A Fourth Church Sermon by Sarah Jo Sarchet

January 7, 2001 | 9:30 and 11:00 a.m.

Drawn In

Sarah Jo Sarchet
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Matthew 2:1–12
Acts 8:14–24

“They knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests,
they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”

Matthew 2:11 (NRSV)

What began with the very private annunciation of the angel to Mary and then to Joseph . . . is now made increasingly clear to an ever-expanding audience of witnesses. The circle gets bigger and bigger and bigger, more and more people are included in these manifestations, and from this Sunday to Easter day everything that we read and hear in Holy Scripture is an epiphany of Jesus. . . . The Epiphany is that manifestation of God in the world where the message is greater than the manger and goes well beyond it. To leave the story of [Jesus] in the manger, to pack it up as we have done with our creche and put it away for another year, is to fail to understand what the Epiphany is all about.

Peter Gomes
Sermons, “Epiphany I”

How do you make the holidays last a long time? I saw Valentine’s Day cards in Walgreens this week and the florist was fretting about having only five more weeks until that romantic holiday—and I still want to linger in the twelve days of Christmas. However, with the calendar marching steadily on into January, I did put everything “Christmas” away—everything, that is, except the nativity scene. The rule in our household is that the nativity has to stay on display until Epiphany.

Today is Epiphany Sunday. January 6, the twelfth day of Christmas, is the liturgical calendar date assigned to Epiphany. Peter Gomes says Epiphany is the most important season, for it is the season in which Jesus’ identity is made clear to all who will look and see. From now to Easter, the lectionary Scripture texts show us who Jesus is, where he is found, what he is about. Epiphany, the manifestation of God, says Gomes, “is like a stone dropped in the water, setting off larger and larger concentric circles, until the entire surface of the pond is drawn into and reflects the initial movement of the stone” (Sermons, “Epiphany I,” p. 31).

That is where we are this Epiphany Sunday, when we celebrate the manifestation of God— just two weeks after Christmas, having glimpsed the sacred and holy dropped into our midst like the stone in the water. We are being “drawn in” by those widening circles that emanate from the Incarnation, from “God with us” revealed as the child Jesus in a manger.

The magi are the beginning of the widening circle of those who have heard and tell of the birth of the Messiah.

In the Gospel lesson from Matthew, the wise men of nativity lore arrive at the baby’s bedside offering their very best and the best of themselves, with treasured gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrhh, to the Christ child. They have been drawn in by the light, following the star to where it stopped above the child’s home. In their own epiphany moment, they recognize the holy child and respond to the mystery by bowing, kneeling, prostrating themselves before that which cannot be attained, only sought, acknowledged, received, and adored.

Who are the wise men? They were astronomers, astrologers, scientists, philosophers, wise and learned people from the East. They were not masters of magic; they were seekers of understanding and respecters of mystery. They were ancients seeking to understand the universe, who noticed a change in the night sky, a star they could not explain, and so followed where it led.

Tom Long, biblical scholar and commentator, says, “The wise men are you and me, trained in twenty-first-century philosophy and science who seek to use the best of technology and research and knowledge of the natural world to explain and guide our living and decision-making, and who yet also seek and glimpse and are changed by the holy, that which is beyond us, and yet with us and within us. If we understand them rightly, the magi are very much like ourselves, and they bow on behalf of us all” (Matthew Commentary).

The wise men were people like us: people on a journey, seeking understanding, valuing the very best in science and technology, but wanting to be connected to that which lies beyond what we can explain in human terms, that which transcends our limits.

In the twenty-first century, we understand and stretch our limits in new ways, yet the ultimate limits we know are the same limits experienced by the ancients: birth and death. Epiphany is a celebration of the God who entered the limits of our lives to transcend them. When we experience the incarnation, we are drawn in by a God who experienced both birth and death with and for us in order to reveal the divine nature as present to life and with life, before life and beyond life.

That’s epiphany: the appearance of the divine in the midst of human realities.

The Gospel of John announces the epiphany this way: “The light shone in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” John does not have shepherds and innkeepers and donkeys and wise men in his birth narrative. John’s nativity is simply a light: the light of Christ shining forth in the darkness.

I find John’s version of epiphany comforting and hopeful and realistic, for John acknowledges the darkness of life. He does not announce that the darkness disappeared, or that it was erased or replaced, or that the light dispelled the darkness. Rather, the light shone in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

The darkness is as real to us as the nights through which the wise men traveled, guided only by a star. Darkness was real for the wisemen—Herod had threatened their lives. Darkness was real for Mary and Joseph when they fled to Egypt to escape Herod’s persecution. And darkness was part of Jesus’ life from the beginning to the end, from Herod’s threat to kill all the babies who threatened his rule until another Herod’s sentencing of the King of the Jews.

From Epiphany to Easter we travel with those who knew Jesus: in the Gospel stories we see Jesus surrounded by a cast of characters, each with their own story, each with their own personal darkness, each searching and seeking and needing the light.

The characters who surround Jesus are like those who surround us. The darkness is as real to us as the darkness through which we travel with one another each day.

As I was preparing this sermon, I met people traveling in darkness of depression and disappointment, the darkness of confusion, uncertainty, lack of fulfillment. The darkness of grief and loss of a young husband whose wife, pregnant with twins, died suddenly. The darkness of living in a pained and strained marriage; the darkness of an abusive and manipulative relationship; the darkness of a mother trying to start the new year without her twenty-seven-year-old son, who died the week before Christmas; the darkness of one contemplating divorce; the darkness of one fighting addiction

Epiphany is the season in which we see the light guiding us, in the midst of the darkness that surrounds us, and we begin to recognize God’s appearance in our midst.

III

If the magi are the beginning of the widening circle of individuals who saw the light and told of its good news, Acts is the beginning of the widening circle of the church, as people began to gather together to tell others the good news, to experience the power of the Holy Spirit, and to become a community, a family of faith, that announces God’s presence to one another and to the world around them.

How are we drawn into this story of mystery and light and life in a way that the circle widens through us and we not only witness but also become his epiphany? The refusal to put away the light with the nativity set, the insistence on carrying the presence of God forward with us into our every daylives does not mean living in an emotional sort of pious daydream. It means dedicating deliberate, humble, intentional attention to the tremendous mysteries of faith and what it means that God chose to be among us, Immanuel. It means embracing mysteries that give us some deep truth about the life and way of God and the power and vocation of a soul that is given to God, mysteries which each one of us in particular is called to make part of our very lives.

Evelyn Underhill, twentieth-century Christian mystic, likens the journey of faith to entering a cathedral. The cathedral windows when observed from the outside are dull, thick, maybe dirty. One knows there is something beautiful there but the pattern cannot be observed. Then, upon entering the building, as one opens the door to go inside—leave the outer world and enter the inner world—the light floods through the windows and reveals their color and beauty and significance. So, she says, it is with Christianity. “One cannot experience the wonder and significance and truth of God’s love from outside—one constantly hears people commenting on Christianity from the outside and missing the point. They are on the wrong side, the outside, looking in” (Light of Christ, p. 9-10). To follow the light, to journey in faith, we must allow ourselves to be drawn in, drawn in to relationship with God, drawn in to the church community, drawn in to where we can become familiar with the inner vision. It is from the place within, the place of prayer, reflection, worship, and love where the experience of God lives, where we are all bound together in a life of communion and self-giving to God, that we fully and truly are given eyes to see and hearts to experience epiphany: the manifestation, the revelation of Christ in our lives.

St. Ignatious says, “Mira! Mira! Look! Look! So few people do this properly. They are anxious to get on to the next stage and be practical.”

If we were to be more intentional in our journeys and follow St. Ignatious’s injunction to look!, what is it that we would be looking for but an epiphany?

Epiphany—a glimpse of the holy that changes us.
Epiphany—the sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something.
Epiphany—an intuitive grasp of reality through an event of faith that is unusually simple and striking.
Epiphany—the manisfestation of God in our midst.

In our passage from Acts, the early Christian community experienced the epiphany through gathering together, in worship, and in the laying on of hands and the receiving of the Holy Spirit.

I had an epiphany experience like that last Sunday in northern Michigan, where I was attending the Presbyterian Church of Boyne City with my parents and fiancé. Pastor Bob asked for prayer requests for the new year—for events in our lives and in our community and in our world. My dad asked prayers for John and my wedding. Pastor Bob asked some elders seated near us to lay hands on us at the point in the prayer at which he would pray for our wedding. Never having experienced the laying on of hands during prayer in a Presbyterian service before, I was at first a bit uncomfortable, and I certainly felt a bit vulnerable. However, like Simon in the story of Acts, I was struck by the power of the Holy Spirit at work in our midst. As Pastor Bob prayed and I felt the elders’ hands on my shoulders, my discomfort gave way to gratitude for their care and amazement at the assurance of God’s love I felt. Gradually too my feelings of vulnerability were replaced by the strength that came from knowing I was not alone in this new venture. We are surrounded by the care and support and love and power of the Christian community—these strangers I’ve never met before and will seldom see again, as well as family and friends and the congregation I share my life with regularly in Chicago.

Faith is like what I felt in those moments: faith stretches our comfort zones and exposes our vulnerabilities, and living our faith in the church opens us up to God and to the community in new ways. Faith draws us to a God who has something to give us that we cannot attain with money or by our own power. Faith draws us to a community where we can open ourselves up and trust that the community has something to offer us, that the Holy Spirit is at work in ways that we cannot accomplish on our own, that we can travel together, following the light that guides us.

When Simon saw Peter and John laying hands on people, he tried to buy the power of the Spirit for himself, offering money to the apostles. They rebuked him harshly, saying “may your silver perish with you, for thinking you could obtain the gifts of God with money!” The Holy Spirit can’t be bought, controlled, manipulated, scheduled—just received and experienced and trusted and shared. Simon could have taken a lesson from that church in Boyne City, which knows how to enter into the experience of the Spirit through prayer and welcoming others. Simon could have taken a lesson from the wise men, who knew in the presence of the holy mystery to bow in silence and offer the best of themselves.

Epiphany—the season in which we see the light guiding us.
Epiphany—the sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something.
Epiphany—an intuitive grasp of reality through something unusually simple and striking.
Epiphany—the appearance of God in our midst.
Epiphany—not about developing an explanation, but about acknowledging and trusting the mystery of God to work in our lives and lead us to new places.

Madelaine L’Engle declares, “When Descartes said, ‘I think, therefore I am,’ he did us no favor, but further fragmented us, making us limit ourselves to the cognitive at the expense of the imaginative and the intuitive. Each time we read the Gospels we are offered anew the opportunity to encounter the Mystery of God with us in the form of Jesus, and if we will, we can accept the most wondrous gift of the magi—the ones who showed us how to follow the light and give of our best selves to the Christ” (Glimpses of Grace, Epiphany meditation).

Says L’engle, “My icon for Epiphany is the glory of the heavens at night, a cold, clear night when the stars are more brilliant than diamonds. The wise men looked at the stars, and what they saw called them away from their comfortable dwellings and toward Bethlehem.”

Peace is the centre of the atom, the core
Of quiet within the storm. It is not
A cessation, a nothingness; more
The lightning in reverse is what
Reveals the light. It is the law that binds
The atom’s structure, ordering the dance
Of proton and electron.
Peace is not placidity: Peace is
The power to endure the megatron of pain
With joy, the silent thunder of release,
The ordering of Love. Peace is the atom’s start,
The primal image: God within the heart.
—Madeleine L’Engle

Tonight I will put away my nativity set, confident that I cannot put away the light of Christ. For today we announce the epiphany and all year we live the epiphany: that Christ is the light of the world, the light that shone in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

My prayer for each of you this day and in this new year:

May the circles of God’s ever-appearing love widen around and surround you.
May you be drawn into the Christian community, the church, the family of faith in ever new ways, honoring the mystery and offering the very best of yourself;
When you walk through darkness, may the light of Christ beckon you forward.
When the light of Christ is bright in you, may you become the light for another.

That’s Epiphany.

So be it, and may it be so. Amen.