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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
As Pastor mentioned in the opening announcements, this month we’re going to focus on a theme of His faithful love, our thankful service. As it culminates with a wonderful celebration luncheon on the last Sunday of the month, which by the way, there’s no football that Sunday so you’re good to go. And also we will then celebrate with our pledges that Sunday.
Now epiphany, which is what we’re celebrating today, the word epiphany means a manifestation or a revelation. In this case, in our text this morning, a revelation or a manifestation of God has come into the flesh and has been born for all people, especially for us pagans. Now I say that as a blanket statement because all of us were conceived as pagans. All of us were born as pagans. And all of us were made Christians by God’s revelation in holy baptism, which Pastor will talk about next week. How about that for a teaser?
What God has done, though, in us and through us, the revelation that God is faithful in His love toward us, are these little glimpses or little mini-epiphanies. You’ve had that moment in reading the Scripture, singing a hymn, meditating on a piece of Scripture, prayer, and all of a sudden a thought that weaves together, which is all done by the Holy Spirit. It makes you realize what God has done in His faithful love in you and through you. All of you could share stories with one another and with me, but this morning I want to tell you what God has done in you and through you as a baptized member of St. Paul Parish family, both as an individual and as a congregation.
We are the only church in Austin that offers communion at every service, and every service being a liturgical service. We’re unique in that way. And yet, look around you. God has worked in you. You are here for that very reason. Because God has brought you here and has worked that work of faith in you. That is not a small thing. It is a great thing. And it is a little mini-epiphany that God is at work in your heart. Yes, you and I who have a pagan past have been made God’s children. God is at work in you.
There are some churches that don’t even have any children. We’re blessed to hear noise and shuffling of papers and Cheerios and other various and sundry things. That’s a gift, a great gift. And those kids are being told about Jesus in Sunday school. We’re faithful men and women. It says, “And our adult Bible class isn’t a four or five or a dozen or two dozen, but 60 to 80.” Our university class isn’t one or two university-age students, but a half a dozen to a dozen. That’s a gift. And the people that spend their time teaching these young people, God is at work in you, and it’s very evident.
If that’s not enough… A layman said to Pastor and me a couple of years ago, “Why don’t we study the Book of Concord?” And so every Monday night, fellow parishioners of yours, and maybe you yourself, gather together to not only study the Book of Concord, but the pericopal lessons of the coming weeks. It’s very unique in all of Austin, brothers and sisters. Very unique indeed. And it’s done in you. Not just two or three, but a dozen or more. God’s work in you. A little epiphany for you and me to see.
Now, what He does through us is a little bit different. See, you and I can see in a very myopic, narrow view of what He does in us. But what He does through us isn’t always so visible. It’s visible right now in front of you. Pastor Seeger and fellow members of Jesus Lutheran Church of the Deaf are before your very eyes, whom you have supported. That’s one of God’s faithful love revealed to you, through you. A great gift, not only to those members of that church but to the people, the children, more than 200, that come to Jesus Lutheran Church for the Deaf.
Later on this month, we will meet the Bishop of the Siberian Lutheran Church, a pastor from the Siberian Lutheran Church, and an organist from the Siberian Lutheran Church. Ones that you have supported halfway around the world and many time zones. Who could not exist without the support that you provide. So when you and I think in a little narrow myopic thing that I’m giving my money to the support of a building, that’s part of it. It’s bigger than that. These are just two small examples of God’s work through you.
Yesterday evening, you had no idea what happened here in this church, over in the fellowship hall. Two of our blind members, the Hunts, gathered together with a dozen or more fellow blind people from around the city, and you fed them and offered a place for them to meet, having a devotion and fellowship. That was done through you, and you didn’t even know it, many of you. It’s a great gift. Little epiphanies that God is working through you as a parish family.
Amen. Well, the greatest mission of what you have decided to be as a parish family has been our school. You’ve seen in the Lutheran Witness the baptism of adults, the baptism of children, many of whom are not members, who we are a part of their lives for a time, and then they move on with work or with a job or who knows what all. And we have been a part of their life and an impact in their life through you.
Even if your kids have already graduated or your grandkids have already moved on. Even if you grew up here and are no longer worshiping here and come back to visit. What was done and continues to be done has been done through you. One of the great compliments that’s paid to our principal and our teachers is that they provide a loving family environment. Did you know that every one of our classes adopts one of our shut-ins and sends them cards and things that they’ve colored, and they pray for them, and only 25% of our students are from our church?
See how God is working through you, through them, to serve? I only know my 8th grade class and a few of the other kids’ names, but our principal, she knows every one of the names of our kids. Knows all the family members. That’s a gift. A little revelation of God’s faithful love in you, but more importantly, here through you. That many of you and I don’t always come into contact with.
You have hosted both of our seminary choirs and you have fed them. You have housed them. God’s little work through you. You’ve heard the singing in our congregational choir loft. You’ve heard the brass play and the bells. God’s work through you. For the providing of those materials and places and interactions and relationships that are built.
We bid adieu at the end of this school year to a high school that you started, Concordia High School. They could not have started without our school and our building and our facilities. They could not have started without our commitment to make it happen. And now we have given birth to them to move on to another location. That’s God’s work.
One of the compliments that continually gets told to Pastor and me is how welcoming of a parish family you are. How people say, “Wow, I don’t even get out the door and I get greeted and welcomed and introduced by many people.” It’s a great, great gift. Do you not realize that most congregations you walk in and walk out and they don’t necessarily say hi? Now we’re not perfect at it by any means, but that’s a gift and a little revelation of God working through you.
Now, these little mini-epiphanies or revelations are of God’s work in you and through you, but they have no relevance or meaning without God’s first and foremost revelation to you in Jesus Christ. In this morning’s Gospel reading, the great epiphanies, and there are several, is that pagans from a pagan land of Babylon risk embarrassment for leaving their family and friends to travel hundreds of miles to go to a land that is not of their same religion, to risk being thrown or killed, thrown into jail or killed, by asking a king, “Where is the king?”
All because God worked a great work. God put into the sky a star that raised their interest. Right? Somehow, someway, we know not, they had to have some other kind of information to make them risk, and not only the money that they would spend, but risk the embarrassment by their fellow pagans of the land of Babylon, to travel all the way to Jerusalem.
That’s why Matthew in his text doesn’t just say in passing, “Oh yeah, and some wise men came from the east,” but the word behold. Notice this. Take note. Pagans came to pay homage to a king who wasn’t even the king that they spoke to. And for that matter, think about that little epiphany. They go to the king of the land and ask where the king is born. Right? That’s the same thing as saying, “We know you’re the king, but you’re not the king of the Jews born, whose star is in the heavens.” You’re not that guy.
That’s an epiphany of God’s continued revelation to a land and a world that does not believe that He is faithful in His love. Faithful. Because this pagan king, Herod, who did not want to worship Christ, who does not believe in the Christ, even recognizes that the king of which these magi speak has to be not a king, but the Messiah, the Christ. That’s what he is quoted as saying. “Tell me where the Christ is to be born.” So he seeks that wisdom from wise men, scribes, and Pharisees who look it up in the only revelation of God to the world, Christ in the Scriptures, and they look it up in Malachi and say, “He’s to be born in Bethlehem.”
And though they read it, these Pharisees, scribes, and teachers of the law, and though the king, Herod, hears it, neither group believes. That seems like a waste, doesn’t it? Why would God proclaim such great faithful love to people who don’t even believe in Him? Because that’s true faithful love. Not because they love Him back, but because He chose to love them first, just like He did you.
After Herod had inquired of his scribes and Pharisees of where He was to be born, he sent them to that city, though he did not believe it to be true. And the scribes and the Pharisees did not believe it to be true. But who must have believed it to be true to have gone to Bethlehem? Those pagan magi.
Now do not think that they were so gullible to go, “Wow, because Herod said that’s where he’s born, he must be born.” They’re from a different culture. You would not necessarily believe gullibly either. You would kind of question and wonder. So what they did was not an act of intellect or reason, but had to have been because of that revelation from Malachi, spoken to them… And they believed and went and worshiped. And it was just as the Scriptures had said. There he was in Bethlehem. And not just in Bethlehem, but you know there were other children born at that time. So how did they find the right baby? How did they find the right Mary and Joseph? How did they find the right place?
Because God in His great miracle put the star right above it somehow, some way. And I do not know why, nor can it be explained by any astronomer. God revealed His faithful love. Now these men went back to Babylon. Do you think that the Jews at King Herod and the church at King Herod’s Jerusalem were all about evangelizing the Babylonians? No. But God did it anyway through these magi. Brought that gospel back to Babylon.
And we have no idea of what it did. But we know that God’s word does not come back to Him void. It had to have accomplished something. Amen. God sent it there through these men.
Now earlier I spoke about the many things that God has done in you. God has done through you. And I just finished telling you what God has done to you in Christ Jesus. Revealing to you, He is faithful in His love, even toward our unfaithfulness in all of our actions and deeds. Blessed are you. Blessed are you. You believe. Blessed are you, for you have seen from the Scriptures with the eyes of faith and have believed.
And blessed is the communion into which you have been knit. God knit you into this communion. Blessed are you and me, for we have been knit into the flesh and blood of Christ. And we take part of that epiphany of God revealing Himself to us in His faithful love.
In the name of Jesus, Amen.