Epiphany C
In the name of the God of light,
life, and clarity. Amen.
Several years ago, on the
television series Grey’s Anatomy,
there was a character who described falling in love as being like when she put
on glasses for the first time. She
remembered, as a child, riding in the car on the way home from the eye doctor,
and seeing the leaves on the trees. She’d
never seen the leaves! She had only
known trees as big green blobs. But
suddenly, she could see clearly.
Suddenly, she could see what had been there all along, but that she had
been missing.
Our tradition often speaks of the
Feast of the Epiphany in terms of light and dark. The prophet Isaiah says, “Arise, shine; for
your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick
darkness the peoples;…”
But it’s not about the light and
it’s not about the dark. It’s about the
vision. It’s about seeing what was
always there, but that had been missed.
“…the Lord will arise upon you,
and his glory will appear over you. … Lift up your eyes and look around… Then you shall see and be radiant.”
In our common language we talk
about epiphanies. It’s what happens when
we’re struck by a sudden realization. “While
considering a problem, I had an epiphany…”
The makings of the idea were already there, but suddenly, mysteriously, everything
came together.
Through the past several weeks,
as a church, we’ve been cultivating hope.
We’ve been sorting through the wisdom of the ages, remembering the
stories of our faith, all in preparation for finding Christ in our lives in a
new way. Then, suddenly, Christmas
morning came. Dreams were fulfilled and
missed. Wishes were granted or
forgotten. And through it all, most of
the world has moved on. But Epiphany is
about saying that even though Christmas ended yesterday, the gift of Christ
continues. The magi – the “kings” or “wise
men” – they have only just found Christ.
And while a lot of the world has already moved on from Christmas, there
are still people who have yet to find Christ.
The epiphanies of seeing the world for the first time through the
clarity of the lens of God’s love is still available to almost everyone we
meet.
And it’s still available to
us. Christian faith is a journey that
never ends. The Gospel tells us that
these astrologers who followed a star to find Christ knew that they had to go
home by a different way. The same is
true for us. Whenever we really
encounter Christ, we leave the moment changed.
We can’t go on the way we’ve been going on. We invariably see the world in a new way.
But for those of us who have been
down these roads a few times, we have the gift and the responsibility of
shepherding others on their own journeys.
Today, in this church, we will
welcome a new member of the Body of Christ into our family. In baptizing Bryan, we’re committing to
showing him Christ. And the really
amazing thing is, in doing so, we, too, will see Christ in new ways. Bryan and his family will be changed, and all
of us who commit to helping him see Christ in his life will be changed, as well. The more we get to know one another, the more
we watch him grow and support him and share the joy of this love we know with
him and his family, the more we’ll all be changed. The more we’ll all grow. The more we’ll all see the world a bit more
clearly than we ever had before.
Christ is alive. We know it because we see Christ in one
another. We know it, because we leave
this place changed. We go home by
another road. In building this family,
we see things more clearly than we ever had before.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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