Second Sunday After Christmas
John 1:1-18; Ephesians 1:3-14; Jeremiah 31:7-14
How to describe it? It was a brown car with tires and an engine that had been
owned by my grandfather—a Plymouth Fury—common and ordinary. It was
not like any other car I have ever owned since—the steering wheel in my
hands—the feeling of independence driving for the first time alone—and
then on a date. How do I describe it? My first car.
How do I describe it? It was just another professional sporting event—one of hundreds but with a great crowd—a basketball game that the home team won. It is hard to find the words—It was a basketball game but the magic on the floor was seeing the greatest basketball player of all time soaring time and again toward the basket in the prime of his life leading the Chicago Bulls to another historic NBA Championship—words seem to fail to capture the moment as I try to retell it.
How to describe it? A gathering of people around a common cause and center with music and speeches. Yet there are times when the gathering touches the very core of our being and our spirit discovers a moment of grace that transcends rituals and forms—a moment when God enters into the worship service and our lives. But how do you describe that to someone who wasn’t there.
How to describe it? A child born out of wedlock to a peasant couple in the back waters of Palestine during the first century—the details include reports of shepherds and angels, magi and a star. Or we might describe not the events but the meaning—The word made flesh—full of grace and truth—the light of God entering the world in human form.
How was your Christmas? How to describe it? We can use the words of details—the gifts received and the food consumed—or we could focus on the relationships—the meanings we found in the exchanges of gifts and greetings.
How to describe it? By the time the Gospel of John was written, the story of Christmas was not found in details but the meanings—the meaning not of a birth but of a death and resurrection—the proclamation of the power of God to break the power of death and bring light and life to a world threatened by darkness. The season of Epiphany is upon us. Today is 12th night—the Eve of the 12th Day after Christmas. Twelve days after Christmas when traditions of the ancient church assert that the Magi arrived at Bethlehem bearing their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh having followed the star that they had seen in the East. This is the ancient feast of the Epiphany—a festival of light. Celebrated by the early church centuries before there was any formal celebration of Christmas—January 6 was the day for gifts to be exchanged recalling the gifts brought to the Christ child—January 6 was the day for the celebration of light entering our world.
Last night at the Lutheran Outdoor Ministry Center near Oregon,
Illinois where Pastor Chris and our confirmation students are on retreat, a
tradition was repeated that captures the meaning of Epiphany. Epiphany—which
means to shine forth. As the darkness of the night surrounded the camp and a
fresh coat of snow fell lightly over the camp the young people gathered first
in celebration creating gifts for each other from the found objects available
around the camp—then as the darkness of night grew deep upon the camp the
young people gathered in a broad clearing that leads out to the camp fishing
pond. There was piled a great mound of Christmas trees gathered from the nearby
town. The fading greenery bare of lights and ornaments looks like a great dark
mound in the darkness until after prayers and the last Christmas hymn of the
season is sung—a light is struck and the trees are lit. The flames burn
into the dark pile releasing light and warmth—rising into the night air.
Over the years I have stood by that raging bonfire in temperatures well below zero and found myself shielding my face from the light and heat. This is Epiphany—Light shining forth. Our lessons for this day as we stand on the brink of the Epiphany season are intended to remind us that there is intentionality and design to God’s world and the course of holy history. It is not an accident that brings Christ into the world—It is no accident of fate that each of us have been gathered in this place today to worship and praise the God who chose us to be forgiven and redeemed.
Last Sunday one of our members recounted to me one of those stories that anyone who has driven or ridden in a car for enough years can usually tell. A story of a close encounter with what should have been a fateful accident and yet miraculously nothing happened or at least no one was hurt. I still remember one evening more than 25 years ago now when I was driving from the seminary to downtown Minneapolis on a winter night in Minnesota—It was snowing—the road was slippery—I was merging onto the expressway at a point where the interstate is five lanes wide when I began to feel the back of my car drifting to the left—I turned into the spin but too late—my merging momentum sent me into a spin across five lanes of traffic during rush hour—everything happened in slow motion as I watched the lights of oncoming cars flash in my eyes—my car spinning once—twice—three times around—I instinctively braced myself for the impact I knew was coming—spinning—the lights of headlights flying by—and then I felt the jolt of the car stopped—Not by impact with another car but by resting against the curb on the inner side of the express way. My car was facing the wrong direction but there was no accident—no collision—no harm.
I have other stories—similar in type—as I suspect most of you do—Stories that witness to the truth that Paul writes about in our second lesson—that we have each been destined according to God’s purposes to accomplish all things according to his counsel and will. The flash of light comes upon us—maybe a star—maybe a fire burning bright against the night—but there come moments when we realize that we have been blessed to have this moment. Things could have been so different—the darkness could have overwhelmed us—but light came into the world.
Frank Richardson tells a story about Professor Hans Hoekendijk who taught at Union Seminary in New York City. Before and during World War II the professor lived in Amsterdam where he and his friends hid Jewish children from the Nazis. Their efforts were eventually discovered. As a result, Hoekendijk and his friends were locked in a railroad car and shipped off to a death camp in Germany. One morning the train suddenly stopped. The doors were opened. The prisoners were told to climb out and line up alongside the railroad tracks. They assumed they were in Germany. They thought they were going to be shot, but then they discovered they were in Switzerland—neutral and safe Switzerland. Someone had thrown a rail switch and the train had taken them not to their deaths but to freedom. For the rest of his life, Hoekendijk kept asking, “What do you do with such a gift?” How do you live with such a gift of being diverted from harm’s way?
There were those who died in a plane crash in Pennsylvania on September 11th—but so many more who lived because the plane was diverted. Do you remember what happened when the magi do not return to tell King Herod where to find the infant Jesus? Do you remember that in his anger the scriptures tell us Herod sent forth his troops to kill all the newborns in the area around Bethlehem? Death and darkness is so much a part of the world we live in—yet the Christ child was taken by his parents to Egypt—and the light that entered the world at night grew in grace and truth. What do we do with such a gift? Immediately after September 11 there were so many who announced that they had at last seen the light—They would no longer take each day for granted—they would be open to the miracle of grace in the little moments that make up the seconds and minutes of our days.
That’s the wonderful image created by Thornton Wilder in the play Our Town when a young girl named Emily dies and is buried in a hillside cemetery. Somewhat magically she is then allowed her one wish to go back and observe just one day of her short life. “Choose the least important day in your life,” the dead advise her. “It will be important enough.” So Emily returns to the world that could now neither hear nor see her. In her final message to that world that doesn’t hear her, she cries out “I love you all—everything.” When she finally must return to her other world, she says, “I can’t look at everything hard enough, wait! Goodbye Grover’s Corner. Goodbye Mama and Papa. Goodbye to clock’s ticking and Mama’s sunflowers and food and coffee and new ironed dresses and sleeping and waking up. Oh earth, you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it, every minute?” The stage manager replies, “No.” But then he adds, “The saints and poets maybe they do some.”
“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory…” The glory of God is radiant light—light so bright no one can look at it—a burning light in the darkness—not just a flash of lighting but the enduring constancy of a star—with light radiantly begun even before the earth was created. The constancy of a star whose distance from earth is measured in light years—The magi were wise to look to the stars—centuries before there was any astronomy they knew—They knew that the mystery of God’s light coming to earth—that the miracle of God incarnate—defied description.
Following the second service this morning we will remove the Christmas lights from the Christmas tree—the Chrismons will be carefully boxed away—the tree will be removed. Tonight is the night for the last burning of the Christmas lights—tomorrow they will simply be lights you haven’t taken down yet or lights that are strung in the trees because they look pretty. The arrival of Epiphany means they are no longer Christmas lights—the 12 days of Christmas are ended. The lights are no longer Christmas lights for the light of Christmas is now incarnate—born into the world—made real in our midst. And we have been chosen to see this miracle once more. We are destined by God to be the ones who can point to the lights and say the darkness has not won. The grace of God now burns brightly within our hearts and lives. We are filled as the world is filled by the Spirit of God—“his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” How to describe it? Maybe more important for the Epiphany season—How to show it?
Amen.
