I.N.I.
a sermon
to be preached at Our Savior Lutheran Church, Arlington, Virginia on
10 January 2015, the Sunday after the Epiphany of our Lord, and based
on the assigned lessons for the day: Isaiah 60:1-6; Ephesians 3:1-12; and St.
Matthew 2:1-12
Dear
Friends in Christ,
If I say
"Festival of Light" you might think of the Jewish Hannukah.
But did you know that we Christians are celebrating our own Festival
of Light right now? Flip to the first page of your worship folder and
there it is: "Service of Light: Jesus Christ is the Light of the
world, the Light no darkness can overcome." Jesus is the Light
... and while we celebrated His birth a couple weeks ago on 25
December, that was really the birthday of a Jewish boy to Jewish
parents, welcomed by Jewish shepherds, and dedicated in the Jewish
Temple when Simeon and Anna found Him. What we celebrate today, is
the day the Light dawned for the rest of us: the day the "wise
men from the east came ... to worship Him." (Matt 2:1-2)
That was
the day the light went on for the non-Jewish part of the world.
Before that there was darkness. The whole world, basically, was in
darkness. I don't know if you've ever really experienced total
darkness before, but it's something you won't get here in the DC
area. It seems like we always have some light somewhere:
streetlights, traffic lights, lights on stores and in our homes,
front porch lights, car headlights, and on and on. Total darkness
would be without any of them. AND without sun and moon and stars.
Something like you could find deep inside a cave, for example, as
long as nobody had their phones and luminous dial watches and the
rest. Darkness. Total darkness.
You may
not remember ever having experienced that, but in a very real sense
we have all had regular experience with deep darkness. It's a lot
more treacherous than darkness of being lost in a cave would be, or
than a sudden physical blindness. It's the darkness of sin.
The
darkness of sin closed in on people when Adam and Eve first broke
God's Law in the Garden of Eden. Yes, their eyes were opened to the
extent that they suddenly saw that they were naked. But you'll
recall, too, that they also lost sight of God in that moment, by
going into hiding. They cut themselves off from His glory. They
locked themselves out of His presence, They evicted themselves from
the Garden.
Since
that time people wandered blind. The Bible, of course, gives us a
great record of the way people have stumbled around and away from
God's light. But pick up any good history book, and you'll see that
even writers without any religious interest at all can give a pretty
convincing account of humanity lost in the darkness of sin.
Those
secular historians are echoing and paraphrasing what Isaiah wrote in
the second verse of today's Old Testament lesson: "darkness
shall cover the earth and thick darkness the peoples." Please
notice that the prophet does not say that this darkness only
covers the primitive pagans in the jungles of Papua-New Guinea, or
only the Muslims and
Buddhists and Hindus. And Isaiah doesn't say that this darkness is
only a shadow passing briefly across people's eyes. He writes of
"thick darkness" that covers and coats the peoples, all
peoples from one end of the earth to the other.
You
and I are naturally in this darkness. We're immobilized by it. Just
as we would be if we were suddenly without headlamps deep in a cave
somewhere. We're all frozen in place by this darkness of sin. We
can't see where we are or how to escape, so we're much more
comfortable hunkering down and staying put. Pinned down by sin's
darkness, we cannot even make a beginning at walking toward God. We
don't know which direction to go. We're trapped.
This
deep darkness is the self-inflicted punishment we've all inherited
from Adam and Eve. Within it, though, there are some (there are
always some) who feel more comfortable moving about. Under cover of
natural darkness much crime is committed as criminals think it lends
some cover to their misdeeds. In the same way under the perpetual
spiritual night many crimes are committed for the Evil One. His
servants fly to and fro distracting, tempting and taunting; getting
people all over the world to fall into sin.
In
the face of this Isaiah says "Lift up your eyes all around, and
see." (verse 4) See in the darkness? No. Back up in the first
verse he wrote "Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the
glory of the Lord had risen upon you." God's Word shows us the
way. In the darkest night, through the deepest blindness, God's Word
comes to us as a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. (Psalm
119:105) That's how we can see.
One
thing I love about this passage is the way it makes so clear to us
our helplessness before God. Isaiah does not
say that we should light a lamp to chase away the darkness. He
doesn't say anything
of the sort because us trying to do so would be a waste of time. GOD
has to bring the light. In verse 1 we shine only because we reflect
like mirrors (to borrow a phrase from St Paul - 2 Cor. 3:18) the
glory of the Lord. In verse 2, while we sit in the deep darkness, the
Lord will rise over us. He
does it. Not us. Or, as Saint Paul writes in today's Epiphany
Epistle, "this was according to the eternal purpose that has
realized in Christ Jesus our Lord." (v. 11)
Exactly
here is one of the places Isaiah's words from so long ago intersect
with our traditional Epiphany thoughts of the wise men from the east.
The magi were not moved to search for God until He first called them
by the light of the star. They had nothing to look for and no light
for their path in order even to start looking, until Jesus took on
human flesh and came into the world.
Only
this Light of the world could bring them hope, forgiveness, and
eternal life. Jesus -- and only Jesus -- could bring these gifts to
the wise men and to the rest of the sin-darkened world, to you and to
me.
And
that word "world" is a second place Isaiah's words
intersect with and overlays Matthew's account of the wise men, as
well as with Paul's words to the Ephesians in the Epistle for today.
The
light of the Gospel is not reserved only for a select few. It has
universal appeal. It is offered universally. To everyone.
Another
name for today, for Epiphany, is the "Christmas for the
Gentiles." This is because the wise men coming from the east
(and not having a clear understanding of the prophecies concerning
the Messiah) were themselves Gentiles. So when we observe Christ
finally revealing Himself to them, we think of Him reaching beyond
the Jews (beyond His family, and beyond the shepherds, and beyond
Simeon and Anna, and beyond likely a good many others in and around
Bethlehem and Jerusalem who had met Him by then). We see Jesus
reaching beyond all of them to Gentles.
Paul's
letter to the Ephesians carries this theme out in its time, as some
50 years later he tells them how God called him specifically to a
ministry that would fulfill the work begun when the infant Christ
evangelized the wise men. Paul says in Ephesians 3:8 that his
God-given work is "to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable
riches of Christ."
This
global outreach was prophesied in our text from Isaiah. He says that
the nations -- that is, the Gentiles -- will gather from all corners
of the earth to the Light. Young and old, rich and poor, without
regard to race or nationality. Everyone will be (and is even now)
drawn to the Light the Gospel. Surely you've seen how turning on the
porch light on a warm summer evening brings all kinds of insects
flying. The darker the surrounding area is, the more and bigger the
bugs at the light seem to be. Well, all people in all conditions in
all nations of the world are drawn to the Light of the Gospel in the
same way.
Why
else would people beg for Bible translation teams to come to their
villages to write down their languages for the first time ever, and
to translate the Bible into their own native tongues. Why else would
there be Christian churches all over the world? Why else would
well-to-do wise men leave their comfortable studies to travel long
distances over rugged country and then leave expensive gifts at the
feet of a young Hebrew Baby?
And
now we've come the the third
place where today's lessons overlap. We're all familiar with the wise
men's three gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. For them, the light
of the Gospel showed them that the only real response was to offer
their best to the newborn King.
Isaiah
60 rings with this same tune. "The wealth of the nations shall
come" verse 5 reads. And in verse 6 the land is pictured as
wall-to-wall camels, each burdened with wonderful gifts for the Lord;
gold and incense being specifically mentioned.
An
Epiphany challenge for each of us this morning is to ponder the
question in the modern Christmas song about the little drummer boy,
and ask ourselves "What shall I bring to Him?" The boy in
the song plays his heart out for the baby Christ. In Isaiah it's
riches in the form of wall-to-wall camels. In Matthew it's gold, and
frankincense, and myrrh.
What
is it here in the DC area? Here and now we, too, can only offer our
best to Him Who died for us all. Jesus gave His life for us on an
individual one-to-one basis. He died for each of us.
We
offer our gifts to Him Who shines in our hearts. We bring our best
talents, our quality time, and our dearest treasures to the Savior of
us all.
As
Paul told the Ephesians (3:6), we "Gentiles are fellow heirs,
members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ
Jesus through the Gospel." Here in this place and time our clear
response is to offer the same best gifts while we, too, reflect the
light of the Gospel to still others.
We're
no longer trapped in thick darkness. What a joy! Happy Christian
Festival of Light! Blessed Christmas to the Gentiles!! Amen
And
may the peace of God that passes all human understanding, keep your
hearts and minds n Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
S.D.G.