Epiphany is January 6th...

...but we'll be celebrating it the Sunday before, the 4th, because Lutherans don't usually have big church services on a Tuesday. Epiphany marks the end of the Christmas season (I will finally have to stop saying "Merry Christmas"), and the revelation of the identity of Jesus Christ, that baby born in Bethlehem. It has also come to be associated with the visit of the three "wise men" or "kings".

Actually, anyone who has ever played a Bible trivia game probably knows that there were not actually three wise men. Or, rather, there could have been three, but Matthew doesn't happen to tell us. Three is just convenient to hold the gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Actually, "We Three Kings", for all that it reinforces the "three kings" thing, gets the gifts exactly right:

Glorious now behold him arise,
King and God and Sacrifice

I love this stuff. The point of the three gifts is that they identify the recipient. They tell us who this baby Jesus is. Gold is a gift for a king. Frankincense is an offering for a god. Myrrh identifies a sacrifice, and is associated with death.

But the other things about these gifts is that they make no practical sense. What is a baby going to do with frankincense, really? What use has Mary for myrrh? I suppose they could sell it, especially the gold, but then, why not just give them money? Do these wise men really have no idea what kind of things a baby needs?

Okay, so I kind of like the image of these three (okay, we'll say three) incredibly intelligent, scholarly men (and we'll say they're men), completely and utterly baffled by a tiny baby. Maybe Mary offered to let them hold the baby (he might've been old enough to be toddling around, but that's another topic), and they sat there frozen, as people unused to babies sometimes do, terrified of breaking this tiny, precious thing. I hope he spit up all over their beautiful (though travel-stained) robes, and then Joseph had to change his diaper, and the visitors were just horrified. But still, they gave their gifts, useless and impractical as they were. And despite it all, they were special gifts, beautiful gifts, the kind that gets remembered for two thousand years.

This makes me think about how we try to give back to God. What do we actually have that would be of any use? God doesn't even need our worship and praise. God doesn't need anything. But God chooses to want a relationship with us, and God even graciously accepts our well-meaning gifts. Actually, God even enjoys our gifts, because God loves us that much. He doesn't have to. There's no practical reason why he should. But that's God. Practical? Not so much. A good thing, too.

~Pastor Sarah

January newsletter

This is a season for surprises. (The first surprise might be that, if you are reading this in the very beginning of January, Christmas is not yet over! It lasts for twelve days, remember?) Hopefully, for you, they have been mostly good surprises, like a free day off from school, rather than bad surprises, like getting your car stuck in the snow.

This is also a season for making plans. There are parties to prepare, family visits to schedule, and all the the business and busy-ness of Christmas and New Year’s. Now, as we begin a new calendar year, it is only natural to consider what might happen in the year to come, and to try to plan accordingly.

But because this is winter and we live in Minnesota (as I am learning), sometimes these two elements (plans and surprises) work together. Our plans are interrupted. Sometimes there is a snow storm, and we have to try to reschedule the Christmas program (again). Sometimes the storms are less literal, but just as real—a death in the family (either recent or remembered), or even just a little touch of a cold that keeps us from enjoying the holidays as fully as we had hoped.

In the midst of all that, in both the celebrations and the chaos, this is also the season when we remember that God often works in surprising ways. God often interrupts our plans and surprises our expectations. So instead of a mighty king, God comes to us as a tiny, vulnerable baby. Instead of a palace, he is born in a stable. His parents are nobody important, and his first visitors are poor, disreputable shepherds.

But the biggest surprises are yet to come. No, not the wise men, although their visit is surprising, since it demonstrates that this child is for everyone, even foreigners (even us).

The biggest surprise of this season, and of every season, is that God becomes human for us—and this will lead, surprise of surprises, to the cross, where the same Jesus Christ who was born in Bethlehem will die for our sake. And from the cross comes yet another surprise: the empty tomb!

This greatest of all surprises interrupts our plans just as surely as winter’s first big snow storm. Everything is changed. Glory to God in the highest heaven!

May God's love and peace be with you—and a Merry Christmas and Blessed Epiphany, too!

~Pastor Sarah