Epiphany

Matthew 2:1-12 - Epiphany - January 6, 2016         
Christ Is the Light of the World

                                                                                 

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Today is Epiphany.  Epiphany comes from the Greek word for “manifestation,” or “bringing to light.”  And so we celebrate today how Jesus made Himself known, not only to His chosen nation Israel, but also to the Gentiles.   

What are Gentiles?  Well, it’s a word that is simply translated straight from the Greek word for nations. That’s all the word means.  It’s someone who’s not a Jew – who’s not from the chosen nation of Israel.  It was God Himself who made this distinction when He called Abraham out from among the nations to be His own special people.  He did this when He said to him, “In your Seed, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.”  Think of that!  God gave Abraham a promise – a promise that concerned and benefited all nations.  But it was given to one nation.  In fact it was this promise itself that created him as a nation.  After all, Abraham was childless when this promise of Christ was made.  This goes to show how much cooperation is required of sinners in order for God to set them apart as His own.  None. 

What made the nation of Israel special was nothing that they did.  It was solely in the fact that God graciously called them out of the same darkness that enveloped the rest of the world.  It’s the darkness of sin.  They didn’t seek God.  God sought them.  The reason God chose one nation was not because he saw something special in Abraham.  It was by grace.  And this grace extended beyond just one man.  He made him a great nation in order that through one Man all nations might be saved.  St. Paul writes in Romans 3 that the chief advantage to being a Jew was that “to them were committed the oracles of God.”  In other words, God spoke to them.  He taught them His word – to Abraham and then also later had Moses write it down.  God taught them how to worship Him.  He gave them an outward identification as His own special people in order to set them apart.  Among them, and only among them, God dwelt with His grace and truth. 

But now the Word has become flesh – not just Jewish flesh, but human flesh.  In Christ, the distinction between Jew and Gentile has been abolished.  It was abolished when God dwelt among us and revealed His glory to all nations by suffering and dying for all nations on the cross.  He submitted to circumcision and fulfilled the whole law that separated Jew from Gentile.  He loved and obeyed His Father, and loved and served His neighbor, and so fulfilled the whole Law that separated sinners from God.  Just as the distinction between Jew and Gentile was first created when God called Abraham to faith in Christ, so also this distinction was abolished when Jesus rose from the dead.  He now calls us to believe in Him. 

But there is still a distinction between faith and unbelief – between believers and Gentiles (we call them heathen now – those who don’t believe).  God still has His own special people.  It is a people, not according to the flesh (as physical descendants of Abraham), but according to the Spirit (as spiritual descendants of Abraham).  Remember what St. Peter writes to all Christians in his first Epistle:

But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.

What makes us special as Christians is not anything that we have done.  It is the same thing that made Abraham and his children special.  We have been called to know our Savior by grace alone.  We have been called by the Gospel out of the darkness of our sin and idolatry to know and worship the one true God, and to serve Him only.  Apart from the promises of God, we walk in darkness. 

To be a Christian is not to tap into an inner light within you.  It is not to pursue some inner desire to find God, or be with God, or even to pray to Him.  All of these lights are lies that only lead us further into the darkness of our sinful delusions.  Our lights inevitably lead us to our own works.  Our lights glory in our religious urges and spiritual discipline.  But they don’t bring us any closer to God.  The true Light, as St. John writes, is the one Who comes into the world from outside of the world. He is the true Light who gives light to every man.  We must go where He is found.  We must know where He comes into the world. 

Jesus was born in Bethlehem.  He was born King of the Jews.  He was born to fulfill the promise made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  God made no other promise.  If Gentiles were to find salvation, they had to find it where God said it would be found. 

And so that’s where the wise men went.  They came from the East.  They were Gentiles. They did not look for Jesus because of some natural urge.  There’s no such thing.  There was no inner light or desire to come to Him.  No.  A star appeared.

Numbers 24 – learned from Daniel:

“I see Him, but not now;
I behold Him, but not near;
A Star shall come out of Jacob;
A Scepter shall rise out of Israel,”

The Jews overlooked the sign of the star, because they ignored the word of God.  But because the Gentile magi heeded the sign of the star, they sought what the word of God said about it.  So it is in our day.  If you ignore the word, you will ignore the sign; if you heed the sign, you will hear His word.  Let us follow the example of the magi and not those lukewarm Jews who knew neither the power of God’s word nor followed with the wise men where it lead them. The Scriptures appear dark to those who do not follow the signs that God appoints.  But for those who seek God where His holy Sacraments identify His saving presence, the word of God shines as a light in a dark place.

The worship of the wise men teaches us this.  The star disappeared by the time they reached Jerusalem.  The sign itself could not bring them to Jesus.  They needed to learn from God’s word.  The chief priests and scribes knew the Scriptures at least enough to get their facts straight.  They directed the wise men to Bethlehem.  It was only then – when the word confirmed the promised location – that the star reappeared and led them straight to the house where the Christ Child lay. 

Word and sign go together.  So it is for us.  We don’t make up our own signs.  We don’t invent the significance of our Baptism or the Lord's Supper. 

We learn from the word of God what these signs mean.  We follow the signs that God institutes according to His word.  The word of Scripture is reliable.  It alone creates saving faith.  It is as St. Peter tells us, We have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. 

God calls His church together to faith in Him by the washing of Holy Baptism.  God feeds His church with Christ’s body and blood in His Holy Supper.  These are divinely instituted sacraments in which God Himself joins a visible sign to His gracious word.  Just as the star led the Magi to Jesus, so Holy Baptism and the Lord’s Supper lead us to Jesus also.  More than that, they join us to Jesus.  They give us communion with Jesus.  We should not look for Jesus apart from our Baptism.  We should not think so little of Jesus that we neglect to receive His body and blood in the Supper.  God Himself has joined signs to His promises in Christ and so we seek Christ, as the Magi did, by seeking the sign God has given. 

I suppose they could have stayed home and spared themselves the hundreds of miles and weeks upon weeks through arid desert.  They could have kept their gifts and just worshipped God in their own way from afar.  But the wise men knew what they needed.  They knew that the sign supposed to be followed. God wanted to bring them somewhere and show them something.  He wanted to enlighten them, and teach them true worship. 

God the Son assumed human flesh and blood in order to redeem all human flesh and blood.  The Wise Men were wise enough to see their need for forgiveness.  They were sinners in search of a righteousness that would make them fit for heaven.  They lived among idolaters who worshipped various false gods.  They lived among the sexually immoral, the vainly materialistic, and pleasure seekers who cared mostly about doing what feels good to do.  Things aren’t so much different for us today.  We are influenced by our culture to fall into and follow our lying hearts.  We need Jesus.  We need His righteousness to cover our sin.  We need to be justified by God.  We need God to set us apart again and again as His own people.  That is, we need God to forgive us all of our sins and to regard us as saints.  We need this, and only Jesus can meet this need.  We need to go to where Jesus is.  Only there can we worship God.  As Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”

Non-Christian worship is false.  It sets human sin before God as if God should honor it.  It offers God bribes, lies, and false promises, as if God is some kind of fool who can be conned by sinful men.  The only worship that is truly worship – that is, the only worship that truly glorifies God alone – is the worship that looks for God in Christ.  True worship sees God in the manger.  True worship sees God nailed to the cross.  But since God is no longer in the manger and God is no longer hanging on the cross, true worship today seeks Jesus in the pure preaching of His gospel and in the right administration of His sacraments.  True faith relies on the true word of God, trusts in the signs or sacraments that God gives, and receives God’s verdict of acquittal by trusting in Jesus who won that precious verdict for us all. 

And then true faith offers itself back to God in concrete giving.  The gifts the wise men gave were expensive.  They know that knowing Jesus was more precious than their wealth.  So they gave their wealth to Jesus.  We know that hearing the gospel of Jesus is more important than sleeping in or going to a party or even spending time with family.  So when we give our time to hear the gospel we confess with the wise men that the gospel is more important than our time.  They gave gold, because Jesus is the true King who gives greater wealth.  They gave frankinsnece, which represents the prayers offerd to God, as I will soon be singing before the Magnificat: “Let my prayers rise before you as insence,” because they knew that God hears our prayers for Jesus’ sake.  They gave myrrh, because myrrh is used to burry dead bodies.  They confessed that Jesus would die for them. 

What we give in our offerings to our King are the same.  We confess that he gives us all the wealth of heaven.  We confess that because of him God hears our every prayer and they smell sweet to him, because Jesus has made us holy and righteous.  We confess that Jesus died for us and also rose from the dead to give us eternal life in heaven.

The God who withheld nothing that He loves from us, but gave His dearest Treasure, condescends to accept from us our unworthy offerings.  He makes them worthy.  He does so by making us worthy.  He does that by justifying us, by reckoning to us the pure obedience of his Son even as he reckoned to his Son all of our sins.  True worship is when we believe this.  This is what it means to see salvation, as Simeon said it, “Lord now you let your servant depart in peace according to your word.  For mine eyes have seen the Savior whom you prepared before the face of all people: a Light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.” 

In Jesus’ name, Amen.