Arise! Shine!
Epiphany January 5, 2025
The texts for this service are: Lamentations 1:1-2,4,14; Isaiah 60:1-5a and Matthew 1:1-12.
The poet of Lamentations tells of a people in a dark, oppressive, defeated place; subjugated by Babylonian rule; their Jerusalem sacked, their Temple burned to the ground. Many of Jerusalem’s inhabitants are in servitude in Babylon those left behind are in hovels praying marauders won’t steal their meager harvest.
The life they knew--the rhythm of work and play, the joy of child-making and child-birthing, of feasting and dancing gone. It feels like a deep thick darkness. It seems to covers the earth with no light on any horizon. He describes their grief like a woman weeping bitterly.
Isaiah too describes the destroyed city of Zion like a woman in mourning for her lost children. He uses the feminine imperatives Arise, shine. He tells the beleaguered exiles that they are to arise and shine as would a grieving woman upon seeing her children returning to her.
Here again, the Old Testament pairs darkness and light, despair and hope, doom and renewal.
Isaiah issues a refrain that’s repeated time and again in scripture: when it feels there is no future, no reason to hope, God is at work. God is bringing light, illuminating a path forward. God is gifting insight and revelation. God is beckoning, reaching out, drawing in.
And this community, whose fortunes are to be restored and their nation elevated to a place of honor among the nations is commanded to rise and shine, to radiate this Holy glory even before it happens. They are to leave off groping in the dark, wishing for a better day and act instead as if God’s Word is in complete fulfillment.
This story of light countering darkness is told again in our Matthew text. In this story, darkness is personified in the person of Herod: a cowardly, suspicious, vengeful man willing to kill infants to protect his hold on power.
He is set beside the sages from the East, ironically sages who likely came from Babylon (the place of Israel’s former exile) but also the seat of ancient astronomical studies where these sages, versed in the movement of the stars, saw a light rise in the sky and recognized its significance.
This recognition launched these sages on an arduous quest. These strangers, these outsiders, these citizens of an ancient enemy gather their gear, hire a caravan, say farewell to their families and comfortable lives, and set out on a dangerous open-country journey to find the one to whom the light belongs.
These men of the light encounter a man of darkness before their quest is fulfilled.
Our common Christmas telling of this account in Matthew does not do it justice. We emphasize the wise men as we call them, and most of us can recite from memory the gifts they give Jesus but we ignore Herod. How often do we ask why he’s included in the otherwise lovely story of Jesus’ birth.
Why is Matthew’s account of the wise men linked with Isaiah 60 which speaks of darkness covering the earth. What are we to make of this link up between the Light of the star and wise men and the darkness represented by Herod? Do we think it has anything of import to tell us besides telling us about gold, frankincense, and myrrh?
To start with, we know that this tension between Light and Dark is as active today as it ever was. It doesn’t look so very different than in Isaiah’s time with thousands besieged by oppressive violence all over the world. We see darkness all around us in vacuous pursuits, in addictions, depression, fractured marriages, greed that leaves millions hungry and homeless while others enjoy unconscionable wealth. We see darkness in rabid fundamentalism and tyrannical fanatics.
And can’t we name examples of people and entities determined to retain power at any cost? People and entities the likes of Herod?
So, yes, Isaiah and Matthew have something to tell us; something important. They reference a darkness in our wider world, to be sure, but remember Isaiah and Matthew are speaking to the faithful; to the church if you will. These texts offer the faithful both hope and caution.
Organized religion, just like any institution, has a strong sense of self preservation. A faith community launches with a sense of purpose and identity, then gains money and position and those in service to the organization can favor preservation over purpose.
What started as a spiritual awakening fossilizes into dogma and proforma ritual or comfortable routines. This movement isn’t intentional, it’s natural to become enamored with success or, rather, to forget what success is to look like in God’s economy and to favor familiarity over inspiration.
When a community of faith loses sight of its true purpose and doesn’t actively pursue God’s purposes or inspiration, its light dims; its joy recedes; its hope fades. Other dynamics take their place: befuddlement, discouragement, inertia.
This is a dynamic church historians have named New Light and Old Light. These terms were introduced in the First Great Spiritual Awakening in our country that took place between 1730-1760.
The Old Light: The imported European model of church life
feared the New Light that called for leaving the European
creeds for a more open, democratic way of worship.
John Wesley met up with this when he tried to revitalize The Church of England. This is Methodism’s story. The Church of England evicted him from its pulpits so he preached in fields. And there he found throngs hungry for a vital, living, lift-infused, hope-filled, life-changing gospel.
This Old Light, New Light tension or the Darkness-Light equation spoken of in our biblical text is something that is present in individual congregations. Stephen Lytch in his commentary on Isaiah 60 says
“Sometimes the very things people love most about their churches are the things that keep them from fulfilling the mission of being a light to the world that beckons others to Christ.” (Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol 1, p197)
This dynamic resides in the human heart as well. The familiar and comfortable wars with curiosity and longing and this is the dark against the light dynamic.
This is the contrast we see in our story of the Wise Men, is it not? The Wise men, upon seeing a sign in the sky they understand to be significant, set out to find the one it announces. They do so at great risk and cost. They do so with persistence as they keep pointing their slow-striding camels in the direction of their heart’s desire.
Herod, intent on maintaining his status quo, tries to manipulate them. The dark seeking to thwart the light. Matthew tells us that Herod is so intent on retaining power and position he is willing to murder infants. That’s darkness. But the Wise men heed the warning dream and protect the Light.
We should note that even before the Wise men see the desire of their hearts, the fulfillment of their purpose, they are overwhelmed with joy. Their joy erupted in anticipation and belief and that joy led them then, to worship.
Do we comprehend what the poets, prophets and gospel writers tell us about how God works and how we are to serve God’s purpose, God’s cosmic work?
Can we comprehend how important it is, how necessary it is, that we Rise and shine? That no matter how dire our circumstances, be they personal or corporate, that we defy things like discouragement, hopelessness, apathy, fatigue, complicity. And, instead, rise to full height and shine with hope and with faith, ready to praise and worship God. That’s what the wise men did.
I want to conclude with another quote from Rev Stephens Lytch:
When we gather to worship, we are in the company of people from all nations and of all ages…Isaiah opens the window to something more that is going on: God is gathering the multitudes. The local gathering that…may seem like a stunted version of the sacred throng in Isaiah, but the worshiping congregation is a representation of something beyond itself. It is the resident manifestation of God’s expansive realm. (Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol 1)
The worship Lytch speaks of is the kind of worship the beleaguered exiles were called to offer through their thanksgiving for the yet unseen restoration, the kind of worship the wise men offered in their sacrificial heeding of the light. Worship that defies the darkness by giving glory to and living into the Light of Christ. It’s the kind of worship that makes a difference in how we live; in how we be church.
Perhaps as we embark on this new year we might be wise to ask ourselves: Does my worship change how I live (not how I lived once in the past) but how I live now? Does our worship as a church change our church? How earnestly and faithfully do we defy darkness with light?