[Machine transcription]
Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. From God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, amen. Happy Epiphany to you all. The text for this morning, or this evening, comes from the Gospel reading. You may be seated.
With all of the pomp and circumstance that the choir and the brass choir bring to the service, it is the coronation song of the King. But when you and I think of a coronation, a Lutheran Christian sermon— for some, it was the first nuclear bomb. For others, it was the Cold War that followed. For others, it was abortion being legalized in 1973. For others, it was Vietnam, which preceded and followed that same era. Maybe it was the events that happened on 9-11. Maybe it’s been the fact that the majority of the states are struggling with a large number of issues.
As these changes have come, it’s very easy for us and for others to become very despondent about the future. So our expectation of the king is that he would change things, bring about the change of which he speaks, fix all of this. And the king comes to do such a thing as this. But it’s not in the manner or fashion in which we would like to have it fixed. That’s where the expectations get to be a little difficult to mesh with the true light.
Our expectation of what light should be and what light is are two different things. Our expectation of what the king should be and do and what the king is and does are sometimes miles apart. In this evening’s text, a baby, a flesh and blood baby, a flesh and blood baby that cried, that had to have its diapers changed, that nursed at Mary’s breast, was God. And these three men, or more—we have no idea as to how many— bowed down, knelt, and worshipped a baby. They proclaimed to Herod and to the world that he was the king of the Jews. That is a remarkable thing indeed. What were their expectations?
Epiphany is older than Christmas. Just to let you know, Epiphany has been celebrated and has had a feast within the church longer than Christmas has. In fact, Epiphany was the day upon which gifts were given because the wise men brought gifts to baby Jesus. These wise men, of which we know not how many— three is always used because of the three gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh— came from Babylon, Iraq, or maybe Persia, Iran. But either way, they traveled a long way. Yes. And their information that they had received was from 700 years before these guys arrived.
What does this have to do with the king and his coronation and expectation? It’s very easy for you and for me to get despondent about what we see in this world, what we experience within our life, and to think and to feel as if, do we have to put up with more of this? Is this what we’re heading toward? Is this what we’re heading toward? And we all think we have the answer. If only it would be done this way, and if only it would be done that way, then it would be all right. That starts with the person who’s saying it. Because if you’re saying it or I’m saying it, it starts here. The only person we can change is ourselves by God’s grace.
And that, through great tribulation and struggle, do we even change ourselves. This text is comforting, brothers and sisters, for all of our expectations of a baby king. And the reason this text is so pricelessly comforting is that these men came from a land that was thousands of miles away, and their exposure to the gospel happened 700 years before they were ever born. So that nugget of truth, of the true light that shines in the darkness, of which the darkness shall not overcome, had been sitting in this country for 700 years before it moved these men to come and visit this baby and to take that information back.
We’re so used to hearing the story of the wise man visiting baby Jesus that we forget the enormity of this great miracle. And we forget to draw comfort from it as it’s meant to be received. It is comforting for us to know that this light that shines in the darkness shall not be overcome. If it can sit in a pagan nation full of pagan people and sit and grow and produce fruit that’s seemingly invisible to the world, one aspect of that fruit would move these men to take all kinds of expense and effort to travel a thousand miles to get to see this infant only to bow down, worship him, and offer him gifts.
Why should we be scared of same-sex marriage running our country? Why should we be afraid that the whole world is going to go to hell in a handbasket because of what we see and experience in this nation? There’s comfort to be brought to us here in this text. It’s God’s way of running this world. And it should remind us and not cause us to fear or to be anxious or to be sorely disappointed. There’s hope here.
There’s a commercial about Centrum Vitamins; I think it’s for Centrum Silver, which would be for most of us over the age of 50. The point of it is that how amazing the human eye is, that it can see a light or a candlelight like four football fields or however many distances away in darkness. That’s the power of a candle in darkness. And the darkness will not overcome that little flickering flame of a candle.
That candle burned in Iraq or Iran, which is still run by and completely controlled by anti-Christian people and religion. And it still exists. Christianity is still there. Minuscule compared to other places in the world, it is still there. This text is a reminder to you and to me that this hope, this light, though it may be minuscule compared to other parts of the world, it shines. And you bear that light in this world of darkness.
And God will accomplish in you and through you what he accomplished in these men 700 years before they were ever on this planet. It was planted by these people who had no idea. All most of them thought was, why can’t we be back in Israel? We’re so many miles away from our home. Woe is me in self-pity and degradation. And yet God still planted the seed in spite of their negativity, pessimism, cynicism, and doubt. God planted a seed in this place and it grew.
And it produced fruit so much that it continued to be a part of the relevancy of that region. No, it was not the flavor of the month, and it did not overwhelm all the darkness that was there, seemingly, because it still is in a land that’s full of darkness. This is a service of light. The light shines, and the Lord has come, and we have seen and we believe.
Be of good hope, brothers and sisters. Your cynicism and doubt and negativism shall not be overcome by the evil one or this darkness. God’s light shines in you and through you more brightly than anything we can bring to bear. And so we pray.
Come, heavenly bridegroom, light divine. And deep within our hearts now shine. There, light a flame undying. In your one body let us be, as living branches of a tree, your life, our lives supplying. Now, though daily earth’s deep sadness may perplex us and distress us, yet with heavenly joy you bless us.
In the name of Jesus, amen.
