Longing and Light

Epiphany 2010
Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72:1-7,10-14; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12

The best stories are the ones that are easy to tell and easy to remember.

We hear one of those stories today. A star shines over a humble stable. A young mother, exhausted but lost in the wonder that overtakes the soul of every woman who give birth, every woman who gazes on the tiny face of new life that she bore in her own body. Did she hear the echo of angels, I wonder? Did her long-suffering spouse Joseph lift himself from his worry and tiredness long enough to stand and breathe in the Glory of the moment? God perfectly hidden, yet perfectly revealed.

The tiny stable would have been crammed full with wonder as it was, but there was room for more.

We grew up calling them the Magi, the mysterious nameless pilgrims from Somewhere Back East. That Latin word means magicians, wizards. These guys did not search the Scriptures for prophesies, they did not remember what they had been taught in church. Oh no, they saw a new star and checked their star charts and did an astrology casting and listened to their dreams, and that’s how God was happy to speak to them. Today is the feast where we honor people who come to God and Light by unorthodox ways. Today is the day we remember that all people are called by the good God, all people are spoken to and enticed by God, and all are welcomed in as they are. All one needs to do is to seek and enter stable door.

And within the tiny stable there is room for a thousand seeking pilgrim Magi, camels and all, with room for more, always room for more. There is room for you and for me.

Has your heart ever longed for wholeness, for meaning, for truth, for passion, for new life, for God? Have you ever been dissatisfied with old certitudes, old answers that may have made sense once but no longer do? Then you are part of this story, the Epiphany story.

Have you ever been surprised in the midst of your busy life, in your joy, in your pain, in your companionship, in your solitude or your loneliness, and heard the echo of another song? Seen the light of a different star? Have you ever longed to make the journey of a lifetime, a journey you’d be willing to bet your life on, to see if maybe oh just maybe there was an answer to the hunger in your heart? The Magi took painful and dangerous roads and faced down a lunatic murderous king only to kneel at a stable door.

Have you ever been surprised by beauty streaming forth from humble hearts and humble places? Have you found God in the most ordinary of places, the most ordinary of times? Then you are in this story. The Magi gave away their treasure to a child so newborn he still had that warm moist new baby smell.

Have you come away from a meeting with God that has changed you? Would you like to? Have you become a different person because of what you have seen and felt, in joy, in sorrow, in pain? Has this change been hard to explain to anyone else? One poet said the Magi were never at home again, back home in the East, “among an alien people clutching their gods.” If this all makes some sort of strange sense, then you are in this story, you are an Epiphany pilgrim, you are a wanderer ready to be changed and made new. “Arise, shine, for your light has come” said the prophet. Deep gloom enshrouds the people, but over us the Lord will rise.

Faith is the star that leads us from old certitudes and the Way Things Are. The star leads to a new place that is more humble than we expected, more ordinary than we expected, more wondrous than we expected, more transforming than we expected. We search, and God loves our searching, but God does lead us by strange roads. There are strangers to meet, some angels, some hostile. There are fellow-pilgrims to meet, people we would never have dreamed would have been with us. We end united in searching, united in purpose, united in our hunger and our need, united in awe before the glory of what is revealed to us.