My Epiphany of Epiphany

When I began writing my message for this, the first Sunday after Epiphany, I was in a bit of a quandary as to where I should start. Like so many of us I didn’t have a very clear idea of what this celebration was about. I can tell you that the more I explored into Epiphany the less I seemed to know about it. Confused and a bit puzzled I decided to start where it is always best to start-at the beginning.

I tried to track down our three intrepid wise men. Who were they? Where did they come from? The Gospel of Matthew doesn’t give us a lot of information about these 3 Kings of the Orient. Matthew tells us just the barest essentials: about how these Wise men of the east followed a star to a small town in Judea. He mentions their meeting with Herod and their misgivings about his motivation. The Gospel relates their finding Jesus, recognizing Him for who He truly was and worshiping Him as the Savior of the world, for they were truly wise men.

It is told they took the back roads out of the country to avoid Herod’s men and whatever evil they had in mind for these Persian princes. The adventures they must have had in all their travels would probably make a great action thriller; a quest for a great leader, finding the Messiah in the most unlikely of places under the most unlikely of circumstances, then escape, evade, and finally home. Even after so many centuries have passed we can still see them in our minds eye, fading into the desert haze as their camels carry them toward a distant horizon..

I found a lot of contradictions in the stories of these adventurous Persians and much confusion. Truthfully, I was tempted to plagiarize much of the Catholic liturgy and call that my message for today. In the year 412 St. Augustine wrote a fine sermon about Epiphany that would have saved me a lot of writing and soul searching- and I probably could have gotten away with using it with just a few editing points. But God was not about to let me off the hook so easily. Every time I started down that path something would stop me. Call it what you will, knowing God has something more in store for me than simple recitals, or remembering an old journalism professor’s warning that, “if you stoop to using someone else’s words as your own you are in the wrong business.” For whatever reason, I was stuck. So, what do we do when we’re at an impasse in our lives? That’s right; we humble ourselves before the Lord and ask for His guidance. And it was in just such a prayer I had my own Epiphany about Epiphany-and I’d like to share it with you.

I don’t know what your homes look like now that Christmas is a few weeks behind us, but mine has finally made the transition back to life as usual. Thanks to my wonderful and ever patient wife, Susan, the lights are gone, the tree is down, all the brick-a-brac and whatnots of the Christmas season are again hidden away until needed again for next year. Now that all the hustle and bustle of the Holiday was behind me it was time to sit down and write about how special this final service of the Christmas season is to all who believe.

As I’ve already said, I was in a bit of a spot once I realized I didn’t know that much about these Wise men. I began to search the old texts for any trace of them and found there were as many myths and legends concerning these stalwart travelers as there were Christian congregations in the world. How Epiphany is observed changes from not only between different segments of our western tradition, but from country to country, district to district, and in places from one side of town to the next. In the Eastern Orthodox faiths the differences are even more pronounced.

I soon found myself swamped in a myriad of conflicting views, doctrines, and liturgies. And perhaps because I think too much I even began tossing in what I knew of the ancient history of what we now call the Middle East. Soon I found myself lost in a whirl of Persians, Romans, Greeks, and Hebrews all jumbled together with ancient texts, maps, and astrological charts. I was literally burying myself alive with Epiphany! When I was on the verge of giving up on the Magi and wondering how I get myself into these situations one thing occurred to me that, alas, I had missed from the very first. In all my concerns about the flotsam and jetsam of the last two millennia I had forgotten who the real hero of the story was.

Hidden away in a little farming village just a few hours walk from the great temples and palaces of Jerusalem was a small child named Jesus, unable to speak for himself, wholly dependant on God’s love for His very survival. It was as I prayed for guidance to find the Magi that I found I was looking not for them, but for myself. That was my Epiphany! I realized that in a way we are all very much like those ancient ones. We all have come to Jesus through trials and struggles that have tested us to the core of our beings.

These wise men crossed forbidding deserts with only their faith to guide them, just as we journey through this life not knowing what tomorrow will bring, but having faith in God carries us through when our lives become difficult.

Not all the lands the Magi traveled through were friendly to them and they must certainly have felt threatened at times, just as we have when we confront those who would do us evil, but in God’s love we find the strength to overcome our enemies and prevail.

Herod set a trap for the Magi but their faith in God gave these men wisdom to avoid the snares of wickedness just as we are given wisdom, through the knowledge of the Scriptures (and the Gospels) to step around the snares and pitfalls evil sets for us in our daily lives.

I still have quite a few questions the Gospels do not answer about this important episode in the life of our Savior. The Christian faith itself has struggled with the true meaning of Epiphany and how it applies our relationship with God and Christ our Savior. Over the centuries these questions have been the cause of much discord and wars have even been fought because views conflict about who did what, and where, and when, but no one has ever completely answered these very same questions that I found myself struggling with. Were the Magi at the Nativity on the night Christ was born or was it two years later, or somewhere in between? After much deliberation I can tell you truthfully that I really don’t know. I can also tell you truthfully that it doesn’t really matter, does it? We celebrate the coming of the Magi on this Holy day because we feel a kindred spirit to these first Christian pilgrims who put themselves at great risk to seek out and find an even greater truth.

When we leave here today we will go back to living our daily lives thankful that Jesus has been with us through all the stress and strain we put on ourselves during the Christmas season. But let us not forget that our lives are so much like the journey the wise men from the east made so long ago. They followed a star in the heavens to bring them to His side just as we follow the light of His love so that we may do the same. They, and we, find ourselves confronted with a journey into the unknown as our lives unfold before us. When we take our eyes off the light the good Lord has provided for us in the person of Jesus Christ we become lost in the wilderness of our world but when we keep our eyes on the light of His love the roads we take to Him are made clear from beginning to end.