Epiphany Carols

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green

An Epiphany.

Some sort of sudden realisation –

Internal – that’s where I left my phone –

Actually, that friend of mine, so-and-so, is just not a nice person –

My parents aren’t perfect – they’re just human and wow did they get that wrong –

(later) Actually parenting is really difficult, and they actually did this and this much better than I’m managing.

Or, sometimes, external –

Something in this moment – the view, the weather, the company, the situation, this piece of music, this book, the suffering of this person, the courage of this person –

the friend who pushes you out of your comfort –

Whatever it is that makes you think – I need to change –

I have changed –

I cannot forget this.

Every time you fall in love it’s an epiphany.

Every moment with a child can be an epiphany.

Every time you break something so hard it cannot be fixed;

Every time you confess something to God with your whole heart.

We can most of us imagine a different life, but the terror and freedom of change surprises us;

It takes an epiphany to smash through our patterns of behaviour.

This becomes more difficult as we get older.

If you ask people their favourite book, a book that changed them; inspired them,

most people will tell you books they read in their teens or twenties.

It’s a joke that you can tell the year a vicar left theological college by what’s on their bookshelf.

It’s not just that we stop being moved by what we read, a lot of us just stop reading.

But even when we do, we’re less likely to be inspired to change –

To stop eating meat, to become a protestor, to travel to India, to take a risk.

We set a limit on Epiphanies at 60% after 40.

The Church celebrates the season of Epiphany as the revelation of Christ to the world.

The moments in which people realise something has changed, something must change.

The wise men realise that this is no ordinary king.

But also no ordinary Jewish king;

Christianity brings a new religion to the Gentiles, opens the door to the Hebrew Scriptures for all;

But it also changes and splits the Jewish religion;

It’s the Hebrew Bible in a different light.

In Christ’s baptism, the heavens shake and his earthly ministry begins, emphatically with the miracle at Cana.

Christ appears on the scene.

And the first effects, the first fruit of this, is in the call of the disciples, as people give up everything to follow him.

Epiphany closes with Candlemas – returning us to the baby and the crib.

Here is the prophecy – to be a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.

The change is fundamental.

Within three centuries – faith in this child will be the dominant force in Europe, and before long the world.

In the Christian understanding, the Gentiles and Israel will receive their reconciliation and unification in the Church.

Though for those who understand themselves to be the true continuation of Israel it will be catastrophe and the loss of the land for two millennia.

It’s really impossible to overstate the impact of Jesus on the world.

These events which reveal God to the world in the person of Jesus, have inspired billions;

Currently shape the identity of 2.4 billion Christians in the world today.

And this faith has been the force behind most educational and social programmes and reform in European history.

It could have been otherwise.

Zeus, with his lightning bolts, might have kept his place at the top of Mount Olympus,

Bearing in mind that the German for lightning is Blitz, we might well be fearful of a culture inspired by him and his reprobate crew.

Rewriting two thousand years of history is, in any case, difficult to imagine.

But in these grey January and February days,

in a time of political unrest,

with war and the weather biting at our borders,

we might ask where do we look for inspiration?
Where will we find that Epiphany?
How are we going to find the motivation to change?

To be better?

to uncover what it means to be human?

What the disciples took from these moments of epiphany is a sense of purpose.

A confidence that following Jesus is the right thing to do.

That here is the Son of God.

For an Epiphany to be real it must speak the truth.

A truth in us, a truth about the world.

That’s where it gets the power to change people.

It is curious that Christ is the dominant figure in Western civilisation.

A person without notable family or education, from a colonised non-white backward nation.

A person who gave up what power he had and died in his 30s by public execution.

A person who preached against power and against violence.

An Epiphany always comes as a surprise.

Is there perhaps more to this life –

who told us that God is love,

to be kind to one another,

that to give up everything for the sake of love is to be like God himself –

that God is waiting for you now, in your heart and in your neighbour,

If you will but seek him?

So let us look for that Epiphany, seek out that Epiphany, discover that Epiphany,

And in its truth find our purpose.

And in our purpose be changed to be more like him,

who brought light to the Gentiles and glory to his people. Amen.