Strangers
Epiphany Greetings!
This is the season of Epiphany. I love Epiphany!! Do I sound like a broken record?
When I was little I was in awe of the church’s appearance on Epiphany with candles lit everywhere. We did not hold candles on Christmas Eve but on Epiphany. All the Christmas lights were lit and it was just an amazing site in the dark little world of West Detroit. I believe I fell in love with the “church” on Epiphany.
My children came to love Epiphany as well. My son Jason proposed to his wife in a church on Epiphany. They wanted to be married on Epiphany; however, a January wedding in Minnesota would have kept a lot of folks away so they married in August instead. And, now, they just gave my first grandchild the middle name of Epiphany. It’s an important day in the life of my family.
Why is it so important? Well first let’s look at who is involved on this day. Strangers. Where do these strangers come from? They come from “the East” what is known as Iran and Iraq.
They found their way guided by a star they had been waiting to see. There are many ways that we “find our way” to God, to the little baby born King of Kings: nature does indeed point to the glory of God, the care of God, the presence of God. Thinking of the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota and the amazing lightening storms there remind me of God in nature, but so does the gently falling snow and the wonderful sunsets.
The strangers, Magi, also found their way to the Baby Jesus guided by the words in the Bible. When the they couldn’t figure out quite where to go, they stopped in to see King Herod who called together all his chief priests and teachers of the law. They discovered in the Old Testament in Micah 5 that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem. We need to find Jesus in the Scripture, too, to read it, hear it, and discuss it with other people such as our church family to truly understand it and find Jesus.
Then, like the Magi, we’re drawn to worship the One we seek. Thomas Long, an English clergyman, says that “the world is full of ‘stars in the East’ – events in nature, personal experience, and history that point toward the mystery of God…"but we need "the defining and clarifying word of scripture” to “recognize these holy moments for what they are…to see God’s face clearly in them.” Without scripture, we would be like the wise men, “aware that something had happened, but we would not, without the revelation of God in scripture, know where or how to worship.”
God is with us as we see God in nature and in the Bible!
Hope
