Stephen Baldwin
OT: Isaiah 60.1-6
NT: Matthew 2.1-12
Rascals & Refugees
Does anyone
here have a birthday that falls right after Christmas? Bless your heart. You get lost in the shuffle, don’t you? But take heart; you’re in good company. Between Christmas and New Year’s, poor old
Epiphany always gets lost in the shuffle.
Epi-phi-what, you say?
Exactly.
Sort of
like Clark Griswold’s “Jelly of the Month Club” certificate fell between the
seats of the delivery driver’s van, Epiphany falls between the cracks most years. It comes and goes without many people
noticing. If you have a fancy calendar,
it will tell you that Epiphany falls on Jan 6…which is in the middle of the
week this year…which means this year it would fall through the
cracks…again. So we’re focusing on
Epiphany today.
Epiphany
means appearance, as in the appearance of the sun at dawn or the appearance of
God in this world. It’s not hard to see,
then, why we celebrate Epiphany now, when the son of God, the light of the
world, is born to a broken world by the light of a bright star shining in the
east. Just like the magi, our job as
followers of Christ is to witness. See
his light and tell everyone about it.
But as soon
as he was born, his light was shadowed by a great darkness. As today’s reading from Matthew told, King
Herod tried to kill him. Why? Why did a little baby boy frighten him
so? For the same reason most men are
scared; Herod felt threatened. People
said this child would one day be king.
Herod was king. And everybody
knows you can’t have two kings.
Something’s got to give.
Herod
called together the star watchers to try and determine where the child was
born. He said he wanted to pay his
respects, and if you believe that then you should be the general manager for
the new Olive Garden going in Ronceverte this year. For as much as you would like to believe an
Olive Garden is coming to town, you know that’s not likely. Doug Hylton is good, but we all have limits. As much as people wanted to believe Herod
would pay his respects, they knew better.
Herod wanted to find the child so he could kill him.
The magi
did as they were told and used their training as star watchers. They found the child, paid their respects,
and offered gifts. But instead of
sending word to Herod with the child’s location, they ran. Never to return. For they knew better.
When the time had come for a report from the
magi, all Herod heard was crickets. When
he decided the magi betrayed him, he lost it.
He ordered his soldiers to kill every child in and around Bethlehem,
where the magi had gone, to ensure that the one people said would be king would
not live to see that day. And they
did.
It was a slaughter, and I cannot
begin to imagine what those families faced when their children were taken from
them for no reason at all. Herod was a
merciless tyrant who would stop at nothing to preserve his own power, even if
it meant slaughtering children. Such
evil makes me sick to my stomach.
But Mary
and Joseph were not among the grieving families. They didn’t have time. Having been warned by an angel, they packed
their things and hit the road with the baby boy. They left the only home they had ever known,
with an infant under threat of death, and traveled some 200 miles on foot headed
for Egypt. In so doing, Mary, Joseph,
and Jesus were refugees--forced from their homeland by political violence,
seeking refuge from the kindness of strangers in a foreign land. Eventually, Herod died and they returned to
Israel, but not to Bethlehem. They were still
too scared. Herod’s loyalists might
still want to finish the job. So they
made their home with the baby in a new place, Nazareth.
Why am I
telling you such a sad story amidst the afterglow of Christmas and the joy of
the new year? Because God knows what
it’s like to be the one who falls through the cracks. It happened to God’s son, and it happens to
all of us at some point in our lives.
And even when our culture is rejoicing, perhaps especially when our
culture is rejoicing, there are people living between the cracks. People who need God’s love.
Six weeks ago, there was much talk
about refugees and whether or not our state and nation should accept them. Unfortunately, that too has fallen through
the cracks. Fifty million people in the
world today, half of whom are children, live as refugees without a homeland,
much less a home. We forget as quickly
as we become outraged. I simply remind
you, on this Epiphany in the wake of Christmas, that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
were once refugees fleeing a brutal dictator.
They survived thanks to the kindness of good strangers willing to help
them.
Have you ever been at the mercy of
strangers? I have, and nothing is more
humbling. Receiving kindness from
someone who owes you absolutely nothing may be the most powerful thing I’ve
ever experienced. It compels you to want
to give it back to others. That’s why
Christians tell the Epiphany story every year at this time.
We may not
be refugees, but we all know what it’s like to fall between the cracks. In overwhelming debt. In broken relationships. In battling illnesses. In mourning.
God provides refuge especially for those who have fallen through the
cracks. Because God has experienced it
in the person of the baby boy.
Today we celebrate the
child’s epiphany. His appearance to a
world at war with itself, a world where good people fall through the
cracks. And we remember that God’s
appearance illuminates all those shadows and all those cracks. We do not know what awaits us this year, but
we know that no matter what we face, God will be with us. May God make an epiphany to you when you need
God the most. Amen.
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