The three great stories of the Epiphany season are the announcement of the birth of Jesus to the gentile world, symbolized by magi from foreign lands guided by a cosmic star to Jesus’ birthplace; the validation of Jesus’ ministry, symbolized by Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist at the Jordan River; and the initial disclosure that Jesus was inaugurating the good news of a fresh, new way of a new life, symbolized by the great sign of changing ordinary tepid water into fine wine at a wedding feast in Cana of Galilee.
Most likely, some of you at one time or another have given your children a camera, or have let them take some pictures on a family vacation. OK, nowadays maybe each of your children has a cell phone instead. You quickly discover that different children like to take pictures of different things, and not necessarily what you would like them to remember. You go to the seashore, and you get pictures of things that make you wonder if you all went on the same vacation. Or your child goes on a school field trip to Washington, D.C., and all you see are photos of sports cars parked at a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike.
The Gospel readings of Epiphany are like different photo shots, taken by different people, which invite us to learn and perceive the great event of God entering the lives of humanity in continually fresh ways. The readings are like the advent calendars that open new windows, revealing a different scene every day, but always referring to Jesus’ birth in our world and coming to live among us.
One of the best loved series of contemporary children’s picture books is entitled Where’s Waldo?, by Marin Handford, and the books have detailed illustrations of dozens of people, young and old and all sorts of animals, playing games and working, and somewhere in the picture is this character named Waldo, but you have to look carefully to find him. There are also picture books of “Where’s Jesus?” too, like this one that has been on our children’s’ book table. John’s story of the wedding feast is like a Where’s Waldo illustration. It is layer upon layer of symbols that draw us deeper into the meaning of the Gospel. The story is not a transcript of how Jesus spoke to his mother, any more than the illustrations of Where’s Waldo are photos of an actual scene of dozens of people playing hide and go seek, soccer, baseball, flying kites, and having picnics all in the same small park at the same time. The story of Jesus’ first great sign is about the emptiness of our lives being filled, of the bland, stale water the world offers being changed into a fine refreshment for our souls, of God’s generosity and love not being a deception or trick which will be withdrawn, once we let down our guard. It is of Jesus knowing beforehand that people will hurt and try to kill him, yet that does not change his genuine love for all of us. The story is about the hiddeness, the unpretentiousness and yet the inevitability of the fermentation of God’s grace to persist and to grow, a sign telling us never to give up hope for ourselves or others.
This past Christmas, as we have for many Christmases, we invited children to come forward and carefully take the shepherds and sheep, the Russian bear and his keeper, and the field mouse that are placed on a table representing the fields outside of Bethlehem, and bring them across the aisle, to the stable scene next to the infant Jesus. Our scene here at St. John’s was not meant as an historical reconstruction as the world knows it. It was a way for the children to see and have a part in our savior’s birth. No doubt over the weeks the manger scene was up, it was rearranged several times over by little hands. That’s o.k., for that helps us to understand that God’s love rearranges us, rearranges things in our world, and does not let us go.
We store old photos on files and folders inside computers now, instead of in heavy photo albums. Most of the time the photos in computers are a lot easier to access than in those old albums. Yet I wonder twenty years from now, will those old photos be saved and retrievable? Will we be able to take a good look at the way we were? Will we see things in them that only twenty years later we fully comprehend or appreciate? It’s a valuable revelation when we are able to.
There is wisdom every Epiphany, after all the Christmas decorations are put away, to read these three strange stories of far off events, filled with stuff we would not perceive even if we were actually there, of God rearranging things, of God offering us an invitation to rearrange our lives, of God amazing us with things we do not fully expect or comprehend, and of God surprising us with a fresh start.
And I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.
