Ephiphany- Rev. Wendy McCormick- Jan 5, 2025
Epiphany Sunday Rev Wendy McCormick
January 5, 2025
Those of us of a certain age can attest that when it comes to Christmas decorations, the customs and timings around putting them up and taking them down have changed a lot. Back in the day, putting up your Christmas tree before, say, December 15, was considered oddly out of step. Today, if you aren’t decked out by then, people wonder if you lack holiday spirit. I very often travel at Thanksgiving. These days it’s not unusual for there to be outdoor Christmas lights up and lit in the neighborhood before I leave. And when I come back, I’m pretty much the only Scrooge on the street – no lights.
Then there’s the subject of when you take it all down. I notice some of my neighbors take it all down at dawn on December 26. As I got interested in Christmas as a 12-day season that lasts until Epiphany, January 6, I like to leave it all up till then. I so enjoy the warmth of the lights. Taking it down is no fun, and a little sad.
What interests me and frankly touches me more than the how and when of holiday decorating and de-decorating is the why – the deep why – I can’t help noticing how powerful it is to hang lights against the darkness and how we have that in common with our most ancient pre-Christian ancestors as well as most other world religions. However post-modern we are, we still have a kind of primal need in these shortest days of the year to literally shine lights into the darkness, to warm ourselves against the cold, to cheer ourselves amidst the bleak darkness.
Daylight saving time is back in the news as a topic of political debate. Whatever our opinions about that, the “fall back” weekend in early November leads to a noticeably darker late afternoon and early evening. I tend to think that’s why we hang lights earlier and earlier. From that “fall back” weekend in November, it’s another 6 weeks to the shortest day of the year.
Of course, the Church long ago adopted the winter solstice season and the ancient practices of lighting up the dark winter cold as the time we celebrate the birth of Jesus -- the light coming into the world, the light shining in the darkness, the light no darkness can overcome.
Out of the whole church year, certainly nothing can compare with the power and the beauty of that moment when we all light our candles and lift them high. Even people who don’t participate in worship at any other time, people who tell you they are spiritual but not religious, still look forward to that moment and arrange an otherwise busy holiday to get here. There’s something about it.
But of course we have to put the candles out.
We have to take the decorations down.
We have to put it all away.
And while it’s true that the days have been creeping longer for two weeks now, it’s still pretty dark. And cold.
And the symbolic darkness into which we celebrate the inbreaking of the light of Christ at Christmas, well, that darkness is still very present. The darkness of violence and war in the place of Jesus’ birth. The darkness of inequity that widens year by year as the 1% control amounts so vast they don’t even sound real. The darkness of bigotry against particular categories of people, some of them children. The darkness of a complicated national and local housing crisis that leaves some people in need of the warming center lest they freeze outdoors in days like these. While we should all be grateful for those who make that warming center and those like it possible, the fact that we need them and that it’s the best we can do is a sign of the darkness, isn’t it?
A lot of darkness.
Soon we will observe the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., which for those who really pay attention to his life and what he stood for is not just a day off but a reminder of how far we have not come from the vision he cast and called for.
A lot of darkness.
It makes me want to draw the shades, leave the Christmas lights up and sit by the fireplace.
Literally and figuratively. Maybe forever.
A lot of darkness.
Enter Epiphany.
Epiphany is the 12th day of Christmas, traditionally the day to remember the magi, the wise ones from the East, who followed the star to the manger and offered gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. It’s also the reminder that Christ is born into a dangerous and hostile political environment, as Herod starts killing children to try to avoid any challenge to his power, making the Holy Family literal refugees as they escape to Egypt in fear for their lives.
But Epiphany is not just that event but a whole season – the church is in Epiphany mode from now until Lent. Epiphany means manifestation or revelation, and it is about how that amazing, powerful star not only guided the magi but came to represent the manifesting, the revealing, of the light of Christ to all the world.
In the earliest days it was all about the light shining beyond Israel, beyond the chosen people, beyond the Jews waiting and longing for a messiah to include the Gentiles. In Jewish terminology, “Gentiles” pretty much meant “everyone else.”
This is so obscure for us as to be almost inaccessible. Obviously, we’re all Gentiles, so what could that passage from Ephesians have to say to us? We know Paul’s ministry was all about sharing the good news beyond the chosen people, all about explaining and arguing how God’s love in Jesus can and must extend to the Gentiles.
How ironic that in our day Christians argue about whether Jews can be saved, whether Jews are included in God’s plan for salvation.
But in the early church it was about whether those beyond Israel, those besides Jews, could be included in God’s plan for salvation. Today we read, “this grace was given to me to bring to the Gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ, and to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; so that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known.”
Paul’s words to the Galatians are a bit more succinct and accessible: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
But here’s what’s really important from what we read in Ephesians. And what’s really important for us as together we start a new year.
This Epiphany revelation or manifestation that God’s love and mercy in Jesus are for all people and that all means all – well, it isn’t just a statement. It’s a mission. It’s a charge. It’s work to be done.
Those who are left out, those who are forgotten, those who are told by religious people that they aren’t good enough – they don’t find out it isn’t true just by looking at stars. This revelation, this manifestation, this unbelievably good news of great joy for all people has to be shared.
Which brings us to the church.
“Although I am the very least of all the saints,” Paul writes in Ephesians, “this grace was given to me to bring to the Gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ, and to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; so that through the church” --- so that through the church -- “the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.”
So that through the church. So that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known. Now. Be made known. Shown forth. Revealed. Made manifest. Proclaimed.
Through the church.
As much as I want to curl up with my candles and my lights and huddle against the darkness, Epiphany is our charge to get out there. Put away the decorations, yes. Unplug all the lights and store them for another year, yes. But then get out there and share the light, be the light. The cool thing about light is it only takes a teeny tiny bit to pierce the darkness. Think how amazing it is when you strike a single match in a completely dark space.
We do it by the actions we take and the words we choose each day in our daily routine – work, family, friends, the grocery store. We live lives that show that the light shines in the darkness, lives that let the light shine through us. Small things, mostly.
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine. But together bigger things.
That’s lesson one from epiphany. When all the decorations and lights are put away, we need to be the light. In Howard Thurman’s beautiful poem:
“When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks, the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the people, to make music in the heart.”
Today’s Epiphany version of that charge is to make sure the light reaches the Gentiles – and for our purposes as Christians today, the Gentiles are those who are left out. Those who aren’t here, with us, within these walls. Those who are hearing the relentless message of cultural Christianity about who is in and who is out, who is unloved and who is unworthy. Those who are being told by popular political leaders that their lives are of less value than yours and mine --- these days two of the most targeted groups are immigrants and transgender people. And a lot of people, especially younger people, know instinctively that that’s wrong and so they avoid church altogether. It’s up to us to tell and show the truth of God’s bright shining all-inclusive love even and especially for whoever the Gentiles of the moment might be.
This church does good work shining light into the darkness, good work affirmed when your new pastor shared that the joy our church finds in serving our local community was what most attracted him here.
But there is more to do. Especially to reach those who are targeted as people to be feared and hated and cast into the darkness. One of the growing edges for this church is to figure out how to witness more overtly, more vocally, to and for those groups of people being singled out and left behind. They are the Gentiles of our time. Those assumed to be beyond the reach of the light.
And so today we recommit to be the kinds of Christians and the kind of church that is about the business of shining light into the darkness, proclaiming that Christ comes to all, so that through us – through the church – the wisdom of God, the great love of Jesus, might be revealed. May it be so. Amen.
