Plan A, All Along
"Plan A, All Along"
Year A Second Sunday After Christmas and Observing Epiphany, January 5, 2020
John 1:1-18, Ephesians 1:3-14
Pastor Andy Kennaly Sandpoint, Idaho
The Gregorian calendar has officially changed to 2020. But the church calendar changed back on December 1, with the First Sunday of Advent, so as we sit here on the Second Sunday of Christmas, with Epiphany tomorrow on January 6, we're already moving right along into the celebration that claims God With Us. The scriptures today are a mix, the John passage being from Christmas and the Ephesians passage used for both the Second Sunday of Christmas and Epiphany Day. That word, Epiphany, comes from Koine Greek: ἐπιφάνεια, epiphaneia, which means, "manifestation", "striking appearance" or Theophany. In Ancient Greek, Θεοφάνεια, Τheophaneia means "vision of God." Epiphany, an appearance of the vision of God, traditionally falls on January 6, and is a Christian feast day that celebrates the revelation of God, God the Son as a human being in Christ Jesus, and the Matthew passage which we did not read recounts the visit of the Magi as they present gifts to the young Jesus. This also includes the story of King Herod and the killing of young children in Bethlehem as Herod strikes out in fear and paranoia through state-sponsored violence.
Christians in the Western branch of Christianity tend to focus on the visit of the Magi to the baby Jesus. More than manger scenes, this visit gives early proof that God's physical manifestation is also Good News to the Gentiles, because those travelers were not Jewish. The wise people from the east were likely from Iran, the Persian Empire. There are three types of gifts, gold-frankincense-myrrh, but the number of Magi is not mentioned. If they were noticeable enough to get audience with Herod the King, and if they were carrying such valuable commodities, one would think this was likely quite a caravan, an entourage formidable enough to defend itself as it journeyed in foreign lands on routes known to have bandits.
Christians in the Eastern branch of Christianity tend to commemorate Epiphany by the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River, as his manifestation to the world as the Son of God. Two traditions, different markers, but the same idea.
Christmas, the birth of Jesus, and Epiphany, recognizing Jesus as the manifestation of God, share similar themes; both of them trying to make sense of who Jesus is, what God is up to in the birth and life of this Messiah, and how the world has never been the same, yet often people miss the point of the Incarnation, God coming in the flesh, light into the world.
I was at a funeral just down the road in Montana a few years ago and the pastor stood up at the pulpit in that small church and ensured the people gathered that the person who had died had “prayed the prayer” and was now in heaven. he went on to point out that what we see, the world around us, everything about this life, it doesn’t mean anything. This life, he said, is just spiritual boot camp for eternity. Heaven is what really matters, and Jesus is our ticket to heaven. As much as his preaching rubbed me the wrong way, and his theology is really missing the point of the incarnation, his views are quite prevalent in American religion. We read Paul saying, “we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of trespasses” and we jump straight away to the cross. The cross takes center stage in most Christian churches, and this is a reflection of prevalent theology that demands blood sacrifices, seeking to appease a God that is viewed as angry, judging, and condemning a world that is lost and fallen, destined to destruction. There are even some people who want the destruction to happen sooner than later, trying to get Israel started in a war so the end of the world can come right now, which will bring Jesus back on a horse through the clouds and put Christians on the top of the heap. Once again, this misses the point and puts Jesus in a plan B scenario as if God needs to mop up the mess of original creation.
Christ is God’s plan A all along, and all things are made in and through Christ, for Christ, and we, as Ephesians reminds us, are “destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will.” This was mentioned earlier in Ephesians, God’s will, that Christ blesses us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, and chose us in Christ “before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love.” That we are children of God, lavished by God’s grace freely bestowed on us, and we are gifted with all wisdom and insight that all things in heaven and on earth are gathered up in Christ, which means they’re connected, this is God with us. Not an evacuation plan, but as a plan for the fullness of time, that God’s purposes for this earth are in process, realized, and happening.
John's Gospel talks about the Word, with a capital W, and in Greek that word is Logos. John says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
Friends, if “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being,” this is another way of claiming the sanctity of everything. This world is not be discarded or discounted as a throw-away-planet. R. Alan Culpepper reflects on this, saying “Light is not only the revelation of the logos [the Word]; it reveals the nature of all who come in contact with it, and the judgment upon each person is determined by his or her response to it. Light shines in darkness. It reveals. It also exposes.” (R. Alan Culpepper, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983; quoted from Pulpit Resource, Vol. 27, No. 1 Year A, JAN, FEB, MAR 1999, William Willimon).
The light shines and “it reveals the nature of all who come in contact with it.” What does the light of God reveal when it shines on us? What does your life, or my life, or our shared life as a community or a church reveal about who we are, where our trust is grounded, or how we gain a sense of security? What does this shining light reveal or expose in terms of how we love one another, how we connect with our community, or how we share with the world? What is our view of the world? What is our image of God, or understanding of the nature of God, or the expansiveness of Christ’s creation of which we belong? Does this light lead us forward, or do we prefer retreating to shadows of a smaller mind, hiding behind traditions? Our longest held traditions go back about 3 or 4 thousand years, but the Cosmic Christ shows us how limited this time scale is.
In 1969 people landed on the moon. Many of you remember seeing those first photos of the planet Earth, looking like a small, blue ball suspended in the middle of a vast expanse of black, dark space. Humanity could see first hand the limits of our habitation, the fragility of ecosystems, and the gift that life is in this big universe.
As we wrap up the Christmas season and take those first steps into Epiphany, we discover once again God's self-disclosure, God's gift to the world, God becoming flesh not to do something but to be the fulfillment of God's Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
To close, I’d like to read John’s prologue about the light coming into the world, using a slide show to guide the narration. At the conclusion, I’ll just sit down and we can sit in silence for a moment. May God bless this holy reading.
(Slide show link is to a series of photos taken by the Hubble Telescope) https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2019/12/2019-hubble-space-telescope-advent-calendar/602827/