Sermon Archive

“Arise, shine; for your light has come; and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.…Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn” (Isaiah 60:1, 3)—for this is the time of Godburst, of the brightness of Epiphany, of the blaze of God’s coming to you through Jesus, the Christ, the Babe of Bethlehem, as signaled for you in the brilliance of this star at its rising.

Now, I’ve always fancied that what drove Matthew’s Wise Men on their ancient quest was some kind of primal “wish upon a star”—a wish, a desire, a prayer very much like one that is found still today on our lips: “O Lord, may this Godburst, may this radiant effulgence of Your truth made known to us in the birth of the Messiah, transform our hearts and at last lead our world out of violence and bloodshed and into paths of peace!”

Last week, Margaret and I managed to sneak away to our cabin in the Adirondack Mountains in order to usher out the old year 2003 and welcome in the new. Now, on a clear night in that part of New York State the stars still shine with their full brightness. And as we ascended by car from the banks of the upper Hudson River up into the mountains, there, hanging ever so brilliant in the sky of the early night and drawing us ever onward toward our destination, was that bright “star” we now know to be the planet Venus.

“Star light, Star bright, First star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, Have the wish I wish tonight.” What was that wish?

Well on New Year’s Eve we listened to a broadcast on National Public Radio. It was a satirical review of major national and international events of this past year performed by the group Capitol Steps. And as the hour progressed, Margaret and I found ourselves commenting to each other, “What a dreadful year 2003 was! Indeed, how truly dreadful this whole new millennium has so far been!” Yes, I’m afraid even the humor of the satire couldn’t lift our mood.

So this weekend I find myself wishing, and praying, “upon a star”—not upon Venus, mind you, but upon that ancient Star of Epiphany, the Magi’s Godburst. Yes, today I find myself wishing, and praying, afresh: “O God, may the radiance of Your truth made known to us in the Christ Child at last transform our all-too-human hearts and finally lead us and our nation and world away from terrorism and warfare and into paths of peace!”

And on this first Sunday of 2004, I also find myself asking this question: “What might our set of New Year’s resolutions look like were we this Christmastide to experience within ourselves a rebirth of the God made known in Christ Jesus and were we to let our lives be changed by that experience? What might our set of New Year’s resolutions look like were we this Christmastide to acknowledge within ourselves a fresh Epiphany and were we to let ourselves be dramatically transformed by this newborn Godburst?”

Well, my Christmas Eve message began this Christmastide of ours, these Twelve Days of Christmas, with some poetry by Ann Weems. So let me now conclude our Christmastide and anticipate Tuesday’s Feast of the Epiphany by sharing with you one final poem by Ann Weems. It’s entitled “Godburst” (Kneeling in Bethlehem [Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1980], p. 27), and, rather obviously, it provides the inspiration for my sermon today. Listen:

“When the Holy Child is born into our hearts
there is a rain of stars
a rushing of angels
a blaze of candles
this God burst into our lives.
Love is running through the streets.”

“A rain of stars,” “a rushing of angels,” “a blaze of candles,” a bursting of God into our lives such that “love is running through the streets”—now, I propose that as we formulate our New Year’s resolutions for 2004 we allow these images to inspire and shape those resolutions!

First: the image of “a rain of stars.” In the final, climactic line of Dante’s classic work, The Divine Comedy, he speaks of having attained to the Paradise in which his desire and his will are at last set in motion by the same “Love”—the God made known in Christ—the same “Love that moves the sun and the other stars” (Paradiso, canto XXXIII, line 145).

And in Weems’s poem, she goes on to suggest that right here in this world, short of Paradise, whenever the Holy Child is born anew in our hearts, we experience within ourselves the very same Love that propels the stars, the very same Love that creates within us “a rain of stars.”

I suggest, therefore, that we let Weems’s metaphor of “a rain of stars” prompt us to this resolve for the year 2004: that we will allow Jesus, the Christ, the full embodiment of Divine Love—that we will allow Christ truly to hold first place in our lives and truly to transform and reshape our desire and our will, such that we come ever more completely to fulfill those imperatives given to us by God: to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God. (Micah 6:8)

Second: let me reflect on the image of “a rushing of angels.” A minister in Minnesota once asked his seventh-grade Church School class, “What are angels like?” There was a long silence. Finally, one student suggested, quite hesitantly, “Imaginary beings, sort of a cross between a bird and a boy?” Whereupon a boy in the back row snorted, “Aw, no! Anyone who’s ever been to a Christmas pageant knows that angels are skinny fourth-grade girls with halos and shiny dresses!”

So, what are angels like? Perhaps at least one of you is thinking, “How am I supposed to know? Angels don’t fly through the streets of New York. They only fly through the pages of literature!”

Well, the word “angel” comes from the Greek word angelos, which is a translation of the Hebrew word mal’ak. And both angelos in Greek and mal’ak in Hebrew mean “messenger.” So, whatever else “being visited by angels” may mean, it certainly means this: “receiving a message from God.” And in the words of Dr. Forrester Church, pastor of the All Souls Church here on New York’s East Side, “...angels are both God’s messengers and God’s message, witnesses to eternity in time, to the presence of the divine amidst the ordinary. Every moment of every day is riddled by their traces.” (Entertaining Angels [New York: Harper And Row, 1987], p. 35)

So, to experience “a rushing of angels” can mean to be surrounded by the messages from God that impart a sense of eternity in time, that impart a sense of the divine amidst the ordinary—like the message the Magi, the Wise Men, discerned in the rising of the star. Yes, “a rushing of angels” can symbolize the flurry of divine messages that summons us to prioritize our lives, that calls us first to acknowledge and rejoice in the majesty of the One who created the heavens and the earth and calls us next to go forth and serve this God by offering to the Christ Child our gifts.

And these messages that call us first to acknowledge and rejoice in God and next to go forth and serve Christ with our gifts—these messages that surround us like “a rushing of angels” are prompting us to some such resolve for the year 2004 as this: that we will offer to Christ, and not to any of the principalities or powers of this world—that we will offer to Christ our gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh: the gold of our practice of economic justice, the frankincense of our deeds of political justice, and the myrrh of our acts of social justice. For example: the gold of working on behalf of a universal living wage; the frankincense of voting for those who favor providing a strong social safety net for the poor; and the myrrh of volunteering to host the men who reside in our homeless shelter.

Third: let me reflect on the image of “a blaze of candles.” Today, the Advent Wreath—all ablaze with its five candles—makes its final appearance among us for this season. Progressively, on each of the four Sundays of Advent an additional one of those outside candles was set alight for the first time, and then on Christmas Eve the fifth candle, the Christ candle, the one standing in the center, was first lighted, thereby bringing into being the full “blaze of candles” that we see here this morning.

Now, many sets of meanings have been attributed to the four outside candles. And one of the most widely used is this: Hope, and Peace, and Joy, and Love. You see, the first candle symbolizes our Hope for a better age to come; the second, our yearning for the Peace that God’s reign will bring; the third, our longing for the Joy which God’s birth will engender; the fourth, our ardor for the Love which God’s coming will embody. Then the fifth candle, the one in the center, symbolizes the fulfillment of all our Hope, and Peace, and Joy, and Love—the fulfillment that comes each time the Christ Child is born or reborn. So please say after me: “Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love.” [“Hope, Peace, Joy and Love.”] “Fulfilled each time the Christ Child is born or reborn.” [“Fulfilled each time the Christ Child is born or reborn.”]

Certainly, if the blaze from all these five candles, Hope, Peace, Joy, Love, and Christ—if their blaze were truly received as a burst of More Light by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and by all the other Christian denominations in this good old U.S. of A., a whole lot more economic, political, social, and religious justice would be done. So let this be our resolve for the year 2004: that we will receive the blaze from these five candles of our Advent Wreath as a burst of More Light.

And finally: we come to Weems’s concluding image, the image of “love running through the streets.”

Now, in light of my earlier reflections, I believe the poet might just as well have offered us the image of “hope running through the streets,” or “peace running through the streets,” or “joy running through the streets.” But since love is the greatest of these, Weems speaks of “love running through the streets.” As for me, I would like to think that “when the Holy Child is born into our hearts” all of these four—Hope, Peace, Joy, Love—all of these four will be set “running through the streets”!

Yes, the Feast of Epiphany is a time of Godburst! It is a time for “a rain of stars” and “a rushing of angels” and “a blaze of candles,” such that Hope, and Peace, and Joy, and Love are set running through our streets. Epiphany, Godburst—a time when God summons us to this climactic resolve: that in response to the rebirth of Christ that we are now experiencing in our hearts we will become agents for fulfilling Hope, and Peace, and Joy, and Love in our world.

Let us pray: