Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Welcome back to the full Choir of Men and Boys from their post-Christmas break. What a beautiful, powerful offering of music you made for this past Christmas season, what with the concerts and special services one after another. Now you return to start with this special Epiphany Procession, a service which complements Christmas by emphasizing the manifestation of Christ’s glory.
You will notice one of the scrims in the rear of the church. They cover the places of the removed stained glass windows above. Not only do they protect us from being blinded by the light, but they are beautiful; and they show the kind of attention to detail and care that is being taken by those in charge of this enormous undertaking.
Epiphany means manifestation, or revelation; that is, the manifestation of Christ. Three of the great epiphanies of Christ are emphasized in the Gospel readings for this service. First and foremost is the story of the journey of the Magi, the Three Kings from the east who come to worship Christ.
The Magi visit King Herod the Great to inquire at Judah’s capital about the “newborn King of the Jews.” The Three Kings are Gentiles, not Jews, and they have used their own arts and sciences in following the star. It takes them to Jerusalem, not quite their destination – which they (and Herod) find out through the Scriptures, which identify (through the prophet Micah) Bethlehem, the City of David, as the Messiah’s birthplace. They go there and rejoice to see that the star has confirmed their search, and they worship Christ, offering him their gifts, gold, frankincense and myrrh.
The Church’s later tradition has elaborated on Saint Matthew by giving names, Gaspar, Melchoir, and Balthasar, and by having them be representatives of the races of mankind. In many parts of the Christian world, the Three Kings festival is right on a par with the Nativity itself, complementing the Incarnation of Christ with his manifestation to the peoples of the earth.
The fact that the visit of the Magi triggers Herod’s fear and his slaughter of the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem as well as the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt until Herod’s death shows, as Saint Matthew tells, the difference between the kingship of Christ and the kingships and kingdoms of this world. Christ’s kingdom does not require force; it is God’s kingdom of truth and peace, mercy and love. Herod’s violent reaction is a foretaste of the same clash of kingships that will occur at the time of Jesus’ passion.
But before that, there are many other epiphanies of Christ’s glory. Two most notable ones, the ones we celebrate today, are his Baptism by John the Baptist in the River Jordan and his changing of water into wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, his first miracle following his Baptism.
The Baptism is an epiphany in all directions – to the prophet John the Baptist, to Jesus himself as the center of the epiphany, and to the Church of his followers. God proclaims Jesus by a voice from heaven to be his beloved Son, and the Holy Spirit alights on him in the form of a dove. Christ’s Baptism is a revelation of the Holy Trinity. The miracle at Cana is a manifestation of Christ’s divine power and glory, as Lord of nature itself.
Before I conclude, let me emphasize that for each of us, the Lord also makes an epiphany, a manifestation. Not the least important feature of any epiphany is that it is witnessed. It is in some way seen, heard, apprehended. It changes the life of the witness for the better and sets him in a new direction. And there seems to be no fixed formula by which this faith and belief, this new lease on life, comes.
I am tempted to say that God most often reveals himself through the unpredictable, the sovereign and unmanageable, experiences of life – great losses, reversals of fortune, deliverances, victories – which drive a person to faith and convince him of God’s presence. But then I also know many people who simply believe in God without being converted, or overjoyed, or terrified into faith. They simply have been given the clear childlike faith commended repeatedly by our Lord. The fact is, God speaks directly to each one of us as we are able to hear him; and he enables us in those concrete situations to hear and see.
The Final Epiphany of Christ on this earth is supreme and paradoxical, that is the Cross of Christ. There, everything seems upside down. Glory appears to be exchanged for humiliation. Yet it is precisely the Crucifixion that Saint John the Evangelist calls Jesus’ Glorification. And I would finish by saying that it when we at last come to see what the Evangelist sees and shows in the Cross, then Christ has made his life-saving epiphany to us, by means of what might well be called saving faith.
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
