Sunday, January 6, 2008 - Matthew 2:1-12

All throughout the Advent and Christmas Seasons, we talked about the true meaning of Christmas; that during this time of year, we celebrate birth, death, and the inevitable resurrection. Today, we are celebrating the Epiphany of our Lord. The 12 days of Christmas concluded yesterday. We begin looking forward to our Lord being revealed as the Son of God. That revelation is what Epiphany is all about.

The day of Epiphany is the day on which we celebrate the coming of the wise men about two years after Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem. However, the revelation of Jesus being the Son of God, the Messiah foretold in the Old Testament, began well before the wise men presented the Christ-child with gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

The angel Gabriel revealed to Mary that the child she would bear would be the Christ. The Holy Spirit revealed to John the Baptist and his mother Elizabeth that the child in Mary’s womb was the Son of God, and John the Baptist leaped for joy. The angel revealed Jesus to the shepherds when they were told: “I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people. Today, in the city of David, a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord.”

And the Son of God being born into the world was revealed in the appearance of a star that several Magi, wise men from the East, followed not really knowing what to expect.

By the Star of Bethlehem, God did not direct the Wise Men to immediately go to Bethlehem. They first went to Jerusalem. They did not go immediately to Bethlehem because in the ancient world, kings were not born in stables or even in little towns. Kings were born in palaces. Kings were born in the capital city. If you want to find a king, you go to a palace. The Magi came looking for a king. It would be a person’s natural inclination to assume that the king was born in Jerusalem.

However, the Wise Men did not end up in Jerusalem simply through a misunderstanding on their part, or from bad directions. This was no accident. Nothing that happened concerning the revelation of the Savior of the world was an accident. God directed these Wise Men to Jerusalem for a reason.

The Son of God was going to be revealed in the way that God had always revealed Himself to His people. Christ was not going to be revealed by word of mouth or hear-say. He was not going to be revealed merely with stories of angels appearing to shepherds. He was going to be revealed through the hearing of His Word. That is the way in which God has always made Himself known.

As Martin Luther says: “It is in Scripture and nowhere else, that he permits himself to be found. He who despises Scripture and sets it aside, will never find him.”

God sends these three Gentile foreigners to Jerusalem, so that King Herod and the people of Jerusalem will search the Scriptures looking for Jesus. They found Him, but they despised Him because they despised God and His Word.

Our Epiphany concerning Christ did not come through the announcement of angels, or through visions, dreams, stars in the sky, the Psychic Friends Network, or anything else other than the revealed the Word of God.

Christ was revealed to us through the hearing of that Good News of a great joy that was to be for all the people; and the receiving of that Good News, for most of us, came through the Word joined with water in Baptism -- just as we witnessed this morning.

Although the 12 days of Christmas have passed, we continue to celebrate Christ’s birth, death, and the inevitable resurrection. Because that is what its all about. But as the church now begins its celebration of the Epiphany of our Lord, we tend to emphasize that Christ was revealed to the Magi through the Star of Bethlehem. The reality is that they didn’t know what they were looking for until they heard the words of the prophet Isaiah. Likewise, Christ has been revealed to us through the Word, throught the light of the Gospel.

As Martin Luther also once said: “Christ could have died 1000 times and it would have been of no avail to us, if we had never heard about it.”

Epiphany is the celebration of the Wise Men bringing gifts for Christ. Through the Holy Spirit working on our hearts, through Word and Sacrament, our Epiphany, our revelation concerning the truth about God and what He has done for us, has brought to us gifts from Christ.

The Wise Men gave to Christ gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Christ gave to us: His birth, His death, and the inevitable resurrection. Through this, we have received new birth in the waters of Baptism, new life within the family of His Church, and the inevitable resurrection of our body and life everlasting.

We had a very Merry Christmas. Have a Happy Epiphany! Amen.

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