A Sermon for Epiphany Eve
January 5, 2025 at Holy Communion
Matthew 2:1–12
We preach “to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God” (Ephesians 3:9). In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. ☩ Amen.
This summer while I was on leave, Cecilia arrived at just the right time so that Katy and I were able to stop in—newborn in arms—for part of the Atlantic Theological Conference in Halifax. The keynote speaker told us that the first holy day ever marked by the Christian church was, of course, Easter—but that the church celebrated every aspect of the Easter story, from the arrest and passion through the resurrection, ascension, and sending of the Spirit, as a single commemoration. Only later did the church separate out these elements and remember them annually in a way that mimicked their relationship to one another in time: the crucifixion on a Friday, the resurrection on the third day, the ascension forty days later, and so on.
And there’s nothing wrong with doing it this way, but the kernel of wisdom in celebrating the whole festival as a single event is that it emphasizes how we as a church gather not to celebrate moments from the past as if that in itself did anything for us, but to celebrate a salvation in which we live every moment in its entirety. The original Easter was a commemoration of the whole mystery of redemption. We are not saved by the cross separately from the resurrection, nor by the resurrection separately from the ascension and Pentecost. We are saved because we share the life of the one Christ who died and rose and ascended to make us into his body.
My mind goes back to that insight because something similar is going on today. Today is the Eve of Epiphany, the commemoration of the visit of the Eastern sages to the infant Jesus. But every commentary on the meaning of this occasion will tell you that the church originally celebrated three totally separate scenes on this one occasion. The first is the visit of the Magi, but the second and third are the baptism of Christ and Jesus’ first miracle at the wedding in Cana, when he turned water into wine. As it did with Easter, the church eventually separated these out: you will hear about the baptism of Christ and the miracle at Cana on the next two Sundays.
That makes things easy for us, I suppose. But why did our fathers in faith celebrate such apparently disconnected events all at once? It was not any secret historical connection—although some ancient writers did speculate that, because of their spiritual affinity, they must have happened on the same day in different years—but because they preach the same message of salvation.
And so they bear a common name: “Epiphany,” which could render more naturally in English as “Manifestation.” The Epiphany gospel is that in Christ God has manifested his glory.
God saves us by showing us himself. The purpose of all created things—and in fact, even God’s uncreated Son—is to manifest the invisible glory of the Father. So when Jesus shows us the glory of the Father, we achieve the purpose for which we and all things have been made. We are saved when our eyes are opened to appreciate the transfiguring presence with which God clothed creation when he assumed it into to himself by becoming incarnate.
So we have the glory of God manifest in human birth. The nations of the world, represented by their wisest and best, visit the infant Jesus born in poverty—but, as they show by their gifts of gold and incense, they discern the king and priest of all creation, the second Adam who represents the whole human race to its Maker. Where the world sees materiality and misery, they see spirituality and communion with the Father. God has shown himself to them in the infant Christ, so they worship and are fulfilled.
We see the glory of God manifest in human contrition, showing that this is the way to be a child of the Father. At Jesus’ baptism anyone in the crowd would have assumed that Jesus, just like the rest of them, approached the Jordan burdened by shame and guilt seeking somehow to atone. But instead God shows himself: Jesus is not a miserable sinner, but a beloved son of the Father. He undertakes the same act of repentance we do to show that the God meets such repentance with access to the vision of his glory. God saves the repentant by showing himself to them and calling them his children.
And we see the glory of God manifest in human joy at the wedding in Cana. Where the world would see only finitude and the end of every celebration—the wine eventually runs out, after all—God shows himself as the bringer of joy beyond expectation. Though our cellars and larders run empty, our joy is saved when we recognize God present at the table with us.
The golden thread is that God saves by making himself manifest. To say it from our side, we are saved when we open our eyes and see the glory of God descending to bless our life in the flesh.
Birth, growth, repentance, celebration begun and celebration winding down, eventually death: these are the places God shows his glory to those who look to him with faith. In short, God-with-us means that no aspect of life in the flesh need be lived with anything other than a full appreciation of the loving and saving presence of the Father.
So that academic I mentioned at the beginning who told us that Easter was originally a single celebration. In his book on the Incarnation he also tells us that the point of it all is that, having seen the glory of God manifest even in the suffering and death of Jesus, we embrace the *pathos* of life—that is, all of its feeling and complexity. We live to receive both the joys and difficulties of life as moments in the manifestation of God to our hearts.
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