Congratulations to you on achieving perfect church attendance for the year! The start of a new year is a good time to reflect on what you hope to achieve and set goals and ambitions for the year ahead. Perhaps you have your own ideas for the new year.
Singer Diana Ross put these good questions to the song in 1976:
Do you know where you’re going?
Do you like the things that life is showing you?
Do you know?
Do you get what you’re hoping for?
When you look behind you, there’s no open doors
What are you hoping for?
Do you know?
The thing is, in church, in our spiritual lives, we are trying to seek deeper life questions. What are you looking for? What is God’s call on your life? Why are you on this earth?
When we think of a journey or an adventure, we don’t always anticipate how hard, or terrible the journey can become. Some suggest that sometimes if we knew what the journey would take, we would not begin. When we accept our fear, our disappointment, our anger, and our pain and begin to see how God is also with us in ways that are intangible and difficult to fully grasp, like a sudden feeling of peace as you reach out to God in prayer, faith, hope, and trust.
Suppose you can try to imagine yourself as one who recently returned from the Babylonian exile, those to whom the first reading of Isaiah 60’s prophecy is addressed. Coming home to a place they had never been before; most of those returning to Judah from exile have never lived in the land of their ancestors. Jerusalem is in ruins, and the economic situation is dire. Conflicts arise as the returnees drift in; the current occupants of the city are not excited to welcome them back. The people of God find themselves in a place of shadow and struggle, even though they are back where they should feel at home.
The weary returnees need a vision and hope as they process the trauma—generational trauma—of living through war, forced captivity, and loss of culture to somehow live let alone rebuild. Isaiah writes this vision of light, hope, and prosperity to the despairing that God’s glory will appear over them, the prophet says, nations will drop wealth at your doorstep!
The people do rebuild the city and the temple, but nations and kings don’t appear out of nowhere to drop off their caravan of camels. Instead, rebuilding is slow and tedious.
When hope is dim, it can be hard to see the light of Christ and feel the presence of God. We, too, in our places of despair, need the assurance that God is with us and that God will provide, even if it’s not in the way that we expect.
The journey into the new year took a detour on Bourbon Street in New Orleans before the postponed Sugar Bowl. Jimmy Carter’s calling as a former president brought various detours along the journey. Grief, medical concerns, or financial needs can take us on detours.
Today’s Feast of Epiphany reminds us that this light is still there, hidden and revealed all over this world, even when we cannot perceive it. Going out of their way to pay tribute to the infant Jesus, the magi were open to detours on their journey.
As we journey, we face the perils of the world around us, and even the perils that appear from within us. The Magi faced peril as they were warned in a dream to steer clear of Herod on their way home. Maybe you imagine how horrified the Magi felt when word of what Herod did reached them on the road home. Or you might see a shadow of your struggles in King Herod. The so-called slaughter of innocent children echoes today in Palestine and many places in the world.
The writer of the Gospel of Matthew sets up two diverging roads: Herod is fearful; and the Magi are faithful. Herod gives his devotion and care to his power and control; the Magi bow before the young Jesus. Herod cannot find Jesus, who is right under his nose. The Magi locate him from afar through a heavenly sign. Herod is the empire’s king; the Magi seek the true king.
An epiphany is a revealing, a manifestation, a sudden knowing. We might have an epiphany, a dazzling experience of God, in a way that’s predictable and expected—at worship, in a dream or vision—but we might also take a different road to Christ, as the Magi do. Epiphany reminds us that God is available to all and is found along unexpected paths, including paths that we wouldn’t have taken or that make us uncomfortable.
There is more than one epiphany in this text. For the Magi, the star in the East reveals to them where they should go. Upon entering the house of Mary and Joseph, they see the child Jesus—another revealing. Finally, a dream reveals to them that they should not return to Herod, so they take another road home. Herod has his inconvenient epiphany that a king has been born.
This past Friday, I found Highway 50 construction taking me on another unexpected detour. I don’t particularly like detours on my journeys, but I trust that God is found on those roads, too. Sometimes we are invited to another road. With God, all those roads lead us to where we need to be at home with ourselves and God.
Epiphany is not simply something we journey towards, but something we participate in every day. Jesus is revealed to us moment by moment, whether we’re paying attention or not. In our deepest despair, we are not alone. In our lowest failure, we are held. In our greatest triumph, we celebrate in the presence of God. As you journey into this new year, look for moments of Epiphany to see God’s hand with us in unexpected ways.
