Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Just under twelve days ago it was Welcome Yule! And today it is already Welcome Epiphany! We may be glad or sad that the Christmas bash is over. Yet while we begin to put things away, the party is long from over. For Epiphany is the time to take in the light that has entered the world and begin to decipher how God manifests this light in our lives in the coming of the kingdom. Our joy does not go in the boxes with the Christmas decorations. It is supposed to stay out and grow even bigger and deeper. The Magi were overjoyed when they saw the child.

On this Sunday we have the chance to let our joy be nourished again and take a second, long look at Christmas, the Word made flesh in the baby Jesus.

Matthew’s story of Jesus’ birth is very different from Luke’s: At the time of Jesus’ birth according to Matthew we do not know where it takes place. No place, no shepherds, no angels, but a note that the child is the fulfillment of a prophecy in the oldest parts of Isaiah: “The virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, God is with us.” (Matthew 1:23) Next we are told how three wise men are on the way to Bethlehem. This is the first mention of Jesus’ birth place. Because the Magi are searching for Jesus, king of the Jews, all male babies in Bethlehem are killed by order of King Herod, and the Holy Family just barely escapes to Egypt. When told to return, they cannot go home to Bethlehem in Judea because Herod’s successor, Archelaus, is not much better. So they settle in Galilee in Nazareth, where the old saying will be fulfilled that the child shall be called a Nazorean. And that is the end of Matthew’s childhood narrative.

Matthew’s version of the nativity story is not very homey and it refuses to be romanticized like Luke’s story which lends itself more easily to our desire to visualize and materialize. Yet Matthew has a clear purpose. He designs a grand exposition with a wide view for the mission and significance of the child born in Bethlehem, there on the margin of the political power center. In his first two chapters, Matthew lets us cris-cross the world map and takes us on a recap of Israel’s journey through time:

The child is threatened in Bethlehem, and with that God’s promise is threatened. Much like in the story of Abraham and Sarah who did not have Isaac until it was almost too late. Further, Matthew leads the reader to Egypt where Israel was saved from slavery. With Egypt Matthew also invokes for his readers the Babylonian exile which is located geographically at the other end of the spectrum, but God’s saving hand rescued Israel also from there and kept showing the light and splendor of ages to come.
Now, the wise men arrive on the scene and open up the view even further. They are non Jews, gentiles, representing the nations outside Israel. Through the star they are following even the cosmos is pulled in, astronomy and astrology being the science of sky and heaven at the time.

In a grand exposition Matthew spans the particulars of Jesus’ time with king Herod, the salvation history of Israel and the cosmos. He pulls in all of the whole world. He is saying, “Look, in this child heaven and earth come together from the beginning.” When we fast forward for a moment to the end of his book we see that Matthew does all this with a purpose. The last scene has in a few words all the elements he laid out in the childhood narrative: The risen Lord Jesus appears to the disciples on a mountain top and we witness him saying: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20) God with us, Emmanuel. Heaven and earth have met in this child, and continue to meet in our baptized lives of teaching, service and mission.

It is a grand story that Matthew tells us. Great literary technique that in itself commands our respect for the art of effective storytelling. And we find ourselves to be included in this story of such grand scheme! The Magi were overjoyed, when they finally got to the child and their own lives were met in God’s purpose for this world. In Greek it takes four words to say how much they rejoiced. Joyfully they rejoiced with great joy.

Dear congregation, I wonder, when we are done with the cris-crossing of the grand scheme, if we still find ourselves asking, what is in it for me?
Let me offer some thoughts that may help further in the meditation of Epiphany joy:

The first one has to do with the journey of the wise men. We can take their journey and see it as an image for our lives. They set out on a certain hunch but do not quite know where they will end up, and they have some searching work to do. They follow the star, use it as their Global Positioning System to let heaven, let God, lead the way and meet them in an earthly child. The sense of longing and searching results in finding, and rejoicing they return home. Yes, sisters and brothers, that is good to know, the Magi return home, they will always arrive back home, even if by another way, different and changed, yet alive, for they trusted God more than King Herod. Each encounter changes us, a visit, a trip, a conversation, a piece of music, a book, a worship service, and we return another way. But return we do.

Secondly: While we attain to be brave and journey through life, careful to position ourselves to not drop off the heavenly GPS grid, let us remember, that no one took the Christ child with him or her on the way home. The shepherds did not make Jesus into a young shepherd boy. Those who came to visit did not take him home. The Magi did not make him a student, no king a prince. Those who came understood, here is God on the edge of the world in Bethlehem. God works from here, the edge, to transform the world through love and light. We return home to where we belong on old ways and new ways, where we are met by God on the edges of our lives, in each new beginning and in each ending, with love and with light.

A third consideration is how we travel. Mary and Joseph as well as the magi show us that we can actually travel light through life and on the face of this earth. All they need fits on a donkey, a couple of camels. We have only two hands to carry our gifts. The older we get the more we understand: - we have to let go. Of our material property, the intellectual property, the rights that our position in life afford us. Many of the things we take for granted are not essential.
Essential is community, care, love, attention for each other. Those things happen when people meet over the manger, over the Word made flesh, in the hearing and partaking of the Word, in response to the Word in all the various functions of a congregation and in our personal service and mission. We can travel light.

Who knows, maybe some of the Magi in our manger scenes would like to stay out a little longer this year, reminding us of the way, the star, the searching and finding, and the return home. All the while traveling light. But then, how will they find their proper place back in the closet or on the attic, and come December no one remembers where they went, and the Magi will be late again, like every year.
Amen.