A Moment of Understanding – January 8, 2023, Epiphany!

Isaiah 60:1-7, Matthew 2:1-12
January 8, 2023

Today we celebrate Epiphany.  And as I’ve said before, the word “epiphany” is defined as a “sudden realization” of something.  Or it’s a “sudden revealing.”  I’ve heard it described as an “Aha moment!”  You know what that’s like.  You suddenly get something!  All of a sudden something makes sense!  The light bulb goes on!

A famous comedian once defined a joke as “A sudden realization of incongruity.”  A joke is funny because it takes the answer or the meaning of something you might expect, and turns it a different way.  It becomes unexpected.  Somebody sent me a funny one this week.  He said, “When I get a headache, I take two aspirin and keep away from children– just like the bottle says.”

And speaking of children…  When she was little, I used to get in trouble for telling my daughter jokes she couldn’t understand.  One of them was, “What do you call a mushroom who buys all the drinks?” The answer is, “A fungi to be with.”  (Do you get it?  Fungi?)  I got that one from the old TV show “Alf,” which Jenny and I used to like to watch together.  And I was told, “Don’t tell her jokes she doesn’t understand!”  And I said, “Look, she’s having fun.  She’s laughing, everybody else is laughing.  And some day, she’s gonna tell that joke, and it’s gonna dawn on her why it’s actually funny.”  To this day, my daughter can tell you about that moment!  That’s an epiphany!  It’s a “sudden realization.”  It’s a “moment of understanding!”

Such “Moments of understanding” are not always humorous, but they often make us laugh.  When I finally remember where I put my coffee cup, it’s sometimes funny, because all of a sudden it makes sense why I put it there.  Especially if I put it there so I wouldn’t forget where it was!

That can happen with a lot of things.  It can happen with things we’re trying to learn how to do.  Backing a car with a trailer was a real mystery to me.  It was driving me crazy.  (No pun intended!)  But then one day, all of a sudden, it just made sense!  We could all share such stories like that, couldn’t we?  Stories about how we suddenly realized things, how some things all of a sudden made sense!

Well, that’s all to say that the Epiphany we celebrate today was a time when there was a “sudden realization.” – a “moment of understanding.”  All of a sudden, in the middle of a very Jewish world, a world of synagogues and priests and councils, these wise men, these Maji, came seeking the Christ child.  And to us, it’s just part of the Christmas story, and we love it!  But to the people then, it was a strange twist!  It was an “epiphany,” a “moment of understanding,” that this child – this Messiah – was coming to Earth for more than just the Jewish people.

Sometimes we fight the epiphany, don’t we?  Sometimes we fight that “moment of understanding.” We get it – whatever it is – but we don’t like it, and we don’t want to accept it!  And I wonder how much of that was happening in and around this story, and for that matter, now much it was happening throughout the life and ministry of Jesus.  People were “suddenly realizing” that the words of the angel were true, that this “Good news of a great joy” was to be “to all people.”  And as it was happening, I wonder if they were thinking, “Did the angel really mean that?”

I also wonder how deep that moment of understanding was.  When these wise men appeared, was anybody thinking about Isaiah 60?  “Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.”  Did they think, “Egad!  Is that really happening?”  They knew those words, and others like them in their scriptures.  But did they accept them?

Think about these visitors who came looking for the Christ child.  And yes, these guys were probably not kings.  Not technically.  But they were astrologers.  And they were from another religion, which made this picture even stranger!  They were probably of the religion called Zoroastrianism.  That was a religion in which they believed that the objects in the night sky guided people’s lives on earth.  It was like people in our world looking at horoscopes, only this was much more!  And these astrologers were men who were able to interpret that for people and tell them what the stars revealed, so they would have been very wealthy and influential.  So they may have seemed like kings! 

So here we have these Maji, these “kings,” seeking the newborn “king of the Jews.”  And they were inquiring of an earthly king, Herod, where this king would be found.  (That’s a lot of “kings,” isn’t it?) And for God’s people, this was quite an epiphany!  For God’s people it would have been fine just to have Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus.  His account tells mainly of the Jewish world, and how Jesus’ birth was part of that.  His account was written within the people’s comfort zone!

Well, to add to the epiphany – and the irony – only Matthew gives us this story.  And of all the Gospel writers, it was Matthew who was addressing a Jewish audience!  His Gospel written to the Jews to prove to them that Jesus was their Jewish Messiah.  His Gospel is filled with quotes from their scriptures, saying how they were all fulfilled in Jesus.  And yet it is in his Gospel that we find this story – the story of these foreigners, these men from another culture, another country, and another religion – seeking to worship the Christ child!

What remains to be asked, then, is how we feel about this epiphany?  If you think about it, the Gospel of Jesus Christ has parts of it that are uncomfortable to us.  It has “epiphanies” that we might fight.  It contains “sudden realizations” –  “moments of understanding” – about who we are called to love, and how we are called to live.  Sometimes we read the words of Jesus and we think, “Hey, maybe he really meant that!”  Sometimes, we get those things he said, but those epiphanies are hard to accept.

I think this story of the Maji reminds us of that.  It calls us to challenge ourselves when it comes to some of the difficult things in our faith.  You know, sometimes in sermons I end up giving you more questions than answers!  And I believe that’s what the Gospel of Jesus Christ often does.  It calls us to question, and think, and grow.

So, as you think of all this.  As you consider these guys, think about how our faith challenges us to think of things God’s way, and not just the way we want to be God’s way.  Imagine if you had been there, if you had heard the shepherd’s story, if you had heard of the visits of the angels, if you had thoughts that maybe this could indeed be the long awaited Messiah, and then, “behold, Wise Men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is he who has been born King of the Jews?  For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him.’”

Prayer

Eternal God, help us to seek the Christ child every day.  Help us to understand better your Good News that shall be to all people.  Help us to embrace the epiphany, especially when we realize anew your depth of love for all the world, and for us.  For we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.