A revealing Epiphany

Sermon, Christmas II, 2020
Luke 2:41-52
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.

Merry Christmas to you on this, the 10th day of Christmas. We are getting close to Epiphany, which is on Wednesday, and as I mentioned last Sunday, is when the incarnation of God in Jesus was recognized and celebrated by three Wise Men from the East. They saw a star in the sky and realized that it meant something special, that it was a sign to them. This is how we typically think of an epiphany and are most familiar with the story and what it means. In a broader view, an epiphany is the revelation of something that we previously didn’t know, or were unaware of. We’ve all had that experience of learning something new, sometimes something that seemed obvious in hindsight but is new and fresh, and our mind races forward to reinterpret what we know or have experienced with this new knowledge. I had an epiphany several years ago, when I was asked, on short notice, to take over leading the adult education class at St. Paul’s. We had good discussions, and I realized over time that this was part of something larger that I was being called to do.

In the context of this Sunday and the Gospel reading, we hear about an epiphany that reveals something new or different about God and about Christ to the world. We also see that this epiphany is missed at first. Jesus, Joseph, and Mary have been to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration, traveling with a large group. It was probably a great experience, with opportunities for conversations, sharing food and shelter, children playing, people getting to know each other and strengthening relationships. The celebration would have been equally wonderful, being in the religious capital of Israel among so many other groups. On their way back, though, Joseph and Mary lose track of their son. They have that horrible, gut-wrenching feeling we’ve experienced when our child or someone we are responsible for goes missing. The feeling of joy and safety evaporates, and your mind goes to the worst possible thing that could have happened as the most likely thing that did happen. Mary and Joseph frantically search for Jesus among the family and friends in the group, but they just can’t find him. They retrace their steps back to Jerusalem, hoping against hope that they will find him, safe and sound, somewhere in the city.

There’s just one problem with this scene, and that is that Jesus is twelve. He’s not a small child, unable to care for himself or seek help. He is about to go through his Bar Mitzvah, where he is recognized as an adult, and expected to take on adult responsibilities at home and in the temple. Engagement and marriage would not be too far off, either, for a 12 year-old. When Joseph and Mary finally find Jesus in the temple, engaging in serious conversations with the Rabbis, they are at once relieved and upset. Mary launches into Jesus as only a mother can: “Thank God we found you and you’re safe...do you know how worried we were?... We found you in the temple, that’s the best place for you to have gone… How could you just wander off? Do you know what could have happened to you?” But Jesus replies to his mother, suddenly well beyond his twelve years and asks “Why were you looking for me while I was attending to my Father’s business?” His question goes right over his parents’ heads. They don’t get it. Joseph was a carpenter, not a teacher, so what was Jesus referring to? In the end, the family returns to Galilee, and Jesus obeys the commandment to honor his parents, as he grows in stature. We don’t hear about it, but I’ll bet it wasn’t the last time that Jesus lingered in the synagogue at home.

Mary and Joseph missed the epiphany that the three Wise Men could see years before, and it would be a while longer before they would see it, too. No doubt, Jesus had learned carpentry from his father, and could make furniture like his father did. But a shift was occurring, where Jesus himself was beginning to understand that his purpose on earth was not about woodworking, but about saving the world from sin and death. His epiphany was shifting him from his father Joseph’s work to his Father God’s work. Jesus was beginning to explore his relationship with God that went beyond simply participating in the Jewish traditions. Joseph and Mary missed these epiphanies because they were focused on their family and the relationships within it, rather than on who Jesus was becoming. To be fair, this change that Jesus was going through was probably not something that was obvious, like a sudden, singular event like when three wise men show up to honor your newborn son. This would have been new behaviors or conversations over years that illustrated something far deeper was happening. Both of these epiphanies are legitimate, but the drawn out, less dramatic ones are the easiest to miss.

We often get in our own way when it comes to experiencing epiphanies ourselves. We miss them entirely, like Mary and Joseph, or we are selective about which ones we pay attention to. We are drawn to the drama of sudden epiphanies, moments when God clearly speaks to us, or when a whole new way of looking at ourselves and the world overwhelms us. Our fear and anxiety of not pleasing God, or not doing the “right thing,” or insecurity over a lack of faith draws our attention away from what God is trying to reveal to us. It becomes far too easy to focus on what we want to hear God saying to relieve the anxiety and bolster our faith, rather than hear what is often hard to believe: that God so loved the world that Jesus came to live with us as God among us. We resist the epiphanies that challenge us to change in ways that are foreign to us, inconvenient to how we are used to living, and uncomfortable in confronting us with our mistakes or sins. Mary and Joseph were in the same situation, wanting to hear one thing from God, but hearing something different. It may have become a more intense experience as they slowly began to see who Jesus was becoming, not at all like they or anyone else were.

For all of the confusion and fear that they may have felt, Joseph and Mary did not judge Jesus, nor did they reject him as the Jewish leaders would do later on. Mary treasured all of these things in her heart, so that one day, she was able put together all of the smaller epiphanies that she saw in her son into one overarching epiphany: that he was the Son of God, to redeem the world of its sins to God. I imagine it was hard for her to hold on to her maternal instincts and mother-son relationship with her realization of who Jesus had become as he grew in spiritual stature. It would have been confusing for her as she put aside her own interpretation of this epiphany and accepted the truth from God. We struggle with that confusion as well, not knowing whether a revelation is from humans or from God. We don’t want to admit that the interpretation may actually serve our own interests, or is manipulative, rather than from God who rises above our selfish desires or insecurities. We have to look beyond the revelation, to its intent: does it glorify God in some way, or does it glorify a person? Why are we being presented with this epiphany: is it to reveal truth from God, however inconvenient, or is it a convenient truth from someone claiming to know it? Does this epiphany reveal something new about God, Christ, or us and our relationship with them? These questions are at the heart of experiencing a revelation and understanding what it means or doesn’t mean. Epiphanies lead us to a deeper, more solid faith, rather than reinforce what we've believed all along.

Scripture has revealed to us that God was present in the world in the form of Christ, and remains in the world and in our hearts as the Holy Spirit. God is never far from us, even in the middle of worldly troubles. We have had or heard all sorts of epiphanies about COVID, about racial inequality, and about political leaders in this past year. If we listen closely, and I believe that we can, to all of the epiphanies, we will find the ones from God. They will point us to a much larger one that we have missed in the dark chaos that we have experienced: that God loves the world and loves us, and that we love God in return by loving our neighbors as Christ loved us. We are loved as children of God, we are forgiven our sins, and we are called to spread that love and forgiveness as the good news from Christ. We are called to bring the light of Christ into the world to counter the darkness. Let’s not miss this epiphany.