Epiphany

Raise your hand if you have stayed up all night wondering what epiphany means.

What? You guys aren't wondering about that? Oh, Gloria has. Thank you,

Gloria. I didn't want to be the only hand up.

A large number of people have never heard of epiphany,

and although I had heard about it growing up and even have marked in our calendars Epiphany Sunday,

it never really dawned on me that there might actually be a sort of celebration

or festival for Epiphany.

There is not actually an Epiphany Sunday,

though we observe the Sunday usually before Epiphany,

but in this case the Sunday right after it, because the day of Epiphany is considered

to be January 6th, and because we're so close to that, we observe it on the Sunday day right after.

Epiphany, or January 6th, is the 12th day of Christmas.

So now, before you go to your calendars and count them out, just trust me,

it's the 12th day of Christmas.

Around the world, it's observed in that, and it's the day that we're supposed

to get 12 drummers drumming, and the day we commonly remember the arrival of

the wise men to see the baby Jesus.

Now, in other countries, it is observed, the Epiphany Sunday is observed on

the first Sunday after the first of January.

So in that case, it would be this Sunday.

In Germany and a number of other countries, this is a big event.

Children dress up as kings and travel from door to door, much as our kids do

on Halloween, only instead of collecting for themselves, themselves,

they collect for the poor,

remembering that the wise men brought gifts to the poor Christ child.

If one were to observe these children out in their costumes,

you might wonder if we weren't missing something.

Well, the more you look into church history, the more you realize that we do

miss a lot of things when we don't look at the history of the church.

And there are some Some churches that are considered Messianic churches that

are Christian churches but observe all of the Jewish festivals and Sabbaths.

In fact, they will worship from Friday night through Saturday night will be

their Sabbath day in many of those places.

But Epiphany in the early church was one of the great feast days,

second only to Easter in its importance. The third great feast was considered

Pentecost, another day that has drifted into religious backwaters.

And even Easter has been greatly watered down.

We do a lot of celebration of Christmas, which is not even observed in Scripture.

But they did observe Passover and Pentecost and things like that.

Easter used to be celebrated with an all-night vigil the night before,

and then the celebration continuing on for what was called the Great Fifty Days.

Ending in a huge blowout on Pentecost.

The word Pentecost means 50 days.

The three feast days of Epiphany, Easter, and Pentecost comprised the central

focus of the early Christian church.

Nobody even thought about celebrating Christmas until the 4th century.

So what's the big deal? One seminary professor used to ask his students,

how come nothing epiffs on epiphany anymore?

Well, first of all, nothing probably piffs on epiphany, because it's hard to

say epiph with a straight face.

And second of all, nobody knows what epiph means.

Means so why was epiphany so

important and why is it so unimportant now

for those few who might have heard of epiphany chances

are that you will know it is the day as we that we believe and we observe that

the wise men came to worship the newborn king and that's partly right the word

epiphany means manifestation or revelation something coming to appear it's it's

making something known, a manifestation, a revelation.

So the wise men are celebrated on Epiphany because they represented the revelation

of Jesus to the Gentiles.

Magi, the rise men, were Gentile people, they were not Jewish,

and they had come and they were the first non-Jewish people to see this child.

But it used to be that Epiphany celebrated more than the wise men.

In the days when Epiphany was a great church feast, it also celebrated the revelation

of Jesus in his first miracle working at the wedding in Cana of Galilee,

when he transformed water into wine.

In fact, that reminds me of this little reel I saw on Facebook.

This woman gets pulled over by a police officer, and she's got this bottle and a brown paper bag.

Bag and and the officer says have

you been drinking she says no she says this is

just water and so he takes and takes a swig of he says no

it's not it's wine she says oh thank god

he did it again but anyway so you know some things are okay to watch on but

anyway so so this the second one of the revelations we we observed during this

time is the revelation of jesus as the miracle worker at the wedding in Cana.

These three things, the wise man Cana and the baptism, the manifestation of

Jesus as the Son of God, as his baptism by John, were all lumped together to

symbolize the revelation of God in Jesus Christ.

Jesus is God, and God created the heavens and the earth. And such revelation

was caused for great celebration.

So that a baby was born in a manger was relatively unimportant.

Compared with the events that proved to the world who that baby really was.

I mean, we can argue about where the stable was, whether it was a place in the

lower part of the inn, a little barn, or whether it was a cave up on the hills above Bethlehem.

Most scholars believe now that the stables were caves in the mountains,

but it doesn't really matter.

The fact of the matter is that this child who was born was not just an ordinary human.

This was God in person among us.

And what we observe at the epiphany or at this time is the revelation of God,

the manifestation of God among humans where the wise men represented and presented

the revelation of Jesus to the Gentiles,

the revelation of Jesus as a miracle worker at the wedding at Cana,

and then the revelation of Jesus as the Son of God in his baptism,

when God appeared in three persons, in Jesus, in the dove, as the Spirit,

and in his voice, the Father in the voice that said, this is my Son in whom I am well pleased.

We understand that that baptism at that time is the revelation of Jesus as God,

part of the very Trinity of God.

The authority of Jesus was validated by the signs he performed like changing

water into wine, as I said, by the voice of God and by the revelation that God has in our lives.

Those signs were God's way of saying, this is the guy.

This is the one that all of the prophecies have been about.

This is the Messiah who is coming. Oh yeah, he's a little baby,

but you just wait to see what he does.

And epiphany was the church's way of saying, saying, and we can never be the

same again when God comes in and makes his dwelling among us.

So why doesn't anything epith anymore on epiphany?

Why don't we experience and celebrate the revelation of God?

In fact, even more so, why don't we become the manifestation and revelation

of God in our communities?

There may be several different answers, but I think one of them is that that

for the most part, we no longer expect God to manifest himself among us.

I think we get so busy in everything we're doing.

Life is life, and we go through it all the time. We don't even think to look

for God to manifest himself among us.

We no more expect God to be revealed in our midst than we expect stores to start

giving away merchandise and like, that's really going to happen.

And because we don't expect it, we get exactly what we expect, nothing.

We used to have a saying, and I mean, not probably in all of the churches,

but I remember it as a child growing up in the Free Methodist Church.

We used to talk about coming to church prayed up and ready.

You were to come to church prayed up, expecting that God was going to manifest himself.

On that Sunday morning, and you were going to experience the living God in person.

I wonder how many times we go about our day really expecting God to reveal himself.

When was the last time the Christian church really expected God to reveal himself

in the ways he did in the person of Jesus Christ through amazing miracles,

through powerful personal testimonies and relationships, through openly speaking to man?

When was the last time we had evidence of that.

When was the last time that you heard an almost audible voice from God telling

you, this is the way you should go, or you are my child, I'm well pleased in you?

I remember experiences like that. They don't happen often, but usually they

don't happen when our life is so crowded out with other things that we don't

have time for God to speak to us.

I'm saying that to me as much as anybody. The early church was a church full

of excitement and expectations.

Jesus had just left to go to be with the Father, and they anticipated the return of Jesus at any time.

Jesus said that he would return while this generation was still on earth.

He apparently wasn't talking about that physical generation,

but the generation of man through the time.

But they anticipated him to come back any time while they were living,

and the persecutions which they endured forced them to be aware of their faith

and even look for him to come back again.

They were expecting that all that they were going through in the persecutions

was God telling them that Jesus is coming back.

And it forced them to be aware of their faith and sometimes to even die for their faith at any time.

If you want to read an interesting book, it's called Fox's, that's the author, Fox's Book of Martyrs.

And it speaks about those who have gone on before us in the faith,

who have been martyred for the faith of Christ, for their belief in Jesus.

People like Joan of Arc and many others that because of their faith in Christ

were martyred because they refused to denounce Jesus.

In the early church, the point of Epiphany was not to remember history,

but to be reminded that God appears miraculously to us in places and in ways that we don't expect.

God is everywhere if we look. He's working with us.

He's miraculously doing things from the healings that we've experienced to just God speaking.

Can you imagine? I mean, the human eye is a miracle.

How all of that works together.

The birth of a baby, a human baby, is a phenomenal miracle.

How does that happen? And yet God created it to be. be.

The wedding at Cana was crowded, but only a few were aware that Jesus had performed

a miracle in their midst.

Most weren't even paid attention. All they were excited about is the fact that there was more wine.

Nobody noticed in all of their revelry when Mary, the mother of Jesus,

talked to Jesus about revealing who he was.

The purpose of that was to tell everybody, to show everybody buddy,

that he was God, that he could transform and make water into wine,

and she asked him to reveal himself, who he was, by making wine for the patrons

of the party so the host wouldn't be embarrassed.

Nobody noticed when Mary said these simple words to the servant that seemed

to embody our needful response of the revelations of Christ.

She said to the servants, do whatever Whatever he tells you to do,

boyfriends and girlfriends, I didn't mean that, boyfriends, boy, comma, friends,

comma, if we would just live by that statement, do whatever he tells you to do.

I think maybe Jesus would be revealed, don't you?

The servants noticed what she said and noticed what Jesus did.

The apostles noticed as well. The host noticed.

But others were so caught up in their revelry and their selfishness that all

they saw was somebody bought some more wine.

Though a few took note, the large masses did not understand when Jesus was revealed

as the Son of God and the Messiah at his baptism,

when the Spirit of God descended and came to rest on his shoulder of Jesus,

and the God the Father spoke from heaven like the sound of thunder and said,

This is my Son, whom I love. With him I am well pleased.

There was a large crowd, but they were all clamoring to get next to John the

Baptist that they didn't even notice that the real leader was there.

John tried to point it out to them, but they were kind of blind to it.

And so, too, when the Christ child was born, the world wasn't watching,

and they missed an event that people have talked about for 2,000 years.

In their revelry, they missed the birth of God's Son, much the same that the

world misses the birth of the New Year's baby, because they were drunk on the wine of the old year.

Nobody was expecting much more of those days than to simply eat, drink, and be merry.

By the way, this year, I don't remember where it was, but I noticed that there

was a couple who had twins.

One was born on December 31st, and one was born on January 1st.

So twins have different birthdays.

Birth years, too. Yes, that's correct.

So that's interesting to me. Bethlehem was so full of people that Mary and Joseph

couldn't even find a room to spend the night.

But there was no indication that more than a handful paid any notice to the

new life that changed all of history, except maybe those shepherds.

There may have been other families huddled into the stable.

We don't know. We don't know if Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and Jesus were the only ones in that stable.

We don't know if other families had to crowd in there. but it seems that it

appears to be that it was highly unnoticed in that time.

If we want anything to epiphane our lives, we better begin by expecting it and

watching for it and preparing for it.

So if you want revelation and manifestation in your life of God,

God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, if you want him to reveal

himself to you and in you and through you, then you better expect it and watch

for it and prepare for it.

If you're expecting company in your home, you're not going to miss their arrival

unless they purposely sneak up on you.

You've made preparations for their coming. Fully expect to see them and always

keep an ear out for the doorbell and an eye out the window.

Yet, how many of us expect God in that way?

Do we prepare for God to come? For that matter, have we even issued an invitation

for God to make himself known among our midst in our own homes, in our own lives?

God isn't going to show up on his own because he's a gentleman.

He's going to come when you ask him.

How many times do you prepare for your day by asking God to be revealed in your

co-workers, in the traffic on the way, or in your housework,

or in your children, or in the clients you deal with?

How many times do you ask God to reveal himself to where you can be used to

reveal him as you go about?

I've been told you this before. When I go to the bank, I have never used an ATM, ever.

I'm not even sure I could.

But I like to go into the bank, and I like to talk to the tellers face-to-face,

and I like to talk to them about how their day is going, and just visit with

them and share a little bit of love with them, not that kind of love,

but you know what I mean, care and concern for them.

I think we need to do that in every way we go, every way when we're out with

the kids at school, revealing the love of Jesus to them.

How many times do you prepare for church by asking God to speak to you through the music?

Through the sermon, through others in the congregation.

How many of us honestly truly expect a real life-changing encounter with God

when we enter these doors?

How many times do we come in here just thinking we're going to go through the

motions and have a good time singing and listening to, hopefully you'll consider

it a decent message, but we'll go home, have our dinner, and life will be the same until next Sunday?

How many of us honestly ask God to change us from the inside out?

I can't tell you how many, those few who did, do expect to find such things,

but if you don't expect them, it's baffling to me why people would even come.

If we don't expect God to move on us, if we don't expect God to do something

in us, why are we even coming?

Now, I'm not encouraging you to stay home.

Please understand that. I'm encouraging us to come in ready for God to reveal himself.

And if we come expecting God to reveal himself to us, then he will.

But oftentimes we're thinking about wondering whether the roast is going to

burn before we get home or the Baptist will beat us to Dragon Buffet, one of the two.

If we don't expect God to appear or to speak or touch our hearts,

if we're not looking for God at every turn and listening for God in every voice,

chances are we'll be as clueless as the guests were at that wedding or the people

in Bethlehem when God finally appeared.

And if you're looking, the signs of God's presence are all around us,

as much outside the church as inside.

God is there in the trees, in the ocean, in the sky, in the deer, in the geese, and yes...

God even reveals himself through turkeys, sometimes of the human variety.

God is in the delivery room and the funeral home.

God is in the face of the homeless man sleeping on the grate and in the face

of the child who puts a dollar in his hat.

God may just be sitting beside you in the pew or might call on the phone this

afternoon, or maybe even so,

God will put somebody on your mind whom you need to call this afternoon noon

to let them know that God really is thinking of them.

We all meet God in different ways and at different times and places in our lives.

The message of Epiphany is that the revelation of God is talking about more than a one-shot deal.

I'm reminded of this idea of God using us to reveal himself to others.

The church in, oh man, I think it was the Chicago area, you.

But it was a large congregation, and the pastor of the church lived in a subdivision.

And they'd been talking about how God can reveal himself in us and through us and all of this.

And one Sunday morning, he got up and he says, I just want to begin the service

by telling you we're canceling service.

There's a reaction, kind of like, what do you mean, pastor?

He said, said, I want you to go home, and I want you to find your neighbors

or your friends and go do something with them and share the love of Christ with

them. So he said, I'm going to my neighbor.

I'm going to ask my neighbor to go golfing. And so they closed the service.

He left, went on home, walked next door to the neighbor, and he says,

knocked on the door, and the neighbor came to the door, and he says,

let's go golfing. Neighbor said, what?

He says, no, let's go golfing. I canceled church. What?

He says, no, I canceled church because I thought it was more wise for us to

spend some time together.

So they went out and golfing, and his friend came to Christ that day through

the revelation that God had given through a person who simply said,

what we do on Sunday morning is really not what we should be doing.

We should be doing everything we can to glorify God and reveal him to others.

I trust that that's what we do.

Not just on Sunday morning, but every day of this week and the weeks to come.

God is in the delivery room, as I said, and in the funeral home.

I was telling Christian before church, we went down to Freeport,

Illinois, for the funeral of a good pastor friend of ours, Lyle Babcock.

I don't know if any of you know who he is, but he was 92 years old,

and 92 years of service to the king.

But I told Christian, I said, actually, probably one of the things I like the

most about ministry is funerals. What?

Funerals are the best time to tell people about the love of Christ.

People are more ready to hear about God's love and his grace when they're thinking

about their own eternity.

So God can be in the delivery room. He can be in the funeral home.

He could be in the face of the homeless man as i said we can meet god in different

ways and at different times and places it's not that jesus came once and that was that,

there was an easter that bright and glorious morning when god blew the lid off

of everyone's ideas about what god could and couldn't do or be come easter morning

all bets were off The tomb was empty and God was on the move.

He appeared, Jesus appeared, God appeared, and disappeared out of rooms.

Now wouldn't that be a trick? He was now here on the beach having breakfast

with his disciples, and now they're walking with disciples on the road to Emmaus

who had no clue who they were talking to.

The message of Epiphany and Easter is that God is not dead, he's not dried out,

he's not stuffed into your Bible, somewhere around the Psalms.

God is alive and kicking and epiphing here and there and everywhere in the hopes

that somebody will tune in to the right frequency and hear the message of Jesus

and have epiphany in their life.

The God was made manifest in the person of Jesus of Nazareth,

and he lives and he makes his dwelling among us.

He has made himself manifest to us in many ways.

Every one of us who is here, who is born again, knows that God has appeared in our lives.

And begun something new in us.

I trust that our testimonies of God moving in our lives are not 40 years old,

but that they're new and fresh every day.

The God that calls you is the same God that will be revealed right after the

service in the lobby or out in the parking lot or out in the streets.

It may be the same God that is revealed in somebody at the restaurant who just

needs a prayer or a hand of mercy. Thank you.

Message to you is keep looking, keep watching, because God wants to work.

He wants to reveal himself.

We need to take the time to tune in to him.

We can't force this on it. You have to have a willing spirit.

You have to be looking for God's loving spirit.

God is here to be encountered because in the pews and beside you in the pews

or even in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper in the scripture reading,

God is revealing himself to you.

This is the manifestation of who he is in us and through us.

Christ has come to dwell in our streets, but more importantly,

Christ has come to dwell in us and to be real in us.

And as we wind our way from Epiphany to Easter, I'm going to encourage you to

let God epiph in your life.

So when the question comes up, does nothing epiphany anymore on epiphany.

I hope when we ask that again, you can say, oh, everything is epiphany for me.

God is revealing himself in everything we do.

And then I would ask us, will you be an epiphany of Jesus?

Will you be that which reveals Christ to a world, as I say at the end of every

service, go now and serve a world that desperately needs Jesus.

Will you be that revelation to your neighbors, to your co-workers,

to your fellow students, to Richland Center, to Richland County?

Wherever you go and whoever you meet, will you be an epiphany for Jesus?

There's an old saying that says this, we may be the only Jesus that some people ever see.

Heavenly Father, we ask that as we celebrate this Lord's Supper,

you would reveal yourself to us and in us and through us.

In Jesus' name, amen.