Intro
Epiphany is God showing us His Son, Jesus–not just for the Jews–but as the Savior of the whole world. And so Epiphany becomes the Gentiles’ Christmas. Epiphany is God further revealing, unfolding, and unwrapping His earlier Christmas gift for all people.
In God’s Christmas gift of His Son to us, we have received a gift unlike any other. In His gift of Jesus, God gives us Himself. He gives us His heart and mind. He gives us His goodwill and love. He gives us His mercy, and with unflinching determination, makes us–even Gentiles–His special people!
Main Body
God says, “Arise! Shine! Your light has come, and the glory of the LORD shines over you!” The light of the star led the Magi to the true Light, Jesus Christ. No longer were they to walk in the darkness of their gods of culture, science, or even their self-made gods. Instead, they were now to walk in the Light, Jesus Christ.
By the light of the Gospel, the Holy Spirit leads you to the Light, that same Light you are to walk in. “Arise! Shine! Your Light has come, and the glory of the LORD shines over you.”
The Magi were intelligent and learned. Based on their knowledge of the created world and–maybe, even their knowledge of God’s promises carried to Babylon during Israel’s exile–the Magi looked for Jesus in Jerusalem. That was reasonable. The King of the Jews should be born in Jerusalem. That was the capital city of the Jews.
But Jerusalem was not the place where God chose to unwrap His gift of salvation for the world. Instead, when their intelligence and learning were made captive to the Holy Scriptures, God led the Magi to follow the star to Bethlehem. They went to see man-child in whom God was pleased to give of Himself in the fullness of His grace and truth. The star, revealed by the Holy Scriptures, led them to the Star!
Intelligence and learning are gifts of our good God, God the giver of good gifts. But it is only in His grace–in Jesus–that God gives Himself in the real work of His fatherly heart and mind. It is this grace of God that draws worshipers to Himself. For by His grace, God creates faith in us, faith that worships Him by receiving His grace in Jesus. That was Epiphany then.
The false gods of the human intelligence, religious, and human contrivance, died at the birth of the Christ-child. Yet, 2,000 years later, are we merely spectators of these Gentiles who became worshipers of the living God? How sad, if Epiphany is only that!
Here, is Epiphany today. Today, God’s grace reaches out to your ears and eyes. Today, God’s grace reaches out to the ears and eyes of believers around the world. 2,000 years ago, the Magi came to celebrate God’s revealed glory, Jesus Christ. Today, that same glory is preached to you, in this place, in His Church. His call is to come to worship Him. That’s Epiphany for you today, right here and now.
Today, God still welcomes you. He still invites you to come to His Son. In your ears, He sounds the words that knock on the eardrums of your heart. God invites you to see Him in His body, this Jesus who presents Himself to us. This altar is His manger–His feed box, not for cows or sheep or donkeys–but for sinners. Today, Jesus still makes His Epiphany among us–where the wise still go to meet Him.
Jesus, born of the blessed Virgin, shows to us the heart of God. Jesus is the promised descendant of David. Crucified in weakness and shame, He is raised in power and publicly preached to the whole world, for the whole world. The mystery of the faith isn’t just words printed on a page. Jesus was suspended on a cross, on a hill, plainly between heaven and earth, to join all to Himself and all people to the one, true God.
This work of God was always on His mind, even when it was hidden under the Law, training Israel toward the fullness of time. For people do not become holy from their self-made gods. Such gods always fail in the end. No; He is here, born the King of the Jews, to bind both Jew and Gentile into His body, His rule and reign, into Himself!
In Jesus Christ, the Epiphany revelation of God is not that He no longer considers sin to be sin. No, sin is still sin. The true revelation of Epiphany is that in the body of Jesus, God has carried sin into death. And so, in the blood of Jesus, God has given us eternal life–for all, everywhere, who believe in this Son.
In His Gospel, God is both declaring and doing this work of the forgiveness of sin. By Holy-Spirit created faith, God releases us from our sin and binds us to Christ. By the Gospel, God lifts us from the darkness of death into the light and life of His Son. For by the Gospel, the Light shines on us–and in us–to create a new creature in Christ.
The secret is out. God loves us into loveliness. The King of the kingdom judges us righteous by the righteousness He is, gives, and brings to faith.
Even more, the mystery continues to work. God not only creates the Holy Church by the Spirit through the preached Gospel, but He also includes His Church in making known His saving truths. Created by the Gospel, the Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and keeps the Church in the faith to carry that Gospel into the whole world. Missions are nothing else than this one holy Church of God in motion.
To some people, missions feel like a burden that God foists on us, a guilt that we have to convince others to become Christians. That’s a misunderstanding of missions and a misunderstanding of the Church.
Missions are the “sentness,” the apostolic nature, of the Church. When we confess the Church to be “apostolic,” we mean that we always begin with Jesus Christ and His saving work, and then go from there.
Before Jesus ascended into heaven, He had told His apostles to wait in Jerusalem. Jerusalem is, of course, a geographical location. And it was in Jerusalem that the Apostles first began to speak Christ into the ears and hearts of others. Missions mean that God has sent you with the Gospel to sinners. And like the apostles, you always start with where you are and where they are.
Missions are nothing other than speaking the truth that God forgives sins because of Jesus. Do you fail to speak when you should? Are you unsure what to say and when to say it? That means you don’t have enough Jesus.
The more Jesus fills you, the more He is part of your every fiber and being, the more He comes out in your everyday life. When that happens, God then uses you to help bring others into the one Body, the Church, of Jesus Christ.
“Arise! Shine! Your light has come, and the glory of the LORD shines over you.” If you aren’t shining, it is because you aren’t living in the Light. If you don’t let Christ’s light shine on your works, people cannot see them to glorify God.
Arise! Shine! That is, get up and listen to the Word, Jesus Christ. Get up and drink in the Word. Jesus Christ. Get up and meditate on the Word, Jesus Christ. Get up and speak the Word, Jesus Christ. Let Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, dispel the darkness of your self-made gods. Live in Christ, trusting that He is your life and holiness, your righteousness and hope.
Conclusion
It is a sour spirit that thinks “missions” are something that somebody else, somewhere else does. Lift your eyes. See how men, women–and even babies–of every race and tongue are drawn with you into God’s marvelous exchange.
In God’s marvelous exchange, we sinners lose our sin in the death of Jesus. And we, the walking dead, are given the life of Christ. For only in Christ do we have forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, deliverance from death and the devil, and the lively hope of resurrection from the dead into eternal joy. So lift your eyes and see, and let your heart leap for gladness. Amen.
