The Feast of the Epiphany Observed
Sunday January 4, 2009
The Cathedral Church of the Nativity
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
Matthew 2:1-12

At my house, the star that shines atop my Christmas tree has been dimmed! How quickly we have taken the journey of ritual that by its very definition as ritual invites us into an opportunity to become aware of God’s presence in our lives as miracle, hope, light, justice, peace. Our journey has led us from the expectant waiting in darkness to the rejoicing of God’s promise in flesh! The rituals of songs, prayers, symbols we participate in through our church year cycle bring awareness to my soul of my God who is my Companion, lover, friend, and strength.
The Christmas tree is my nod to the adoption of pagan symbolism and ritual into my own spiritual life. The Christmas tree that bore the light of a star on top of it, in the corner of my living room has now become a fainted symbol. The star, once beautifully and brightly lighted atop of that tree has come down. The victim of a golden retriever’s curiosity and wicked tail, the star could not survive the fourth tumble of the season to the floor. The needles of a dried out tree and a broken bulb signaled perhaps it would be best to remove the tree. The tree removed indeed and not lost on me is the reality that with the removal comes full recognition that in such simple symbolic things is great investment of emotion! The excitement of the promise of God’s hope and light is wrapped up in such symbols for me! I hate to take down a Christmas tree because it indicates to me the end of the full immersion in the season that leads us from our great expectations as we wait in darkness to the hope and promise of God’s “Emmanuel”! It was not lost on me that as I removed a broken star from the top of a dead Christmas tree, recognizing the removal of such also indicates the transitions that occur in my home! Back to school, back to the regular rhythms of work schedules, school schedules. That “special time” of rejoicing with family and friends, giving way now to the regular rhythms of our daily lives! But more than that, it was not lost on me the challenges of our spiritual journey in a difficult world as I also listened as CNN described yet one more unfortunate chapter of Middle East violence and dis-ease! The contrast of the promises of the season with the events all too familiar unfolding once again before all of us! When? When O Lord will we glimpse the fullness of your promise? Arise, Shine, your light has come, the prophet announces to us! “The glory of the Lord has risen upon you, nations shall come to your light!” O Come, O Come Emmanuel! Be with us God of peace, of compassion, of Reconciliation! Surely, the symbol of star I pick up from my living room floor is a star that leads the people he has made to the potentiality of something different than one more chapter of violence and despair! Shall we put away our things from this season, count it as over, and move on?
Not so fast! Let’s live into the fullness of the ritual that is set before us! The star on top of my Christmas tree may be dimmed but a star is followed today curiously by three strangers of the East, who catch a glimpse of it! This is the Epiphany journey we are invited to follow today! This is a story for the poet’s heart, the artists rendering! Our primary actors in this story today are in the scriptures nameless! Who might they be? Visitors Matthew tells us, Magoi! Though scholars throughout the years have tried to decipher just who these Magoi might be, “magician’s, or Zoroastrian Priests, it seems a reasonable conclusion that these “wise men” of the East at the least dabbled in astrology, and capturing a glimpse of the skies find themselves on a journey toward something clearly compelling enough to warrant a plan of action to embark on this journey!
Most importantly for Matthew’s Gospel, they are gentiles, and their recognition of this new born “King” tells us of God’s plan of salvation for all of the world and sets the stage for the drama that Matthew desires to tell of those within Israel struggling to accept the fullness of God’s Kingdom promise and God’s longing to shine a light of salvation for all of the world!
The scriptures do not tell us who these men are, but Christian tradition would name them, Melchior, king of Persia, Gaspar, King of India, and Balthazar, King of Arabia! Their following of this star would lead them to the presence of a new King, unlike any they had ever encountered! They would bring gifts worthy of a King, Gold of course! Frankincense and Myrrh, fragrance and oil worthy for the anointing of a King!
The promise that lies under this star is unlike any other King these brave travelers would know! This promise is clothed in humility and would stand in stark contrast to the “powers of oppression and abuse” of worldly monarchs, and instead declare a Monarchy whose powers would seek to transform a world through the powerful tools of forgiveness, reconciliation, and compassion! These powers are a far cry from missiles of provocation and devastation, and ground assaults of doom and blood.
And so it is for us! Our ritual pulls us into the fullness of what lies under the star! Particularly as the symbols of the season are slowly packed away and the world continues to present its challenges to another way of living, perhaps Epiphany is the ritual that rightly leads us with certainty back into our daily lives! THE EPIPHANY is God manifesting God’s light and goodness in the world through us. We stand in stark contrast to the darkness of the world and know that peace and reconciliation begins in an individual’s heart. Who full of God’s presence finds their fingers on a trigger? Who full of God’s presence finds in themselves an order for missile attacks? Who full of God’s presence can help but respond to violence with prayers and pleas for peace?
Lest we put away too quickly the symbols and rituals that invite us to the “isness” of God, let us become actors in this Epiphany drama! Like our main actors in this drama, shall we be compelled to follow a star? Let us bring gifts to the one we find there. Let us discover in our following that perhaps the gifts we bring are the same gifts given to us: forgiveness, reconciliation, and compassion.