Speaker: Caleb Schrock-Hurst
Bible Passages: Matthew 2:1-16; John 1:14
Summary: What can we take away from the celebration of Epiphany, which wraps up our remembrance of Jesus birth and launches us into his life? When we remember that God chose to dwell with us, this gives us hope and purpose for living — being God’s hands and feet in the world.
Greetings everyone! Good to be with you after the holidays — if you’re like me, Thursday, New Years Day, felt like Monday; hence today feels like I’m preaching on a Thursday, which I suppose isn’t a bad thing…but often my sermon doesn’t really get written until Friday…so apologies if my thoughts are a little disorganized today!
Anyhow — Today we’re remembering the Christian celebration of Epiphany — which, we can be honest, is right up there with Presidents day as a holiday that sounds great on paper but which is clearly not in league with major holidays, like Christmas or easter.
Jokes aside, Epiphany is this interesting bridge holiday — it finishes our celebration of Christmas, including with the remembrance of the arrival of the Magi in Matthew — and launches us into the next Church season, Epiphany, when we celebrate the early events in Jesus life. There are a few events that are associated with Epiphany: the Magi’s visit, Jesus presentation in the temple, Jesus’ staying behind in the temple as a teen, his baptism, and his first miracle. Where Christmas celebrates Jesus’s birth, during Epiphany we start to wrestle with what the incarnation — Jesus being fully God and fully man — means; we start to learn more about what God is like.
Epiphany, of course, is a word that we have in English — it means the realization of something, or a bit more metaphorically, the dawning of light on some truth; learning, because of realization. John, of course, opens his gospel with the idea that Jesus is the logos, the word, the logic, the truth of the universe; then he continues on, saying Jesus is the light, the realization of God’s plans — all this fits pretty well with our english use of Epiphany. We’ll spend some more time with John later on today, but I want to start by talking about the visit of the Magi.
How, we may ask, do the Magi feature into Jesus’s life, besides as a visually-appealing set of rich guys showing up right after Jesus is born? The Magi story is beloved and familiar — but like so many of our most beloved and familiar stories, because we’ve heard it so often, we tend to tune out some of the most important details.
1. The Magi
There are two pieces to the Magi story I want to re-examine today: their identity as Magi, or ‘wise-men from the east,’ and their decision to ‘return home by another route’ and avoid Herod.
So, who were these guys? We often style them as kings, but the Greek scripture, and many translations, call them Magi: Magi, of course, shares our root with magic; but it tends to be translated as wise men, or astrologers. On the astrologers front, we can picture them as a group of learned men, serious scientists of their day who rigorously studied the stars. On the Magic front, they were likely priests of Zoroastrianism, a monotheistic Persian, or Iranian, religion that influenced Judaism during the exile — in either case, they were men of high society in the gentile world; about as far from the lowly, poor Joseph and Mary as could be imagined.
The Magi come to recognize Jesus, yes, as king of the Jews, but their inclusion in the story demonstrates that he will also be king of the universe, of Jew and Gentile alike. Jesus’s light was dawning not just on his own people, but on the whole world — good news at Christmas, epiphany, and every day. At epiphany we remember that Jesus came not just for his own people, but also for outsiders, both ethnically and religiously different. The Magi also present a contrast to the working-class shepherds present at Jesus’s birth — when the Magi arrive in Jerusalem they are immediately treated to an audience with Herod himself! Where Herod is a puppet king, ruling over the tiny vassal state of Judea in the name of Rome, Jesus is a universal king whose reign will even encompass the scientists and priests of the Jew’s former conquerors, the Persians.
The second piece from the story I want to draw out is when the Wise Men chose to return to their country by another route, because it illustrates one approach to government we sometimes miss in studying the bible.
A story on that front from my time in Southeast Asia. I was lucky enough to take a trip to Cambodia in January of 2020, right before the pandemic began in earnest. It was great to visit another MCC program and learn about the differences between Vietnam and Cambodia — unlike in Vietnam, in Cambodia MCC is much more free to work directly with Christian churches; however, while not communist, Cambodia’s government is not democratic in the slightest, with a father and son, Hun Sen and now Hun Manet, being in complete and often dictatorial power since the fall of the Khmer Rouge in the late 80s.
Anyhow — the MCC country rep, when we were chatting, shared that there is only one scripture about government that is preached in churches in Cambodia, likely because of Government influence — Romans 13: All of you must obey the government rulers. Everyone who rules was given the power to rule by God.
Now, if we would read on from that verse, I’d agree with a good deal of what Paul says — that good government does have a place of keeping order and allowing society to function, and we can and should respect that — but this verse is not a blanket panacea that government is always right, even as dictators and kings often make it out to be.
The Magi’s choice not to return to Herod is just one example from scripture of people of faith choosing to obey God rather than human authority. The magi — right at the beginning of Jesus life — choose to disobey the government and obey God, choosing Divine rather than human authority, just as Peter and Paul choose in the book of Acts. Matthew’s writing clearly demonstrates that we have a new king — Jesus — and when worldly kings contradict God’s law, the choice is clear: we are to obey God, and accept the consequences.
I think it’s a question on many of our hearts today — what do we do in the face of bad, or even tyrannical government? I can’t fully answer this question in one sermon, but a starting point is to remember that earthly kings, like Herod, will try to co-opt our faith to legitimize their rule — we must resist this, and help our brothers and sisters in faith remember that Jesus is not just Lord when it’s politically convenient, but also when he calls us to speak and act against human authority.
Another example of politics co-opting faith: we’re all aware of the King James translation; in 2014, The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University found that 55% of American Christians prefer the King James Version. Recently I learned that this version, funded by the English King James in the early 1600s, just happened to almost completely remove the use of the adjective tyrant from their translation. The Geneva bible translation, produced just fifty years earlier by John Calvin, used ‘tyrant’ 400 times in reference to kings and rulers; the King James version uses ‘tyrant’ just three times, and only in Maccabees, in the apocrypha. It’s no accident that a translation produced by a King chooses to soften the bible’s critique of worldly rulers.
It’s worth remembering, as we ask whom we learn from, that we need to continually seek out the authentic Jesus of the scriptures — the one who challenged racial and economic barriers, whose mother rejoiced that God brings tyrants down from their thrones. We, like the magi, should choose, when appropriate, faithful noncompliance to worldly authority — and we should be vocal when we see worldly governments trying to use Christianity for unjust purposes.
Moving on from the story of the Magi, let’s turn back to John.
2. Our John Passage In Depth
As I believe I’ve mentioned here before, I used to borderline-dislike the book of John — and I think it is still my least favorite of the gospels, mainly because I think it has been the most mis-used of the gospels throughout Christian history. Unlike the Jesus of the three synoptic gospels — Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which are very related and present fairly similar stories of Jesus — John shares many theological sermons and private musings of Jesus and fewer concrete suggestions about how we live as his followers. Scholars think John was written last of the four gospels, possibly even after the Jewish-Christian schism nearly 100 years after Jesus day, which may account for some of the harsher language towards Judaism than is found in the synoptics.
Anyways; while I do sometimes struggle with John’s more philosophical and ethereal portrait of the private Jesus, it is indispensable, and I’ve come to really love this first chapter of John. It’s a reminder that yes — we need to follow Jesus, the preacher and teacher and healer and prophet of matthew, mark and luke who wandered around Judea; but we also need to reflect on the marvels of Jesus’s incarnation, of Jesus’s reflecting the mysterious, divine logic that underpins creation.
I want to draw out one greek word from chapter one verse 14 that Pastor Tig read today — the word became flesh and made his home among us. That word translated as dwelt, or made his home, is ἐσκήνωσεν (eskēnōsen); but both these translation miss an interesting piece of wordplay that happens in the greek: eskenosen comes from the greek skene, or tent — eskenosen literally means ‘God pitched a tent.’ This same word is often used to refer to the tabernacle, where God resided with the people in the old testament. This verse could read, then: the logic of God became flesh and pitched his tent with us.
If you’re like me, these days, when I think about tents, I don’t think about camping — I think about two groups of people living in tents: refugees abroad, and the homeless in our own country.
Yes, tents can be places of joy and temporary safety — but they can also be signs of something gone badly awry in society, meaning a more permanent home isn’t to be found. God’s willingness to tabernacle, to pitch his tent among with us fits this to a tee — Jesus came to be with us for a time, and to teach us how to live together — and God was willing to do so by drawing close to the vulnerability and brokenness of humans and human society.
We’ll talk more about these two places of tents in our world in a minute — but I actually want to double back to Herod for a second. Though it’s less obvious than in Matthew, John also contrasts Jesus and Herod. Herod was famed for his building projects — he had his slaves literally move a mountain, basket-load of earth by basket-load of earth, to build a palace inside, as well as building multiple other palaces across the land. Jesus didn’t choose to come to humanity as that type of king, building a palace above his people, as Herod would have — instead, God came to pitch a tent with the least of these. God pitched his tent among the refugees, fleeing the tyrant, with no place to build a building. God pitched his tent among the homeless poor, who the government neglects and views only as a nuisance.
As the church — followers of the way of Jesus — we too should pitch our tent among refugees and the poor. As a congregation, we do a lot on this front: I think of our recent support of the Lamb center, Matthew’s work with the homeless encampment in his neighborhood, and of course our work with refugees and immigrants from Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. As Jesus assures us in Matthew 25, what we do for these people, we are doing for God — a profound statement in a society that craves wealth and power.
As a bit of a challenge, however, we shouldn’t stop at just helping the poor — we need to remember we have things to learn from the poor, too. Faith, trust, hope, endurance, resilience — the homeless people and refugees I know embody these things, and teach me about God; this year, may we take seriously God’s call to not just know the poor, but learn from them.
One other image is with me as we think about where God appears, as he appears during epiphany. Last year, Palestinian Lutheran Pastor, Munther Isaac, preached a Christmas sermon at Christmas christian church in Bethlehem, built over the place where Jesus was born. He preached despite all Christmas celebrations being officially canceled in the holy land, in solidarity with the war in Gaza. Isaac’s message was that God is in the rubble of Gaza — that were God to be born at Christmas time in our day, we would not find him in a palace, or in the comfort of the west, but in the tents pitched in the rubble of Gaza, Ukraine, and Sudan, among the poorest of the poor being driven from their homes.
Unfortunately, a year on from that sermon, he preached again this Christmas — again highlighting that God is in the rubble, the rubble still being made. While it doesn’t magically solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when we remember this, we should remember that God is found not in boardrooms and vacation homes, but among the poor — both in the refugee camps of Gaza and the homeless encampments of our own land.
3. What Epiphany Means Today
So — with the magi, and God pitching his tent with us, in mind, we ask: what does Epiphany mean to us? From whom do we learn, as we try to live lives worthy of God’s great gift to us? What does it mean that light has come into the world, even when evil persists around us?
This Christmas and Epiphany season, two things stand out with me: Jesus’s coming among us gives hope and purpose.
Hope is this tenuous idea that the future will be better than today, and our actions, via God’s empowerment will make a difference. God’s willingness to pitch his tent with us gives me hope because it means God understands the challenges and sorrows we face — and we have hope that God is working, that the arc of the universe bends towards justice, and we have a part to play in that bending.
The second thing that sticks out to me is the idea of purpose. I said in a recent sermon here that if we know our why, we can endure almost any what. As Christians, we learn our purpose from Jesus: our motivation should be, to borrow from Matthew 25 again, to feed the hungry and thirsty, to invite in the stranger, to cloth the sick and visit those in prison — because these are where God is to be found. Our purpose is to help those less fortunate than ourselves, and show them that God’s way, Jesus’s way, of forgiveness, reconciliation, mutuality, and love is at the center of the universe.
If we keep focused on this purpose, and have hope and trust that God will use us for this purpose, then our lives will take on new meaning, and give us strength for the journey of life.
Now, that’s all easy to say, but much harder to do — but I’m happy to be on that journey with you all, and with the Christian church around the world: because we go together, learning from Jesus, and from each other, spurring one another in love. As we begin a new year, and as we celebrate the truth of God’s presence among us as Jesus, may we re-dedicate ourselves to walking in the light of God, and reflecting that light to others, being the hands and feet of Jesus together with hope and purpose.
So: from whom do we learn? We learn from Jesus, who was born a poor child in a conquered land; we learn from God, who was willing to empty himself and pitch his tent among us; we learn from the Magi, strange outsiders who faithfully sought the truth; we learn from the poor and the refugee, who God stands with; and we learn from each other, because we cannot follow Jesus alone.
May we follow this servant king Jesus wherever he leads us. Amen.
