Sermon Preached at Northbrae Community Church, January 14, 2001, By Ron Sebring

From the Christian tradition, today is the 2^nd Sunday after Epiphany. Its color is green. The season follows Christmas and seeks to magnify the meaning of Christmas. If Christmas is an explosion, Epiphany is the spray of particles from that explosion. 

Epiphany is one of the oldest and most important festival days in the Christian tradition. It dates back to the latter half of the 2^nd century. Clement of Alexandria, among the earliest of Christian writings, refers to the importance of celebrating Epiphany on January 6.

In the earliest years of Christianity, it was one of the three most central celebrations in the Christian Faith - Christmas … Easter … and Epiphany. Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus; Easter reviews the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Epiphany remembers the three wise men that came to see Jesus.

This raises a puzzle. Why would the visit of the three wise men be elevated in importance to the birth, and the resurrection of Jesus? Why would today’s American Christian culture so thoroughly ignore it?

‘Epiphany’ is from the Greek word ‘Epiphaneia,’ which means manifestation. I like what a good friend of mine said … words are like little buckets that hold many different meanings … many subtle connotations. The word ‘Epiphany’ rather means one of those "A-Ha" experiences. A ‘light bulb’ moment.

We get a picture of the cartoon of a person who realizes something for the first time … The artist draws a light bulb just over their head. It is that moment of realization … when we recognize for the first time what something means. Epiphany is about FIRSTS.

Scripturally, this is what the season of Epiphany is about.

It symbolizes both the FIRSTS in the life of Jesus as well as moments when it first dawns upon us, the deeper and personal meanings.

"So THIS is what Christmas means."

"So THIS is how God works in and through our suffering."

"So THIS is what the resurrection means, for me, personally."

"So THIS is what the Magi were all about."

"So THIS is a water-into-wine miracle is in my life."

This, the second Sunday after Epiphany … recognizes the first miracle of Jesus. At the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee, Jesus turned water into wine. Symbolically or whatever, people for the first time realized the power in this new manifestation of God … a power making concrete differences in life.

It is a power not just to meet the basic needs of life, but for the quality of life. This was a quality wine they were drinking.

Six jars, each one holding 20 to 30 gallons of wine; that is a lot of wine.

The reference is that this is the second course, after they ran out of wine from the first course. Either the whole town was at this party, or it was quite a party. The reference is to the quality of wine, and the implication is that God is concerned about the quality of our life, that we enjoy the good things that God has laid in our laps. Epiphany is when we first realize this as true for us, today.

Last Sunday, the first Sunday after Epiphany, we remembered the baptism of Jesus, and how the heavens opened, and the Spirit descended like a Dove, and how God said, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I’m well pleased."

At the baptism, we have the first Divine pronouncement about Jesus. God’s first stamp of approval. This was important, theologically, in the early church’s life … seeding a controversy over the so called "adoptionist theory," which says that Jesus wasn’t born into his role, but was a normal human being adopted or chosen by God at this point – as the heavens opened and God spoke.

Of course, the powers-to-be had the majority vote, and banished this theory as heresy. Still, the controversy points to an effort by some to picture Jesus more humanly back in those early days. It shows how significant, or central, this first Divine pronouncement was.

Epiphany, itself, is always on January 6, and recognizes the visit of the three wise men. The visit of the Magi. This is the first manifestation of Jesus to the Gentiles. The first recognition that Jesus, his meaning and his message, is inclusive.

It is an embrace of other culture’s expression of religion.

For who were the Magi? Three priests from a foreign religion, who, in the context and integrity of their own faith, saw the relevance of the birth of Jesus. Perhaps this inclusiveness, elevated to such high esteem by the festivities of Epiphany, points to a central meaning and is the very reason it is ignored by religious and cultural exclusivity.

Epiphany is not just about remembering and retelling Bible Stories. Epiphany is an "A-Ha" experience, a "light bulb" moment. Epiphany is about rediscovering at a deeper and more personal level an inner meaning. We have our Epiphanies at the level of our hearts as well as our heads.

Epiphany is the kindling for our DEVOTION.

Feel the devotion in this passage from Isaiah, one of the texts for today. Isa 62:3-4 … You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate. But you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land will be called Beulah Land (A land married to the Lord); for the LORD delights in you, and your land shall be married to God. The movement in this passage is from feeling FORSAKEN by God to feeling the EMBRACE of God. That the very land upon which one stands is Beulah Land … a land married to God … a land with history … a land with a story. In the Jewish tradition, we still see this reverence for the Land even today. Epiphany is the movement of our hearts from FORSAKEN to EMBRACED.

Back in seminary, I took a course entitled "Church as a Social Institution." That was a controversial course, for the fundamentalist in the class thought of the church as the "Body of Christ," and that it was somehow sacrilege to compare it to a social institution. The professor was persistent, and offered some profound insights.

We studied the life cycles of institutions, and examined how they apply to the church. Hertzler’s theory, I believe, (time as a way of fogging the memory), says that institutions go through a life cycle of four stages.

First is the period of inception when things get organized and people go through their growing pains. Second is the period of efficiency during which the organization does what its goals set out to do. Third is a period of formalism. People forget the goals, the reason that formed the institution, but continue the forms and rituals they have always known. Of course, this leads to the fourth period, the period of decline.

Within the last few years, I came across another theory of institutional life cycles and how it applies to the church. This model is called, "The Vitality Curve," developed by a consulting group in Cincinnati, Ohio, Management Design, Inc. It is credited to Dr. Robert Hoover who originally called it, The Grid. It traces this same pattern, labeling each stage by a different name and offering helpful insights.

It identifies the pattern of what happens when things start falling apart. There is operational doubt when people begin to question how things operate and how to fix it … the HOW stage. Next ideological doubt when people begin to question ideas. Here is where things get notoriously political … the WHAT stage. Next and finally ethical doubt where WHO the issue becomes. Personalities become the issue, and here is where people start leaving. The Vitality Curve also identifies what is necessary to heal, how to avoid the doubts … go back and recover the original story. Recover the stories of how it all got going. Recover the ideals, goals, and paradigms in those stories.

The reason I bring all this up is that I got a key from Earl this last week, and got to rummaging through that store room just off the gallery, and found some of Laurance Cross’ old sermons. Laurance Cross also had an understanding of this model. He had it years before some of these other theories were developed and he says it in a much more poetic way, with alliteration in a sermon preached on October 25, 1964 and credited to Tolstoy.

Cross identifies four stages of a church: devotion, duty, disillusionment, and DISCARD. "When religious people swerve from their purpose, things petrify. Fixed forms become more and more important as influence becomes less and less." To avoid the dangers of the latter, stick with the former … Devotion. Keep our devotion, and we keep our religion. We keep our church. Feel the land upon which we stand as Married to God (a place where each rock has a story to tell) … for we divine our epiphanies out of the depths of our devotion … only as we stand on Holy Ground.