Epiphany Sunday, 2002 Susan J. Barnes

Isaiah 60:1-6, 9 St. Matthew's Austin

Matthew 1:1-12

Let me begin with greetings for a very blessed New Year to you all. I missed you last Sunday. Joe was kind enough to give me that day off so that I could spend three full days after Christmas in the Big Bend and drive back on Sunday. Being there, hiking a different trail every day under brilliant blue skies, I had my own little ephiphanies.

Those of you who know the place will understand what I mean when I say that Big Bend gives us a glimpse of God. First there is God's Creation itself: nature in all of her timeless grandeur, majesty, and complexity. But, also, trying to fathom Big Bend is a little bit like trying to fathom the nature of God. It's impossible--in a word. No matter where you stand there, the landscape is so vast, so limitless, so immense, so varied, that you see more than you can even begin to take in. Move a little bit, or watch the light change--which it does unceasingly--and you are in an entirely different place. It is infinite. Unfathomable. Being there is humbling in the extreme.

Big Bend is also one of the best places in this country to think about light. That's because it's one of the few places where it gets dark enough. Just as we need silence to appreciate music, only in the darkness can we truly see the light.

On December 26, at the end of a long day's drive from Houston, my friend Posy and I turned south from Alpine just as the sun was setting in an open sky. We spent the next hour moving toward the tiny town of Study Butte through the deepening twilight. Apart from our headlights on the road ahead, only God's light could be seen all around: the sunset glow behind the mountains, a waxing moon above, planets, and stars appearing as the sky grew darker--east to west. In eighty miles of highway, there was a lone house here, one there, a lighted sign or two--no towns, not even a store--nothing that could to break the darkness, the sense of mystery, the sense of our vulnerability in a place so isolated, so unpopulated.

Only in darkness can we truly see the light. Until very recently, all human beings lived by God's light alone. The sun, the moon, the stars were our constant companions; they became the building blocks of our knowledge. Through their study we came to understand time, the seasons, the earth and the universe. The stars steered all human travel on land or sea. Our knowledge of the skies was the basis first for our survival, then for our success as a species.

Today most of us know more about astrology than astronomy. We may get a factoid from Star Date on NPR, but few of us--I suspect--even are aware of the phases of the moon. We don't usually see the sun rise and set. And city lights block all but the brightest stars and planets. The competition is too great. Indeed, with a very low cloud cover, the lights of Houston can be reflected above the horizon fifty miles away. Don't get me wrong: I'm a city girl--the bigger, the better. And I'm woefully wedded to such comforts as a roof and hot water. But Big Bend taught me a little bit about what we have lost in the glare of our city lights.

"Arise, shine; for your light has come," wrote the prophet. "For darkness shall cover the earth and thick darkness the peoples, but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you." Matthew tells how the wise men, travelling through the utter darkness of the countryside in deep winter, saw a star at its rising and followed it to where Jesus lay. For the writers of scripture light was a metaphor that was grounded in everyone's experience. We have lost the existential power of that metaphor. We have tamed it without even knowing we have. Not so long ago, our forebears were all as vulnerable to the elements, to darkness, to isolation as most of the world's households and our own homeless still are today.

In that world, Christmas wasn't the pretext for the biggest commercial season of the year. Christmas and Epiphany had real meaning, palpable meaning. These festivals that celebrate the inexplicable miracle that the Creator of the Universe came to earth as a humble, vulnerable child brought hope, warmth, and gaiety to the shortest, coldest, bleakest days of the year.

Today the feasts still have power and meaning. For they assert that in the darkest, most barren or broken hours of our lives, God's light shines unfailingly. They proclaim Immanuel: God with us. They affirm God's eternal spirit, warmth, and love. They hold out the hope for renewal of the earth and of ourselves--for our healing and our reconcilliation with God and one another.

Jesus said "I am the Light of the World," to a people that really knew the meaning of darkness—including rejection, oppression, and terror.

We may understand it better now ourselves. September 11 gave the people of this land a new experience of the kind that the prophet evoked: "For darkness shall cover the earth and thick darkness the peoples." Out of that darkness and the struggles that have ensued, out of our experience of grief and vulnerability, many of us better appreciate the power of God's light, the consolation of God's presence. In the aftermath of September 11, some of us had a different kind of Christmas, one perhaps that was more like those of times past, in which we prized the simple pleasures of being with those we love more than anything else.

God is with us. God came in manifestations of light to the shepherds in their fields, to the wisemen as they journeyed. God pierced the solitude and darkness that surrounded them and led them to discover and worship the child who would redeem all of humankind. We cannot reverse the progress that has bathed us in city lights. Nor will most of us abandon our comforts for the wilds of God's immense creation, except as tourists. But each of us has known darkness in our personal lives. Each of us has been covered in "thick darkness" and will be again--through the loss of a beloved, through struggles with our work or health, or trials we share with our closest friends and family.

Ephiphany is not just a celebration for January 6. It is a truth for all of our seasons of depression, suffering, and isolation. Indeed, in such times, God's light can mean all the more--because it is shining in the darkness.

How do we perceive the gentle glow from the manger? How do we hear the still, small voice? That's hard for modern senses, overloaded with ambient light and sounds, bombarded with messages from the media, buried in our own busy-ness of mind and action.

Like the shepherds and the wise men we must make the journey--though ours is internal. Like them, we have to set aside our other occupations and agendas to seek the Christ child. We have to find the silence and create the space in our lives and souls for God. The wise men brought material offerings, but what mattered most was their presence. For God, our presence really is the present--it's the only thing that God asks. We have to show up, with listening hearts.

What happens then? I can't say for anyone but myself: sometimes nothing noticeable, at other times inspiration, insight, comfort, peace, contentment, and on and on. Like the Big Bend it is infinitely varied. What I can say--with certitude--is that like the Big Bend, it's worth the trip.