you gifts. He brings forgiveness and grace and life, life that has no end. He brings you His own Body and Blood. And in this Supper, all around you, hidden but there, are angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, glorifying God just as you do as well. All this is so because He, hidden but here in Person, is Jesus, a Light to lighten the Gentiles. He loves you so much that He wouldn't stay in heaven without you there. He loves you so much, that He wouldn't let you stay on earth without Him here. And so He is here, to bless you this Epiphany! Amen.

The Peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Last Updated: 7/15/2008