Matthew 2:1-12 Pastor Stephen “Tig” Intagliata
Summary: The feast of Epiphany invites us to think about the epiphanies that we experience–divine encounters, sudden revelations, or “light bulb” moments in our relationship with God. Some of the effects of epiphanies are Conversion, Closeness, Clarity and Courage. May we be open to experience new epiphanies from God in our lives.
Today is Epiphany Sunday in the church calendar. So to start off, it’s helpful to define the word Epiphany. The dictionary gives us several meanings:
1.The manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi; we can also call them kings, astrologers, or wise men.
I think it’s so cool that part of the Christmas story includes the fact that Jesus came not just for his own people, the Jews, but also for Gentiles, those considered outsiders, and in this case, people from such a distant and different culture.
- The Christian festival commemorating the Epiphany, which is on January 6.
- A manifestation of a divine or supernatural being. So with many epiphanies, there’s an element of something out of the ordinary, something transcendent.
- And lastly, an epiphany can also be simply a moment of sudden and great revelation or realization; I think of one of those “light bulb” moments when we suddenly understand something that we had been in the dark about.
I remember having one of those moments in geometry class in high school, where I was on the struggle bus the first half of the semester, and then one day all of a sudden those proofs just made sense, a light bulb went off in my head (or should we say went on), and I coasted through the rest of the semester.
Now this morning I want to focus on epiphany’s effects. What are some effects that epiphanies have on people who receive them? And as I thought about it, I came up with four effects, all beginning with the letter “C”; I’m sure there are other effects as well, so this is not an exhaustive list.
One effect that epiphanies have is conversion. In orthodox churches in Eastern Europe, there’s a tradition that on the day of Epiphany people carve a hole in the ice of a lake, sometimes in the shape of a cross, and brave souls jump in.
This tradition is rooted in the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist, which occurs around this time in the church calendar. Baptism is a symbol of a person’s conversion to Christianity,
and jumping into the icy water represents purifying the soul to begin or recommit yourself to the Christian faith.
The Greek word for conversion in the New Testament is Metanoia, which means “the journey of changing one’s mind, heart, self, or way of life; spiritual transformation.”
I’ve heard metanoia described as doing an about face, turning your life around and facing in a completely different direction, like a ship or plane being rerouted due to bad weather.
There’s a Latin phrase that the German reformer Martin Luther used to describe a life that is in need of turning around toward God. He called it incurvatus in se, which literally means curved inward toward itself.
Luther is describing a life that is self-centered, self-absorbed, a person only concerned about oneself, instead of being focused outward toward God.
A commentary on Epiphany that I read this week contrasted the Magi with King Herod, saying that by following the star and journeying west toward Bethlehem where Jesus was born, these wise men were literally turning toward God.
We don’t hear any more about them after this story, but I wonder if their epiphany was a conversion that led to their lives being changed in the long run, after their return home. Maybe they became missionaries to their own people.
Now Herod on the other hand was incurvatus in se, only concerned about how the birth of the new King Jesus could be a threat to him and his power as King.
Now most of us in our own Christian life can identify with being incurvatus in se, and it’s usually a lifelong journey to turn away from ourselves and toward God. Sometimes it’s two steps forward and one step back, or one step forward and two steps back!
But an epiphany kind of conversion is one of those sudden about faces where a person makes a 180 turn in the blink of an eye.
The apostle Paul had an epiphany type of conversion, where he was blinded while on the road to Damascus. He was on his way to harass and arrest Christians, and out of the blue he heard Jesus say “Saul, why do you persecute me?”
And then Paul turned his life around and became one of the greatest messengers of the good news of Jesus the world has ever known.
A more contemporary example of conversion by an epiphany is a woman named Sara Miles. Miles was a self-described atheist, and a journalist living in San Francisco.
One morning she wandered into a Catholic mass, and when she went up to receive communion, she all of a sudden had this Damascus-road experience where her spiritual hunger became satisfied when she partook of the bread and the wine.
Miles’ conversion epiphany is told in her book “Take This Bread” subtitled “a radical conversion story”. And her transformation led her to start a ministry that satisfied physical hunger,
organizing people to bring food to church and put it on the altar to be given away to hungry people in the community. Over time, she and the people she served started several food pantries in the poorest parts of San Francisco.
Miles’ communion epiphany reminds me of another story in scripture, and the second “C”, closeness. Epiphanies can bring us closer to Jesus, and we see this in another “on the road” story, this time where two travelers encounter the risen Jesus while walking on the road to Emmaus.
Jesus actually joined them partway on their journey, but they didn’t recognize him, at least not until they stopped for a rest. While they were sitting around the table, Jesus broke bread and immediately they recognized who he was.
Yes, Jesus was literally close to them before that, but they didn’t know it was him. In the same way, God is always near to us, but sometimes we forget that, or don’t feel like He is, especially when we’re going through a hard time.
Have you ever wondered or cried out “Where is God right now?” And then maybe you’ve had an epiphany where God shows up in a real way, maybe surprisingly, when and where you least expect it,
Sometimes it’s a miraculous, supernatural way that you can’t explain rationally, or sometimes God shows up through a person who becomes the hands and feet of God, reaching out to you and providing you exactly what you need at that moment.
Those moments are epiphanies where you suddenly feel God or Jesus close to you.
The “come and see” scripture story from John’s gospel that we’ve heard parts of this morning I think shows us a clarity epiphany through the lives of Philip and his friend Nathanael.
Philip had “come and seen” Jesus first, and he gained clarity about Jesus’ identity. Then he found Nathanael and said “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law and the Prophets: Jesus, Joseph’s son, from Nazareth.”
And Nathanael scoffed and said, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” And Philip says, “come and see” for yourself. And after Nathanael’s personal encounter with Jesus, he proclaims to Jesus,
“Rabbi, you are God’s Son. You are the king of Israel.”. Like Philip, Jesus’ identity became more clear to Nathanael after he followed Jesus through the door of a house and had a face to face encounter with him.
One of the most well-known stories of people who go through a door and gain clarity about Jesus is told in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia. How many of you have read the books or seen some of the movies?
In the first book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, a girl named Lucy is exploring all the rooms in a big house and when she walks into one room and she finds a door that is open inside a wardrobe.
Curiously, she walks through that door, and she has this epiphany where she finds herself in a completely new land called Narnia, and the king of Narnia is a lion named Aslan, who is a Christ figure.
Lucy’s experiences in Narnia and her relationship with Aslan end up changing her life, she gains more clarity about Jesus’ identity and what it means to be part of his kingdom.
Personally, I think I’ve shared before about how I had an epiphany of becoming more clear about Jesus when I heard a speaker name Gene Thomas at an Intervarsity retreat back when I was in college.
Thomas talked about Jesus being not only divine like God, but a human like us, who experienced all the same emotions, temptations, and struggles that we have.
It was like a light bulb went off in my head that transformed the way I saw Jesus and also impacted my relationship with him.
It has helped me get closer to Jesus and have a more intimate relationship with him, because I realized that he understands me and empathizes with me, whatever I’m feeling and whatever I’m going through.
Now there are many ways that we can gain clarity about who Jesus is and what it means to follow him. Some ways we do this are by doing research, like reading books and articles, and listening to speakers, and podcasts, etc.
Philip Yancey’s book, The Jesus I Never Knew is all about his quest to rediscover Jesus through learning more about him from a variety of sources. Now often we when we do this kind of research, it’s more of an intellectual exercise than it is experiencing Jesus personally.
This largely describes my time in seminary—heavy on the reading and listening to lectures from an academic standpoint, but lighter on activities that helped me personally connect with Jesus nurture my relationship with him.
In all fairness, I think this has changed at the Mennonite seminaries; in fact, many years after I graduated from seminary I took some courses at Eastern Mennonite Seminary in the Summer Institute for Spiritual Formation,
which was all about learning ways to grow deeper spiritually with Jesus, through prayer practices like silence, solitude, meditation, and the lectio divina way to read scripture. I think I had several epiphanies during those courses.
That was refreshing to my soul, and I think especially younger generations today are longing for that kind of personal experience with Jesus in order to develop a relationship with Jesus and a faith that is real and relevant to them.
You see, faith is so much more than learning theology, doctrine, and do’s and don’ts. It’s about cultivating a relationship with the living God.
A half a century ago, the German theologian Karl Rahner said that “the devout Christian of the future with either be one who has “experienced” something, or he will not be anything at all.”
One of my favorite authors, Brian Zahnd, reflected on Rahner’s words in his book When Everything’s On Fire: Faith Forged from the Ashes. Zahnd says
If Christianity is essentially about learning doctrines about God and adhering to behavioral codes, most young people will not remain Christians into their twenties. But if Christianity is about experiencing the living God…these young people can be led into a holy mystery that will last a lifetime.
Friends, epiphanies of clarity about Jesus can look very different, because we’re all wired differently, but I believe that all of us are wired with a longing to know the God who created us, and grow in understanding and in intimacy with Jesus,
Experiencing and loving God with our entire being—that’s what the first commandment is all about—loving the Lord our God will all of our heart, soul, mind and strength.
OK, now to the last kind of epiphany I’ll mention, and that’s courage. Sometimes our epiphanies give us courage, and a great example of that comes from none other than the Peanuts character Linus.
Do you notice anything different about Linus in this picture? (He’s dropped his blanket by his side, no longer holding on to it).
Every other time we see Linus in Peanuts, he’s clutching on to his beloved security blanket. But in this one scene from A Charlie Brown Christmas he drops it to the floor. When did Linus drop his security blanket?
It happens when he recites the Christmas story from Luke 2, when he says those words of the angel “Fear not, for a bring you tidings of great joy, for unto you this day in the city of David has been born a savior, which is Christ the Lord”.
Now it could be that Linus was just excited and wanted to talk with both hands, like we Italians do. But Charles Schultz was a clever man of deep faith,
and I think he’s saying that Linus’ blanket drop was an act of courage. This epiphany proclaimed by the angel was a sign that Jesus’ coming to earth is what offers true security in life, and because of that he—and we– can live not paralyzed by fear but filled with courage and hope.
With what’s going on in the world today, we sure could use more epiphanies of courage, right?
So friends, may we be open to God revealing Godself through epiphanies as we go through our daily lives. Epiphanies that convert us, that draw us closer to Jesus, that give us more clarity about him, and epiphanies that give us courage.
During the response time, feel free to share an epiphany you have had in life and what effect it’s had on you.
I want to close with some words from author Leonard Sweet that I came across this week. I think it’s a pretty sweet quote about how the Star that the Magi followed is different from the other stars in the universe.
The star of Bethlehem was never meant to be admired–it was meant to be followed. It did not offer a show but a summons, not a red carpet but a rugged road. The world’s stars keep us watching: this Star gets us walking…
