Epiphany Insights: Understanding God’s Unconditional Love

Foreign.

Thank you for engaging with the homily by Pastor Chill Will from

Chapel Hill.

I hope this message encourages you, challenges you and moves you

to go deeper in your faith and enrich how you love God and love

your neighbor in your day to day life.

Just a reminder.

Like the scriptures and Gospels themselves, this homily was

written for a particular community in a particular, particular

context, time in history.

And yet, like our sacred texts, I hope that these words hold

timeless truths about God's unconditional love and grace.

We hope these words speak to you in a meaningful way.

Good morning, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and Merry Epiphany.

Yes, welcome to worship.

I'm Pastor Will.

Welcome to Holy Trinity and Lutheran Campus Ministry.

Yes, Today is the 11th day of Christmas and so that's why we're

still lighting the Advent candles and Christ Candle and still

have the Christmas tree up.

But as you'll notice in our liturgy this morning, we also have

a transition into the Day of epiphany, which is January 6th this

Tuesday.

So today is kind of a blend.

The Holy Gospel According to Matthew in the time of King Herod,

after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, Magi from the

east came to Jerusalem, asking, where is the child who was,

who has been born King of the Jews?

For we have observed his star in the east and have come to pay

him homage.

When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all of Jerusalem

with him, and calling together all the chief priests and the scribes

of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be

born.

They told him, in Bethlehem of Judea.

So it has been written by the prophet and you, Bethlehem in the

land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah,

for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people

Israel.

Then Herod secretly called for the Magi and learned from them the

exact time when the star had appeared.

Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, go and search

diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me

word so that I may go and pay him homage.

They had heard the king.

They set out, and there ahead of them went the star that they had

seen in the east until it stopped over the place where the

child was.

When they saw the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with

joy.

On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother.

They knelt down and paid him homage.

Then, opening their treasure chest, they offered him gifts of

gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod they left

for their own country by another road.

This is the Gospel of the Lord, the name of the Father, the

Son, and the Holy spirit.

On this 11th day of Christmas, I declare God is a mystery.

Duh, Pastor Will, that's no brainer, right?

Of course the divine is a mystery.

And the words and images we use to try to reflect and articulate

the divine ultimacy, we ultimately fall short.

And yet we believe in a personal God who desires to be in

relationship with us, refuses to be God without us.

One of my favorite things to do is stargazing Gaze at the heavens

and the stars and the planets and the cosmos and ponder and wonder

and be in awe of the vastness of the universe to ask the big questions

all of us ask and ponder, echoing Psalm 8 when I look to the

heavens, what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals

that you care for them?

During Advent, we spend time with these questions and lean into

our longings and we wait and prepare for a promised Messiah.

At Christmas, we see God's response to our questions and longings

and hopes by Christ being born for us and with us, a sign and a

symbol revelation of God's ultimate solidarity with the human

condition.

Epiphany is a season of cosmic unveiling, God disclosing and revealing

who this Christ is and what kind of Messiah he will be and is.

And to kick off the day of the epiphany, the season of epiphany,

we we begin with one of my favorite stories in all of scripture,

the one we heard just read a few moments ago.

Now, I know there is a star in our Gospel reading, and it appears

there is a small band of rebels who resist against empire

by going owned by a different row.

But I'm not going to do any Star wars theology this morning.

However, I do want to go down the important road of faith and science.

First, a little background and context.

Around 10 years ago, longtime member of Holy Trinity and professor

emeritus of physics at Duke, Al Goshaw, heard an interview by

Jesuit brother and astronomer Gay Guy Consolmano on the NPR podcast.

On being on the podcast, Brother Guy talked about the main

questions at the crossroads of faith and science.

Again, notice the use of the word and and not or and then he shared

part of his book would you baptize an extraterrestrial?

And other questions from the astronomer's inbox at the Vatican

Observatory.

I cannot recommend this book enough.

Spoiler alert.

When someone asked him would he baptize an extraterrestrial, he

said, only if she asked to be Al shared this interview and book

with me and other members of the congregation who are scientists

and we agree that this would be a great book to study together.

That book study re energized our engagement with issues and questions

around faith and science.

So much so that we eventually received a grant from Fuller Seminary

to go deeper with these questions and issues, specifically

with emerging adults to break down the myth that one has to choose

faith or science.

With that grant and our experiences and conversations, we

discovered over and over again that there are plenty of scientists

who happen to be people of faith and people of faith who happen

to be scientists.

And through these deeper relationships and wrestling with

the questions, there emerged other organizations and relationships

that we became involved with, like science for the church that

eventually led for us commissioning a brand new faith and

science hymn.

And I've been working on a limited series of faith and science

podcast through a mini grant through the North Carolina Synod

called you'd Matter Matters.

Hopefully that will come out later on this month.

I'm preparing for this Sunday and this message and reflecting on

Christmas and the day of the Epiphany.

I was reminded of chapter four in Would you baptize an extraterrestrial?

Entitled what is the star of Bethlehem?

Brother Guy shares that since they observe and oversee the Vatican's

observatory and they look at the stars and the cosmos all the

time, this question is one of the top emails and questions they

get on a daily basis.

He and his colleague at the Vatican Observatory, Father Paul

Mueller, shared that this short story, only found in the Gospel

of Matthew, is a great icon revealing a healthy dialogue between

faith and science because it has elements of both.

So they lift up the important questions of what was the star?

Was it a star?

Really?

Was it a miracle or some kind of natural phenomenon?

Or perhaps both?

And more importantly, why did the author of Matthew choose to place

this story in his story about Jesus?

Brother Guy and Father Paul all share that the top candidates

for what this Bethlehem star could be is perhaps a supernova.

Huh?

Where's Louis?

He asked as we are walking away from children's he goes, what

about a supernova?

I was like, well, here you go.

A star that goes supernova is a star that gets super bright right

before it explodes.

These events can be seen even in the daytime, but these events

are super rare, and stars tend to be orderly and predictable and

and evidence of their explosions can be traced for thousands

of years after they've taken place.

There doesn't seem to be any remnants of a supernova around the

time of the birth of Christ.

The most astronomers, including Brother Guy and Father

Paul, rule this one out.

Maybe it was a comet.

Again, comets are very predictable and easy to investigate.

Their paths and evidence of their existence, so they rule that

one out as well.

Perhaps it was an unusual configuration or an alignment of

planets that when stacked near each other in the night sky, they

look like a giant bright star.

This is a leading candidate because Kepler even noticed that

in 7 B.C.

jupiter and Saturn aligned with each other and made a spectacle

in the sky.

And that most people noticed.

But the question still lingers.

Why were the Magi the only ones who noticed in Matthew's story

about Jesus, this star, Brother Guy likes the theory that

connects the magi themselves and their vocation and their lives

with the star.

You see, the Magi were not necessarily we three kings.

There were three gifts.

But notice Matthew never mentions how many Magi there were.

These Magi were pagan astrologers who studied the star

so they could make predictions and horoscopes for kings and rulers.

The spiritual advisors to the kings, the Magi's were the one who

were studying and looking at the stars and the configuration of

the planets, doing their best to make meaning of those alignments.

It was widely known that Caesar Augustus claimed that a certain

planetary alignment with the sun predicted and confirmed his royalty

and lordship around the time of Jesus's birth, give or take a

few years.

Side note, we really don't know the exact time and date Jesus

was born.

The church just set the celebration of Jesus's birth around

the winter solstice to make a theological point that Jesus is the

light of the world.

But around the time of when we think Jesus was born, there was a

particular configuration and alignment of the planets Venus, Mercury,

Mars, Jupiter and Saturn that had a particular alignment with the

sun at the same time of a new moon.

But the star was.

The sky was really dark, that star was really, really bright.

Interestingly, this was very similar to Caesar Augustus's claim

that an alignment was the meaning of his lordship.

And so these wise men and magi would have noticed the star in alignment

and connected it with royalty.

The author of Matthew would most likely have known this claim

from Augustus.

And perhaps he too wanted to say, well, guess what, we can make

that claim too.

So is this 12 verse story only found in the Gospel of Matthew a

scientifically provable story or a theological point Matthew wanted

to make for his community and readers?

Yes.

Does it have to be either or better?

Perhaps it's both.

And maybe it was a configuration of planets or some

object in space that shined a great light just at the right time.

But whether this star can be scientifically proven or not, there

is this radical move that Matthew makes by hanging a star in

the sky and bringing the Magi into the Jesus story.

The first people in the Gospel of Matthew who recognized Jesus for

who he is were pagan foreigners who use astrology to find

him.

Yep.

Boom.

Supernova.

Wow, I just had an epiphany.

Horoscopes and astrology are frowned upon in the Hebrew scriptures

because it is seen as breaking the first commandment.

You shall have no other gods.

The rotations and alignments of the stars and planets do not guide

or oversee our destiny.

Only God does.

And yet, in this so strange that just might be true story, Matthew

sets up the premise that perhaps God revealed what the divine

is up to in Christ through the tools of the Magi.

Share with his readers and his community that Jesus is Lord and

King not just of Israel, but for all nations, all people.

People, then and now, look to the stars in awe for hope and signs

of life and meaning.

God knows this.

A common ground in faith and science is that we can stand on with

the human ability to wander and dream and long for hope and be

in awe of the heavens and ask questions and search for meaning

and purpose.

God uses this all the time to reach out to us, to let us know that

there is a bigger story that we are a part of.

Advent is a time when we align ourselves with our deepest questions

and longing for a Savior.

At Christmas we celebrate the gift that God is with us in solidarity

with the human condition in flesh and blood.

Epiphany is a time when God shines a spotlight on Jesus, revealing

who this Messiah truly is.

What makes the Magi wise is that they recognize and identify

Jesus as King, not Herod.

And they chose to disobey and resist and civil disobedience against

the one claiming to be King and then choosing a different road

rather than imperial tyranny and authoritarianism.

So this epiphany, I challenge you to get out your telescopes and

tools of observation, keep examining the mysterious and awe

inspiring cosmic forces to examine, to discern the Herods of

this world, but also more importantly, Jesus.

Together we have the spiritual wisdom to know the difference between

the two.

Then we can travel by a different road.

The way of Christ with the light of the world leading the way.

A liaison on our world, on our way.

Amen.

Thank you for listening.

If there is anything that stood out for you, or if you have

a question or you just want to have a conversation.

You are always free to reach out and contact us.

And remember you are not alone.

And that you are loved with a.

Love stronger than death.

Sam.