They All Gather Together

2025! There's a shocker. It’s not shocking that we would make it to 2025. I'm not talking about the apocalypse or anything. It’s just that it is time to make the switch. It catches us all by surprise, no matter how closely we look at the calendar. Bankers will tell you they get plenty of misdated checks, for those who still write checks (does anybody still write checks?) in the first week of the new year. Kids will go back to school and write the wrong year at the top of their tests. We have trouble making the shift.

We need to pay attention more, I know that. But it is hard. There are so many things swirling around in our heads and before our eyes that we have trouble focusing. Add to that the frenzy we've gotten ourselves into at the end of the year, and it’s no wonder that we aren't paying attention to the little detail of writing the correct year when we write the date.

In fact, our first Sunday of the new year is all about paying attention. Being aware of what is under your nose seems like a "duh" kind of message, and yet it is an appropriate one for the beginning of a new year. Now, for those who have been following along the past couple of weeks, you might wonder at the narrative flow. The end of the previous series, if you were following that, was about going home. It was about settling down and breathing after the hectic holiday season. That’s a common mood here at the beginning of a new year. We made it; we’re here; let’s just relax. Instead, we have an arrival. The wise men show up-- the magi or whatever you want to call them. We just got through one major event, and now here is another one.

The reason for this is simple. Uh. It's Epiphany! Well, actually, it isn't Epiphany this Sunday. Epiphany is on the sixth of January, which is twelve days after Christmas (yeah, that's right, those twelve days of Christmas). Those twelve days were the countdown from Christmas to Epiphany. In the early church, Epiphany was the big celebration. Yes, there was the Mass of Christ's birth - or Christ's Mass, but the big party took place twelve days later on Epiphany. That's when the gifts were exchanged; that's when the families gathered; that's when the big meals were eaten. But we’re on the brink this Sunday. So, we can pretend we made it.

Epiphany comes from two Greek words that translate as "the light shows forth" or "the light comes to." In other words, Epiphany is when we figured it out, when we saw the light. In Matthew's story, the Christ event is a quiet affair. There is no multitude of heavenly hosts, no flocks of shepherds crowding into a barn out behind the inn. It's just Mary and Joseph and a bunch of dreams.

At least until chapter two. In chapter two, the doors get blown open. The wise men from the East show up and turn everything upside down.

When word gets out, it gets way out. We don't know where these guys come from, to be honest. Scholars speculate that they may have come from Persia (Iran), Babylon (Iraq), or even further east-Asia, or who knows? Matthew's point is that those paying attention are the foreigners, the strangers. Those who were supposed to know - the ones who heard the prophecy - didn't know and almost missed it. It nearly passed them by. If not for the kindness of strangers, they would never have known.

“We have seen his star,” they said. A star is not something hidden, but something evident. Have you ever tried to show someone a star, though? Right there, you say, and they look everywhere but where you are pointing.

Right there, see that tree?
The little one?
No, the big one over there.
Over where?
Right there, beside the house, next to the streetlight; it’s right above that tree.
What tree?
Never mind.

It is hard to get people to see what we see and hear what we hear. But we keep trying. We want to share what we have seen. People often wonder why the wise men showed up in Jerusalem anyway. Wouldn't it have made more sense to just keep following that star? Well, perhaps it was a political necessity or diplomatic protocol. Or maybe they just wanted everyone to know. “Go, tell it on a mountain.” And there was no mountain higher than Jerusalem. Notice how the Bible always says they went up to Jerusalem, no matter what direction they were going? That is partly a theological statement, but it is also geological - Jerusalem was a high spot in the nation of Israel. It was where you would go to make a proclamation you wanted everyone to know. Maybe they didn't know Herod's reputation or maybe they knew better than he did just what he needed.

He needed what we all need, community. Gathering together is the only way we can be put back together when we’ve come apart. The prophet Isaiah draws a picture of light breaking through in a dark time in our Hebrew scripture text for this week. We recognize this scene, having just walked through the Advent and Christmas seasons. And we know that this is what Epiphany means, this light shining in the darkness. But look closer. Look at the response to this light, not just from the people who recognize it, know what it represents, and have been looking for it. But it is the nations who are gathering. What an amazing thing! Not as the result of an evangelism project, but simply being the people of God, walking in the light, together.

That’s the key here, isn’t it? That walking together thing. A handicap to the church's mission in making disciples is its inability to have a single voice on anything. And not only do we have a variety of voices – which isn’t a bad thing – we continually war with our siblings when they disagree with us. What might bring us together? What focus might enable us to be the light to the nations that draw the searchers and the seekers to gather with us?

Some years ago, due to the generosity of members of the church I was serving, my whole family got to attend the Boars Head and Yule Log Festival at Plymouth Congregational Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I had heard about it for years but never attended. We thoroughly enjoyed the program. There were two parts to the event; one was an old English setting of the Christmas feast; the other was a Nativity pageant. At the end, they blended into one whole. It was simply beautiful.

At one point during the presentation of the Christ Child and the various visitors had made their way to the manger and the angels had danced, I found myself with tears in my eyes. This time, I was not in charge of the service, so I was free to acknowledge that my heart longed to worship the child. We are created with this need to worship, or to pay homage, as the wise men say in our passage. That is what brought the wise men so far, however far it was. That was why they went to Herod and anyone who might help them find their way. They longed to worship, as do we all.

That is one of the things we forget to pay attention to, our need to worship. It’s not just a need, but a longing, a deep longing that nothing else will fill. We are incomplete without it; we are missing something of significance. Epiphany is an opportunity to fill that void, to make us whole.

Venite Adoremus – come and worship. That is the invitation of the wise men. That is the prophecy from Isaiah. That is the meaning of Epiphany. That is the gift of God. Come and worship. Come and meet your heart's desire. Come and be made whole. Come together and be re-membered.