Today is something of Epiphany part two (or The Epiphany Strikes Back if you prefer). If you remember from last week the epiphany that we commemorated was the revelation to the wise men that the King of the Jews had been born. The big deal there was that those outside of the Jewish faith were now receiving such a knowledge or in the word of the day such an epiphany. Today the epiphany that we remember comes during the Baptism of Jesus where we read, “When Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’" So the revealing here is somewhat similar and somewhat different. In one sense there is an announcement about Jesus to a group who were previously unaware, making it similar to the announcement given by the star to the Wise Men. But it diverges by offering a bit more information about whom exactly Jesus is. The Wise Men only knew that the King of the Jews had been born, which incidentally, is why King Herod got so worked up last week, because this was more or less his job description. And as a puppet king of Imperial Rome he did not want a usurper being born right under his nose. Today though, there is additional clarification and that clarification comes from the lips of God himself announcing that Jesus is his Son, the beloved. And while both the Wise Men and God’s statement are true, the statement from God starts getting us to a fuller understanding of who Jesus is and what he is all about.
What I mean by this is that when we say King of the Jews it is very easy for us to give it a human context. And as I said technically Herod was King of the Jews and he did things like kill his wife, his brother in law and for good measure three of his sons. And while maybe not rooting for these kind of messy family dynamics there were many in the Jewish community who were looking for a messiah who would be a king with a violent disposition. That is, they were looking for a king who would rid Israel of their Roman oppressors and the best way to do that in many schools of thought was to have a king, in the model of David, who would lead an army to wipe out the Roman army. But with today’s epiphany we start to see that Jesus is going to go down a path that is not necessarily the one we would have chosen, because a description as both King of the Jews and Son of God does not allow for a king defined in earthy terms. In the book of Isaiah we hear God say, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.” The Son of God has come, but because he is also God, he will come with the characteristics of God. And while this may have been a bit difficult for those who were at Christ’s baptism to grasp the ramifications of what they were being told, we are fortunate, because we have the rest of the Gospel account and therefore know what the mission of Jesus is going to look like. We know how the Son of God will act on the earth and we know that it will be surprising and also somewhat confusing for those of us used to earthly kings.
In the United States we do not have a whole lot of experience with earthly kings only politicians. But I assume there is not a big difference. We vote for politicians because they promise to fix all of our problems. And in practical terms the way this often works itself out is they promise that all of our problems are external to us. We can continue doing exactly what we want, but with them in office we will get different results. And so naturally when we hear that Jesus will be king we think of this king as one who will solve our problems, which in one sense is true. However it will not be done in the way politician’s promise, that is by fixing everyone else; it will mainly be done by fixing us. Yes, Jesus chased the moneychangers out of the Temple but most of the time he was telling us things like give away our second coat or turn the other cheek. They were very personal instructions. Jesus very much shunned all trappings of an earthly king and all which that entailed. In John 6:15 we read, “When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.” For the most part Jesus stayed out of political solutions and instead focused on smaller and more personal things. Things that were the purview of a heavenly king not an earthly one. And so I know you have had over a months reprieve on my quoting The Mountain of Silence but that reprieve is about to be over so strap yourselves in, its Fr. Maximos time. He stated in terms of Jesus, “People don’t understand that Christ’s focus and preoccupations were not with issues and concerns of this world. Many people want to see Christ as some kind of social reformer doing good deeds and little else…But his primary concern and His central preoccupation was with the very essence of human existence, the salvation of human beings in God’s kingdom.”
The other day I got an email, well actually the church got an email from a religious organization. The strange thing is that it was purely about politics and not even the kind that is dressed up with religious trappings. It was instead about what was largely a legislative procedural question that would benefit one political party over the other. I don’t want to get into the specifics, but I found it very disturbing because it subordinated the City of God to the City of Man. What I mean by this is that it sought to use God in the service of an earthly power struggle. God was only important to the extent that he was cheering for their team. This is not Christianity it is rather paganism. The Roman world into which Christ came had lots of gods and their gods demanded sacrifices in exchange for putting their thumb on the scale to ensure whatever it was that you wanted. If you voted for the right god, you got what you wanted. But Christ’s coming is about what God wants and that is for us to be reconciled to Him. But the only way for that to happen is for us to change so that we may be completely receptive to God’s call on our lives. God gave us an epiphany today with the words “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." God sent his Son to reconcile us to him but this can only be done on God’s terms, otherwise we are asking God to reconcile himself to us. We are asking the unchanged one to change so that we do not have to.
Let me finish with one more bit from Fr. Maximos and what Christ came to do. He says Christ’s mission “Aims at healing our existence, our personhood and sealing our communion with the Divine.” Or in the words of the great fourth century theologian St. Athanasius, “God became man so that men might become gods.” Christ came to heal us one person at a time because that is the only way for us to be in communion with God. When we are healed we are changed and are able to be so filled with God that when people see us they see God. Humanity desires a King who will fix our problems without asking us to change, but Christ came to help us change, to help turn our hearts to God so that we may be his both now and forevermore.