The Epiphany-Exodus Connection

Each year at Epiphany we have the same readings and we celebrate the same themes: the appearance of light, for the word epiphany means appearance, and the visit of the Magi who followed the star to Bethlehem. These are the traditional Epiphany themes. But is there more to consider in this somewhat quaint narrative and in the prophecy that foretells an event of cosmic proportion?

For the past few years the deacon's homily—being on the first Sunday of the month—has fallen on Epiphany, and while I was looking back over my past Epiphany messages, I was hoping that I might say something different, theologically, this time. After all, even though the readings repeat year after year, the word of God meets us freshly in the here and now, which of course isn't at all what it was last year at this time or even the year before. Rather than having a static or one-way dialogue with the bible, where things are as they have always been, or where we attempt to make them be what they were in the glorious past, we should reflect on what is now and on the challenges and real-life situations of existence that lie before us. Thus the word becomes dynamic and living and we engage it, we encounter God, in the world where we live and thereby participate in the prophetic voice of the scripture.

Now, with that said, I've given myself something of a task, or maybe a duty, to venture outside my own comfort zone and explore something of the horizon, that is, something on the edge, of the spirituality of Epiphany.

The first reading today gives us the first six verses out of the short 22 verses of the 60^th chapter of Isaiah. It's almost like an invitation to look ahead. In the 19^th and 20^th verses we find the phrase repeated, "The Lord shall be your light forever." "The Lord—whose very name means "the one who will be what he will be"—"will be your light forever." Now, typically what I've done in the past is to stop here and reflect on how we can be light for the world and maybe make a comparison of the relative darkness into which the light shines, after all no one who watches the news could doubt that there's plenty of darkness. In the past I've given kind of a "here's what we're up against speech."

Now it's not that we shouldn't let our light shine—after all, how many of us as children were taught the verse, "This little light of mine. I'm going to let it shine"?—however, the light of Epiphany, rather than being our personal light, is the light of the one who lead the Hebrews out of the injustice of oppression and slavery in Egypt, which bears heavily on the latter part of Isaiah which was likely written toward the end of the period in Israel's history known as the Babylonian exile. I don't think that I'm too far off to say that the prophecy of Epiphany is the sign of a new Exodus—and one that really is relevant to situations of life in the year 2011. Also, if we go just outside the boundary of the lectionary, we can clearly see the appearance of new Moses and get a good idea of where it is that he wants to lead us.

If we read ahead just a few verses ahead of what is given to us today as our first reading, there may be a bit of a surprise for those not familiar with Isaiah. The very next chapter begins with these words, "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the lowly, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the Lord." These words are those which Jesus read as he began his ministry. They are the words of the proclamation of the kingdom which, as Jesus said at synagogue in Nazareth, were fulfilled in their hearing. It is the proclamation of a new era—the beginning of the Kingdom of God established here in our midst to move humanity out of the bondage of captivity. But like in the Exodus of old we too must wander in the wilderness of life where we encounter an existence that often seems to be paradoxical to the joyful vision of light. It's the paradox, say, of the kings and their caravan gathered worshipfully around a poor baby placed in a feed trough in Bethlehem. The kings, or the Magi, meet God, not in the majesty of their highest expectations but in the real-life lowliness of human existence. I like to think way back when I was just a kid in the 6^th grade and I had a classmate whose dad was a Baptist preacher. One day toward Christmas the kid exclaimed, "Poor little baby Jesus, born in a hog trough!" Well, he wasn't too far off.

These final chapters of Isaiah that surround today's reading, which are really the focus of the Epiphany message, present a shift from historical prophesies concerned with the captivity of Israel and perhaps the political realities of Persian Empire to an apocalyptic vision that transcends time and history where God enters into our world definitively to conquer everything that corrupts humanity, everything that binds it and holds it in captivity, oppression, or slavery, and he leads humanity across the spiritual river Jordan. "Arise Jerusalem, your light has come!" This is the herald of the new creation and of the last days, when Emmanuel will dwell among the people.

What this means for us is that we can take hold of the words of the prophet for our times and all times to come. We can face life in the year 2011 with confidence and courage because God is for us. We can see ourselves as belonging to the epic story of release from bondage: a release that demands an ethical response from us, the only response acceptable—the response of justice.

As we sojourn in life, as we wander about in our day-to-day existence, we are sure to encounter struggle and what may seem like adversarial forces. But rather than blaming evil, bad luck or even the devil for whatever challenges or failures there are, we might take the role of being responsible—and not just individually but more important collectively. It's not that our individual struggles don't matter. Contrarily, they do matter. However, it's that as a people overall there's a greater purpose for us. If it's true that our individual struggles give us an opportunity to meet God, then the struggles of humanity on the whole gives us an even greater vision of the God who is willing to enlighten us and even to reveal to us the truest epiphany by showing us the baby lying in the manger next to the animals. We see him in this state of having nothing aside from the love of his mother, which is quite opposite from what conventional wisdom might call blessedness, and learn his name, "The Lord is salvation," by embracing the same life and humanity that is his in the manger.

The Lord, he who will be what he will be, will pour out grace to us in this time of favor, of which the Apostle Paul says we are the stewards, so that we might meet every situation with courage, so that we might break the unjust fetters and undo the latches of the yoke; so that we might let the oppressed and the slave go free, and break every injustice, to share our very bread with the hungry, and to shelter and house the homeless poor, to clothe the naked from our own resources… to embrace the wonder of humanity as just God has given it, to step out of the old bondage of captivity, then our light shine like the dawn.