It seems odd to be talking about the magi at this late date, doesn’t it? The Christmas decorations have been put away. The tree gasped its last dying breath weeks ago; and when we removed it from the house on New Year’s Day the only fight it had left in it was to sprinkle pine needles all across the living room floor. The only thing left are the lights outside the house and it’s just too cold to take them down. Besides, I still love them.

But in some ways, it is perfectly appropriate to welcome the magi this Sunday. After all, their story is one that is a bit askew from the story we know as Christmas; at least their real story, not the mash-up everyone offers in Christmastide. Their story is called “the epiphany.” It is a word that is most often heard to mean something like an, “Aha!” moment. Eureka! Whoa! Holy cats! Exclamations of revelation we utter when we are caught by surprise– a sudden intuitive leap of understanding. Great Scott! Yes, of COURSE! Yet in this story I hear no “Eureka!” moments.

Instead I see a subtle and cautious holy family; an intuitive and wise band of foreigners, traveling to distant lands under cover of darkness to pay heartfelt homage to someone so remarkable that the skies shifted and opened up for them. If there ARE any a-ha moments at all in this story, they are whispered revelations that come through dreams and secrets. This story of Jesus birth in the Gospel of Matthew has No shepherds. No stable. No inn. Angels come by night as secret messengers; not as heavenly choirs singing, “Joy to the World!” The start of this gospel (as with any good story) hints at what’s to come; it is a harbinger of the future, framed in a powerful story of the past, meant to give us the reader and they the listener a keen understanding that this is not the God you were expecting; and at this time of the year, that’s precisely the God that I want to meet.

I know that for many of us it’s been a difficult year to say the least. We’ve struggled with health issues, lost close friends and parents, spouses and children. Many of us have witnessed the downward slide of life in one another and in ourselves. For some the struggle just to get up in the morning is a very real thing. For others, watching illness or old age affect our loved ones is practically overwhelming. But Christmas was Merry, and Advent was meaningful, and New Year’s was…new year’s. But now it’s time to face the year ahead. To make plans for the future, empowered by our past and just get on with life and the living of it.

This month of January is a time when many of us invest in some seeds of hope for the coming year. I can tell that many people have made New Year’s resolutions to get more fit; its tourist season at the gym. But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let me offer a few insights from Epiphany Sunday…

First, I want you take your Christmas visions; your favorite pieces of the Advent puzzle and the Christmas story, and I want you to put them in a little box in your mind, and tie it up with a nice ribbon, and place it somewhere sacred in your heart where nothing that I’m about to say can touch it. Keep your beloved visions and dreams of the shepherds and the magi crouched around a lamp lit manger in a humble stable, with blessed Joseph and Mary smiling nearby. Hold on to those ideas of Christmas; of peace on earth and Holy, silent nights; because those are important pieces of our human story. But they are not the story we tell today.

The story of the wise ones comes from Matthew’s gospel (and only Matthew’s gospel), and it is one that we love to romanticize; three kings from the Orient, bearing gifts from foreign lands; following a star that leads them to the little town of Bethlehem. –none of which is actually in the Matthew story. If we take the text at its word, the wise ones come simply, “from the east.” Their numbers could be three; but could also be 300—we have no idea. They “observed his star at its rising;” but they have to ask King Herod where the child is to be born according to the prophets and the tradition, so it is Herod who directs them to the city of David, Bethlehem.

They then DO follow a star which leads them to a home, where they find Mary and the baby, Jesus. After bestowing their gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh, both the wise ones and Joseph have vivid dreams, warning them to evacuate, as soon as possible, under cover of darkness, because Herod intends to cause this blessed little baby harm. The magi go home, “by another way” and Joseph and Mary flee to the land of Egypt; and there they stay until King Herod passes away and it is safe for them to return to the land of Israel. In his rage, Matthew tells us, King Herod ordered all the children in the region of Bethlehem to be killed; and that is how the birth narrative ends in Matthew; with a quote from the prophet Jeremiah, who said, “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

An inauspicious beginning to Matthew’s gospel, wouldn’t you say? But I find this story of the Magi to be fascinating. They are dream seekers and star gazers –big picture visionaries who willingly set out on a great adventure to bring gifts of homage to the new king of Israel.

But unwittingly and inadvertently set off the cataclysmic consequences of making a paranoid ruler blood-thirsty; simply by stopping by to ask directions to this new born king. Herod is a self-serving buffoon, who has to consult his closest advisors to try to make sense of these Magi’s questions, and setting into motion evil deeds to preserve his sense of power; but do not let his buffoonery appease you, dear listeners; for even a buffoon can be deadly.

Matthew is hammering home, how important it is to hope for a bright new tomorrow, yet to rely on lessons from the past, and to be available and open to God’s guiding light and spirit in this present moment. Nancy Hiles said, “It is ours to live out our lives among these tensions of the past and the future in hopeful expectation that moments here and there will rise out of the grip of familiarity, break open, and, however fleetingly, become transparent.” God becomes transparent for the holy family and for the magi; showing forth in mysterious ways, reaffirming the paths they have taken to become who they are, and blessing them in their journeys ahead. You know, that’s another definition of Epiphany; Showing Forth. And I love that.
The story of Epiphany is the showing forth of the true character of God; which is revealed to those who have the time and patience and faith and hope enough to see it; all those things we proclaim in the Advent season, but with a different kind of joy from the joy of Christmas morning, and coming from a more perceptive place of peace that the quiet of a manger bed. The players in this story possess within themselves the courage and the character to make bold choices; courage that is rare, courage that is inspired by a deeper instinct that affirms the challenges along the journey yet gives them the needed confidence to move into uncertain but hopeful futures.

Matthew reveals his story of the revelation of the spirit of God before the backdrop of a world in peril and steeped in treachery; where the heroic ones are the quiet doers of the word, as the apostle James might describe them; the ones who are connected to the stars in the skies and their dreams and their willingness to open up their hearts and homes to one another; regardless of who they are or where they are from. Matthew’s story is a story hope; because, after all, the key players all escape certain doom. But it is hope born in a time of suffering and sacrifice- which makes it all the more powerful today.

January takes its name from Janus, the mythological God of beginnings and endings. Depicted as having two faces; one looking to the future and the other the past, Janus is the perfect namesake as we start off a new calendar year. And this is also a perfect time to examine where we see God showing forth in our lives. After all, any of us take an assessment of our lives at this time of the year. We look to the months gone by and see how we did. I write down the important events of the past year; the successes and the struggles. I look to my relationship with family and friends; my faith and my relationship with God; I examine my vocation, and what I’ve done (or haven’t done) that I’d hoped to accomplish. But I also explore my loss, my grief, my vulnerabilities and what I have done to counteract or to treat those challenging but important places in my life. Maybe you do, too.

I do this with the hope of being able to set a hopeful new vision for the year ahead. And I’m not just talking about 6 pack abs and eating fewer sweets. I’m talking about character where it counts; time worthwhile to invest in; relationships to cherish and to nurture, moments of life to appreciate, prayers to practice and hope to offer. I don’t need to be reminded that the world is going to hell in a handbasket; I check the headlines, I’ve read the tweets, I know how insane the world can feel and be. But there are rays of sunshine and smiles and laughter in tough times, too. Children still laugh and sing in refugee camps. Carols are still sung on prison wings. Poor in resources doesn’t mean poor in spirit. Love always wins (Happy Anniversary, Marriage Equality Friends). I am deeply comforted to know there are so many wonderful and willing helpers out there; and I’m well aware of how much work still needs to be done.

But this is a season to center on the ways we can show forth our spirit. And it begins with simply paying attention to the world around us. It’s the little things, not expectations that will help us to sing, Glory, Glory, Hallelujah.

At the second service today, we get to baptize a baby. One of my favorite things to do in this church is to baptize the babies. In our liturgy, we speak on the ways that each of us is touched by grace, whether by good dreams or the taste of ice cream. And in the blessing we offer to this little baby, we commit to setting aside our comfort and conveniences, our likes and our dislikes so that the child may meet God through us. What a powerful place to be. We are asked to show forth the greatest gifts of God to a world that is vulnerable and in great need. For where there is care, indifference and unbelief vanish. I do believe that. We are called, simply, to care for one another; and in so doing we are promised the gifts of the Spirit. Attention is the beginning of Devotion, Mary Oliver said.

My hope is that we will have eyes to see the showing forth of God’s love and grace made manifest in this world. My hope is that we will be attentive enough to the millions of miracles of life that we won’t cast a seconds pause should a wandering star or a caravan of wise ones passes our way. My prayer is that our world will recommit to being one that cares deeply for one another and for creation, and that through our care, our animosity and indifference will drift away. After all, Miracles are not magic, a brilliant poet once said. They are seeing intently, passionately, wisely. Follow.