Sermon for January 4, 2009  Epiphany Sunday

                             Scripture:         Matthew 2:1-12

                        “Revealed” by Rev. Christopher Fazel

              Today is Epiphany Sunday.  Technically, the day of Epiphany falls on January 6, and marks the end of the 12 days of Christmas.  This year that’s the day after tomorrow.  But so what?  What is Epiphany, anyway?  Well, the word is Greek, and it means, “To become manifested or revealed in glorious light.”   The Christian church since at least as early as the fourth century used the word to celebrate the revelation of Jesus Christ as the Light of God to the world.  The western church (centered in Rome) has usually dwelt on the visitation of the Magi recorded in Matthew as the moment of revelation.  The Magi, of course, were foreigners, and therefore represent the world at large.  The Eastern Church has focused instead on the baptism of Jesus, recorded in all the gospels, as the defining moment of Christ’s revelation of divine light. 

              Our earliest documents that refer to the observance sometimes also use a related Greek word, “Theophany” to describe this moment of revelation.  Theophany means quite literally the appearance of a God to mortal eyes.  Theophanies have a long history in Western culture.  The very first theophany recorded in western mythology is from the Epic of Gilgamesh – among the earliest literary works on the planet.  Classical Greek mythology, Hindu mythology, and our Old Testament contain many examples of God (or the gods) appearing in splendor to humankind.  Christianity used this time-honored mythological event to describe its conviction that the gospel of Christ is a revelation of the divine. 

              But all this merely begs the question.  What exactly was revealed?  From the beginning, there has been the temptation to think of Jesus as a theophany of God in the classical sense – like Zeus appearing to Semele.   Biblical Scholar and Professor Bart Ehrman tells us that yet today, many of his students believe that even as a baby, Jesus could have spoken Swahili if he wanted to because he was God.

              Now, I am convinced that such an understanding of the revelation of Jesus Christ does not help us.  If fact, it becomes part of the problem.   I remember several months ago at a Muslim/Christian dialogue, a bright young Muslim man named Shah Khan told of his experience in reading the gospels.  He said, “I expected the gospels would record Jesus saying over and over, “I am God, I am God, worship me!”  And he reported his astonishment at discovering that Jesus doesn’t say things like that.  You see?  It takes foreign eyes to help us clarify our own vision.  

              If the epiphany of Jesus Christ is not just a theophany, then what is it?  Well, there is another interpretation of the word epiphany which I think serves us much better in understanding the epiphany of Jesus Christ.  It is also, in my opinion, much more in keeping with the actual import of the gospel of Christ.  The third definition of epiphany according to Random House is: “a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.”

              One of the best illustrations of such an epiphany is found almost weekly in the popular television series, “House.”  In this series, Gregory House is a genius medical diagnostician, so every episode is essentially trying to figure out what is wrong with this week’s patient.  And the basic architecture of every plot is that House struggles and struggles to figure out the problem, and then while momentarily distracted by some more tedious task, something in that task suddenly reveals to him the answer to the problem.  That moment of revelation is an epiphany. 

                            Now, it is often said, and wisely, I believe, that God’s grace always comes as the answer to a need.  So, if we are to understand the epiphany of Jesus Christ, we would benefit by asking what was the need of that time in a religious and spiritual sense.  It is a matter of historical record that the time of Jesus was rife with religious competition.  You had the mystery cults, the gods of the Roman State, Greek Philosophy, and Middle Eastern monotheism.  From as far east as the Indus Valley to as far west as the British Isles, there was a great cacophony trying to answer the existential questions, ”Who am I, where do I come from, why am I here, where am I going, and how do I get there?”  The revelation of the gospel of Jesus Christ is a sudden insight into the essential nature of human existence and provides simple and practical answers to these questions.  The gospel of Jesus Christ cuts through the babble of cultural diversity and takes us to the essentials that lie at the root of it all. 

              The gospel of Jesus Christ tells us simply that we are the children of a Creative Spirit whose relation to us is as a loving parent.  It tells us that our appropriate relation to this Creative Spirit is through humble gratitude and careful following.  It tells us that our appropriate relation to each other is as loving brothers and sisters.  It tells us that what we do in this life matters.  It tells us that our ultimate destiny lies beyond the death of our mortal bodies.  It tells us that eternal life is found through the pathways of kindness, forgiveness, compassion and service.   And that’s it in a nutshell. 

              Now to be sure, this epiphany of simple clarity was quickly overshadowed by human ignorance, religious arrogance and self-interest.  And yet, for those with eyes to see and hearts to understand, that simple revelation of the way it is, has continued to shine down through the ages.  It is as fresh and reviving today as it was in the days when Jesus walked the earth.  His person and message was and is an epiphany of supreme importance for all who seek the ways of life.  Thanks be to God.  Let us pray.

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