by CCW | 8 January 2017 15:00
Jerusalem and Bethlehem. They are the twin poles of Christian contemplation, the twofold centre around which, as in an ellipse, we move in thought and prayer, in love and devotion, in service and sacrifice. Each is bound up with the other – distinct and yet inseparable. Christmas focuses, of course, on Bethlehem as the place of Christ’s birth. Yet his birth is itself a kind of epiphany, a making known in the flesh of our humanity of the things of God. Christmas at once concludes and continues with the Epiphany. And with the Epiphany there is, we might say, the break-out from Bethlehem and suddenly Jerusalem begins to come more and more into the picture.
Epiphany means manifestation. It signals the idea of something that is made known to us as opposed to something that is invented by us. Like Advent, it is a season of revelation, a season of teaching. That is what is so wonderfully and clearly set before us on this day, The First Sunday after Epiphany which often falls within The Octave of the Epiphany. What is the Epiphany? It is the celebration of the coming of the Magi-Kings to Bethlehem and so it connects to Christmas and belongs to the Christmas imaginary. But it is also about going from Bethlehem, “depart[ing] into their own country another way”, as Matthew puts it, after having fallen down in worship before the child, “present[ing] unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh”.
The gifts are symbolic and meaningful. They are gifts which teach; “sacred gifts of mystic meaning” as one of the Epiphany hymns puts it. And that in a way is the point of Epiphany. It is about the making known of the things of God in the world of our humanity. The light of God shines out from within the world to teach us about our life with God and with one another. The emphasis is upon the divinity of Christ made visible through his humanity. Christ is King and God and Sacrifice.
It is not by accident that the Gospel for The First Sunday after The Epiphany focuses on Christ as teacher. Jesus is found in the Temple in Jerusalem at the age of twelve. We go from Bethlehem to Jerusalem in the mystery of the Epiphany. It is, we might say, his bar mitzvah, his coming of age and entry into adulthood. He is found “in the midst of the doctors” of the law, the wise ones of Israel, as it were, “both hearing them, and asking them questions”, Luke tells us for just as the story of the Magi-Kings is told only by Matthew, so this story of the boyhood of Jesus is told to us only by Luke. “And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers”. There is a sense of wonder. Epiphany is the season of wonders and the wonders begin with teaching and learning.
There is just the sense, too, of an insistence upon his independence – almost a teenager, we would say! So of course! – in his sticking around and not departing with Joseph and Mary who return looking for him in considerable anxiety. At first glance, Jesus’ response to Mary’s question might seem a bit cheeky but if we ponder it more closely we will see that this is not about a precocious little know-it-all. What we have here in our text is a rather firm declaration of the purpose of Christ’s Incarnation and the necessity of its being made known. “Did you not know”, he says, “that I must be about my father’s business”. “Wist ye not” is from Old English derived from the German wisse – to know.
That at least is one possible translation. Another puts it as being “in my father’s house”. Either way it signals the purpose of Christ’s Incarnation. It is about revelation and redemption, the making known of the things of God for the benefit and salvation of our humanity.
The scene in the Temple is the only scene of the boyhood of Christ. It follows in that sense directly upon the infancy narratives that belong so completely to the mystery and marvel of Christmas. But even more, this scene complements and completes the Epiphany mystery of the Magi-Kings whose coming into Bethlehem at once completes the Christmas tableaux and inaugurates a new emphasis in going away from Bethlehem, changed by what we have been given to see. The gifts teach and what they teach has its confirmation in this remarkable scene of Jesus being about his father’s business and/or being in his father’s house. Epiphany, feast and season, is all about the divine teaching. Who Christ is and who he is for us is revealed throughout the wonders of this season.
Nothing is perhaps more needed and more neglected in our church and culture than teaching about the idea and reality of God. Epiphany turns our attention from the God revealed in the flesh of the infant Christ to God himself who is so revealed. The focus is on the wisdom and power of God, what the first of the Thirty-nine Articles names as the “infinite wisdom, power and goodness” of God, for “there is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions; of infinite power, wisdom and goodness; the Maker, and Preserver of all things both visible and invisible.” Such a statement makes manifest an understanding of God that is basically common to Jew, Christian, and Muslim alike. The article concludes with the specific Christian distinctive of this understanding in terms of the Trinity for “in unity of this Godhead there be three Persons, of one substance, power, and eternity; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost”.
Epiphany in every way is about the manifestation of God – God teaching us about God through the humanity of Jesus. And the teaching is essentially Trinitarian. Nowhere is that more clearly seen in the Epiphany Octave than in the propers for The Baptism of Our Lord by John in the river Jordan. This is an epiphany of the Trinity. We hear the Father’s voice and we see the Spirit like a dove descending upon the figure of Christ coming up out of the water: Father, Son and Holy Ghost. The additional propers for The Missionary Work of the Church Overseas also emphasize the theme of teaching both in the epistle from Romans about the purpose of the Scriptures and in the Gospel with the dominical command to “go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them,” Jesus adds in Matthew’s account, “to observe and do all things whatsoever I have commanded you”.
Teaching. And as the Gospel story for this day makes clear we are to be taught by Christ where Christ is most to be found – in the temple, in his Father’s house, in our churches which are only churches if Christ is truly preached and his sacraments faithfully celebrated. As one of the great theologians of the early Church observes, “You must therefore seek him there in the Temple, seek him in the Church, where you will find the Word and the Wisdom of Christ”. And that is our challenge. Our freedom is to be found in obedience to his Word in our learning and understanding of the higher things of God. Bethlehem and Jerusalem are the twin poles of our Christian contemplation in and through our liturgy. Only so shall we be found in Christ.
Fr. David Curry
Epiphany 1, 2017
(published but unpreached – snowstorm)
Source URL: https://christchurchwindsor.ca/2017/01/08/sermon-for-the-first-sunday-after-the-epiphany-8/
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