Sermons

• The Epiphany of Love Takes Hold – The Rev. Michelle Meech

  January 07, 2024

  Today’s celebration – the Feast of the Epiphany – really belongs on the exact date of January 6 – that’s yesterday, which was the last day of the Christmas season. But it’s such an important part of the Christmas story and the story of humanity that I think we miss a lot if we don’t spend our time focused on it. So here we are.

  I think the first thing to acknowledge about the Epiphany story is that doesn’t begin with the birth of Jesus which, of course, is celebrated on Christmas. This story begins with the season of Advent. The beginning of our liturgical year. The liturgical year is a map, if you will, that helps us to connect to our larger story – in relation to ourselves and one another, in relation to the rest of creation, and therefore in relation to God.

  So, our liturgical year ends with Christ the King Sunday, sometime in late November. This day is designed to be a recognition of and hope for, the full reconciliation of the world to God’s will. A celebration that marks the hope that God’s Love will reign forever through the love of Christ made known to us in the very real, incarnate person of Jesus. A person who ate with those who were outcast, healed those who were considered to be un-healable, and challenged the powers that be teaching us all what it truly means to be people of God: To love God with all that we are. And to love our neighbors as ourselves.

  This idea, this belief, this reconciliation of the world to God who is Love, is the consummation of Christ, the second coming of Christ, if you will. We believe, as Christians, that the end goal is Love.

  So, to goal of the liturgical year is to help us deepen our identity as God Beloved by becoming an active part of this reconciliation. And to understand more and more that God’s love for us is the very fabric of the universe. It is the lifeforce that binds us together. It is the supreme spiritual truth of all religions.

  But just like any spiritual truth, we need to hear it more than once. Spiritual truths are difficult to wrap our minds around and to fully integrate into our lives. This is nothing new under the sun.

  The good news is that we do learn. And we do deepen our wisdom as we mature and gain insight into ourselves. As we learn to forgive. As we experience grace. As we come face to face with our own suffering and limitations. As we start to see what true beauty is and how little the arrogance of power actually means when we are grieving.

  So, the liturgical year is essentially a practice in which the telling of our most sacred stories becomes an illumination, a pathway for us to continue opening to how God is calling us into the light of Christ. Into living a more real, more connected and, therefore, more interconnected human life. Hearing these stories once, is never enough. We are always invited to go deeper.

  And so, at the beginning of Advent every year, we begin the story anew. And our story begins with awareness, attentiveness in the first week of Advent. The prophets tell us to keep awake and to prepare for what’s coming. The hint that God’s salvation, God’s blessing will come to us in a way that we would never have expected. And so, we are asked to make room for God’s blessing inside ourselves, in our lives – like a woman who is pregnant naturally makes room. We all are beckoned by the prophets to prepare for “some celestial event” that will turn the world on its head.

  The lesson of Advent is one of spiritual awakening or, at least, endeavoring to becoming more aware and alert in our day-to-day lives. To open to the possibility that there is more to this life of ours than the material existence where worldly power reigns. There is a deeper dimension that, if we develop the capacity to tune into it by practicing simple awareness, we can, in effect, make room for God’s blessing to come to fruition in us. This practice of paying attention earnestly and prayerfully is our “yes” to God. We are making ourselves ready through our curiosity.

  And the Advent journey is realized, of course, in the Christmas story. The birth of love in human flesh. The salvation that arrives as we make room in our hearts for love by learning to love. This curiosity we have been cultivating suddenly opens our eyes to see exactly how real and precious this life is. A spiritual truth that expands our hearts so that we can also see: All we have, really, is love.

  God will always overturn the ways of the world by bringing us back to this love. And when we’re there, basking in that glow, it feels magical. So sweet that we don’t want to leave.

  And we don’t really have to leave it behind. Not really. I mean, we can’t stay in the manger. But, year by year, as we continue reflecting on this story, we learn that the manger can stay in us. It’s a quote directly from Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol: Scrooge says, “I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.”

  

  Adoration of the Magi (1894), Edward Burnes-Jones. A tapestry that hangs in the Musee d’Orsay in Paris.

  And this brings us to today’s part of the story – the Epiphany. The word epiphany means “a moment of sudden revelation or insight.”

  And in the story the magi come, from far far away, following the light of a star, tracking some celestial event, coming to learn of the birth of a king… but not a king. Not the worldly king to whom what matters most is how much control we have. Not the worldly king where we are divided into categories of who’s in and who’s out, who has privilege and who doesn’t, a king that demands we play the game of how to gain privilege in a worldly system so that we are “safe.” No… not that king.

  But this “not-a-king” is who the magi have traversed the earth to come and see. What is this? Who is this? This love? This light?

  The magi are meant to represent the world. Or, at least, the world’s awakening ones. Surrendering worldly power to bow on bended knee before the Christ child. There are so many legends and stories about the magi. We sometimes call them the three kings or the three wise men. Some storytellers are coming to adapt the story a bit to help us understand that those who came were not exclusively men. Wise women also followed the light as they have done from the beginning of time.

  This Epiphany event is a pivot point, a hinge if you will, in the larger story. Because, you see, without the Epiphany, without this celestial event, this something, this aha moment where we meet this love face to face, the world continues spinning its worldly ways inside of us and we remain beholden to it, rather than beholden to God.

  The need for control and, therefore, dividing one another into haves and have nots… the world of kings and power and success… will always be. Until the Reign of Christ is fully realized, that is.

  The difference is, we can cease to particulate in that world. We can cease believing the lie that we are not worthy or not loveable or not enough because we don’t measure up to the world’s standards. And we can choose, instead, to participate more and more in the building of God’s Reign of Love. And we can cease participating in all of that because, every year… as we find our way to the manger, where love is so palpable, so real that it quiets our worried minds, opens our protected heart, and gives breath to our tired bodies…every year we come closer and closer to truly believing in Love itself. Until finally, this love finally replaces the idols of the world in our heart. And it becomes the king who is ‘not-a-king.’

  This is the spiritual truth of the Epiphany – that we too, have become magi little by little. We, too, have seen the star – this light that shines so brightly now for us that we cannot pretend to unsee it. Because we, too, have been preparing ourselves, becoming curious about what is beyond the everyday experience of our human lives.

  And what we have found is the superb, beautiful, perfect truth that this Love we come to know in the manger… while it is the most vulnerable thing in the world… it is the very foundation of all life. It is the only thing that is true. The only thing that was ever was true.

  And so, this season after the Epiphany is the necessary continuation of the birth of love in the world. How we deepen our commitment to this light that we have seen. How we carry with us, this love that we have witnessed. How we live into this truth we have made room for inside ourselves.

  Let this Epiphany take hold, my dear friends. Let it change your life. Let it reign in your heart.