The Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee



Epiphany, January 6, 2008, Church of the Epiphany Lebanon

“In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem" (Matt. 2:1).

People travel for different reasons. Go down to the airport and you’ll find folk headed on vacation to warmer places, for sun and fun, or maybe to places with snow and a slope for skiing. Or there’s the business traveler, flying out to work the trade show or to take the meeting in some distant town, maybe headed back the same day or at least (pray God) by the weekend. In my experience, wise men typically go to conferences, where they hear other wise men give papers or make presentations, and even do the same themselves. Bishops travel to (wait for it) meet with other bishops (of course!) and there’s a lot of that in the bishoping business.

The Wise Men of Matthew’s Gospel travel for a different reason. They’re not going to the beach or to the mountains; they’re not really on business either, and they won’t be conferring with anybody. They are seeking and searching for something or more properly Someone, and they are willing to go the distance to find him. It’s not a short journey, and the difficulties of travel in their day far exceed the challenges of security checkpoints and the high price of gasoline in our own. There is no GPS, but only a star to guide them.

So what is their journey about? The Wise Men represent the Gentiles, the non-Jewish peoples, whom we might not expect to be looking for a Messiah. They study the stars, not because they are trying to tell fortunes, but because in Jesus’ time the command of the calendar that came with stargazing was a powerful piece of knowledge, telling you when to plant crops, and other valuable information. So they are scientists, not astrologers in the modern sense, and represent all of human knowledge come to worship at the crib. They bring symbolic gifts: gold for a king, incense for a god, and myrrh that foreshadows Jesus’ anointing and burial. It’s a moment of revelation, of manifestation, of the glory of God.

This is what our celebration of the Feast of the Epiphany is all about: the revelation, the manifestation, of the glory of God. The Wise Men’s journey brings them to the crib, but the journey we need to make is the one from the manger to the mission: the Church’s mission. Remember: the Wise Men represent the whole world outside of ancient Israel: what we might call the mission field. This feast reminds us that the Church has a universal mission. God’s plan is to bring the whole world and all its wisdom to worship the Messiah, and God is calling us to move out into the world to carry out that mission. The Church comes together for worship so that it can gather for mission. The Church does not gather members so that it can continue to exist; the Church exists so that it can bring people in relationship with one another and into relationship with God. That’s the journey from maintenance to mission, and if we move out from the manger and embrace the mission we will be well on the way.

So what’s your journey about, your journey as a follower of Jesus? Are you vacationing, looking for sun and fun, just skiing through the life of discipleship? Or are you hard at work, nose to the grindstone, wearing yourself out in frantic travelling? I hope that neither is the case, because Christians need to be seeking and searching for the One who is the Savior. They need to be moving out in mission. The journey is challenging, and there is no GPS, but if we set our sights on Jesus we will never fail to arrive.

The Rt. Rev’d John Bauerschmidt, Bishop of Tennessee

 

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