Sermon for the Epiphany of Our Lord

January 6, 2008

Isaiah 60:1–6
Psalm 72:1–7, 10–14
Ephesians 3:1–12
Matthew 2:1–12
Year A
I.N.I. (In the name of Jesus)


To discover how to be human now/Is the reason we follow this star (W.H. Auden)

From our balcony at the Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem, each and every morning, Kari and I would awaken to see the hills of Bethlehem bathed in light. In the summer of 2006, during the four weeks of our study in the Holy Land, it never rained. I would get out of bed, stretch, and say, “well, it’s another sunny day.”

Each morning throughout the world brings a new perspective, a fresh start. Many religious traditions greet the sun’s rise in thankfulness for God’s grace and favor.

Is it any wonder that ancient and modern believers sing hymns to Christ the Morning Star, fair and bright!

Is it a surprise that the church of old set the Feast of the Epiphany in the dead of winter, just as the earth makes its turn toward the sun, and the day’s light slowly but surely extends later and later into the evening?

Epiphany means taking off the darkness that covers, and letting the light shine!

Epiphany means the mystery of God is revealed to all comers,

star-gazers from strange lands and native sons and daughters,
peaceniks and warmongers,
gay and straight,
computer geeks and assembly line workers
Republicans and Democrats, and Independents,
Lutherans and Catholics,
Orthodox and Unorthodox,
cradle to grave Christians and those who seek to know more about Jesus,
yes and even to
you and me.

Can it be that God uses us to spread the light of faith? Can it be that all the good that we do, in serving others, in welcoming the stranger, in seeking to forgive and be forgiven, in sharing love through joys and sorrows, all have their center and source in Jesus?


Twenty-four years ago,

I was a suburban fair-haired boy who was assigned to a twelve-month pastoral internship in North Philadelphia. North Philadelphia meant inner city, impoverished and African-American. The neighborhood was a blight on the city, where there were broken-down brick structures strewn with graffiti and litter. It was a place cops would drive through and not walk through. With my fair skin and newly purchased clerical suit, I might as well have been from a foreign land. Gentrified and countrified Central New Jersey where I came from was as foreign to North Philadelphia as apples to oranges. The church I served was a mixture of the glory days from the 1950’s and 60’s and the economic and cultural changes of the 70’s and 80’s. A new ebony-colored Mary and Child was placed near the white marble baptismal font featuring a kneeling angel holding a bowl. In the adjoining chapel pigeons roosted in the roof by squeezing through holes in the glass

Miss Juanita Brown, who lived on Tioga Street, had me pegged. With her proud jaw and cocoa-colored skin tone, her dark eyes focused on me like a laser beam. As I descended to the basement hall where folks were preparing chit’ lings and chicken for a fundraiser, she said, “you’ve never been around all us black folks, aren’t you?” I shrugged it off as best I could, but her assessment was pretty close to the mark. Juanita Brown was the heart and soul of Nativity Lutheran Church, at the corner of Tioga and 13th street. She ran a one-room Sunday School ministry, calling to the truant children out of the window to come inside with their offering rather than spend it on candy at the seedy storefront across the street. She opened up her three-story row house to a wide-eyed twenty-four year old that people were calling the Vicar. With me, she shared fried chicken, collared greens, and the best baked beans I’ve ever tasted in my life. Juanita Brown had a laugh that was contagious, even when she was laughing at me! Juanita had a devotion to children, her children, her grandchildren, the children on her block, and a young man who was just learning the tools of ministry by practicing them in her midst for one year. Miss Juanita Brown was a magus, one of the magi who in love for church and community shared her gifts of devotion and worship to the Christ. In her bright cheeks the glory of Christ and the love of God was revealed to me. And in that place of poverty, in that neglected neighborhood, Jesus was pleased to dwell. And I got to see it. I got to discover it, as a gift to treasure, as an Epiphany.

On that Epiphany, where the magi made the trip from the East, wondering where the light was coming from, the town of Bethlehem was not supposed to be the spot where God would shed light. It should have been Jerusalem, where the big shots like Herod wore his finery.

The magi from Persia, who banked their trip on star charts astrologers were not the sort who should have found the one promised by prophets. It should have been blue-blood true believers who frequented the temple.

Paul of Tarsus should not have shared the Gospel with non-Jews, as it was a stretch for his Pharisaic upbringing to drop the requirements of diet and circumcision.

So surprise, let there be light.

So where have you found Christ in unlikely places?

So where have you shared Christ in unlikely places?

Can we find Christ our Morning Star here figured in a crafted manger scene, in a neighborhood on the West Side of Nashua, and today facing the East spend time in adoration, wonder, and delight?

As we contemplate the ways of God in a child born in Bethlehem,
and become enlightened by Christ’s light all the way to the cross and empty grave,
in communion wine and bread,
at the Feast of the Epiphany,
with friends and strangers in this church,
this morning and in mornings yet to be revealed,
with the wise men from the East,
is it possible to be overwhelmed with joy and wonder?


I.N.I.

The Rev. Timothy J. Keyl, Pastor
Christ the King Lutheran Church
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