A Famine Not of Bread

"Adoration of the Magi" by Rembrandt Click here to listen to this sermon. Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and His glory will be seen upon you. And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising   (Isaiah 60:1-3). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Today is the Feast of the Epiphany of our Lord, the beginning of the church season in which we celebrate the Lord Jesus manifesting Himself to the world as God. “Epiphany” comes from the word “to shine,” and the picture is of that light shining into the darkness and overtaking it. In the past few weeks, we have been talking and singing about light—about Jesus, the Light of the world. At candlelight services on Christmas Eve, we sang about the “Son of God, love’s pure light.” We sang about how in...

Cl ick here f or a n audio version of this sermon.   The text for today is our Gospel, Matthew 2:1-12, which has already been read. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Merry Christmas!  Actually, to be more specific: Merry Christmas of the Gentiles!  Those of you who follow the Church year perhaps noticed that yesterday was the twelfth and final day of Christmas.  Today begins Epiphany, the season in which the Child who was born in Bethlehem is manifested to the world as God.  Epiphany has been called the “Christmas of the Gentiles,” because the story of the magi has been associated with it.  The magi were the first Gentile worshipers of the Messiah.  Until then, the only ones to worship Jesus were Israelites: a bunch of shepherds from the fields near Bethlehem, and Simeon and Anna in the temple courts in Jerusalem.  But the magi were Persians, (from the region of modern day Iraq and Iran).  They...