{"id":1269,"date":"2014-01-05T07:41:32","date_gmt":"2014-01-05T12:41:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1269"},"modified":"2014-01-05T07:41:32","modified_gmt":"2014-01-05T12:41:32","slug":"homily-the-epiphany-of-the-lord-year-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/homily-the-epiphany-of-the-lord-year-a\/","title":{"rendered":"Homily – The Epiphany of the Lord, Year A"},"content":{"rendered":"

Epiphany, Year A<\/a>
\nIsaiah 60:1-6
\nEphesians 3:2-3a, 5-6
\nMatthew 2:1-12
\nJanuary 5, 2014<\/p>\n

The magi see a star and knew it signified the birth of a newborn king and not just any king but a newborn king of the Jews.<\/p>\n

In those days, it was not uncommon for people to believe that a star would appear when a new king was born.\u00a0 What is amazing is the magi are willing to travel a great distance to see the newborn king of the Jews and they aren\u2019t even Jewish.\u00a0 They are Gentiles!<\/p>\n

When the new prince was born in England last summer, many people watched the news across the world but didn\u2019t travel a great distance to see him.\u00a0 The Magi did for Jesus.<\/p>\n

Where are the Jews who should be coming to see their newborn king?\u00a0 This is something they have been waiting a long time for.<\/p>\n

Anyone could have seen the star.\u00a0 It is the Gentile Magi who respond and come to see this Epiphany.<\/p>\n

What is it that they see?\u00a0 They gazed upon the scene depicted in our nativity, the scene of the birth of our Savior.\u00a0 They looked upon Jesus.<\/p>\n

Why did they come?\u00a0 Some come to see a king to ask some for something.\u00a0 They asked Jesus for nothing.\u00a0 In fact, they came bearing gifts.<\/p>\n

Seeing Jesus they saw an epiphany of the Lord, a life changing event.\u00a0 An epiphany is a revelation or manifestation of God.\u00a0 We call this scene, The Epiphany<\/i> but we can read of other epiphanies of the Lord in the Old Testament, like the burning bush.<\/p>\n

Won\u2019t it be wonderful to have such an epiphany?<\/p>\n

It would be a life changing moment.<\/p>\n

Sometimes when we feel like we are living in darkness, we pray for God\u2019s light.\u00a0 The darkness can be caused by a range of things, the death of a loved one, cancer, something in our children\u2019s or spouse\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n

When we see such darkness, we seek light but it can seem difficult or impossible to find.\u00a0 We want to see the burning bush or the baby Jesus or an angel with a message.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t get it.<\/p>\n

Does that mean God isn\u2019t appearing to us?\u00a0 Does it mean that God isn\u2019t present with us?\u00a0 Absolutely not!<\/p>\n

God is always with us.\u00a0 It\u2019s just hard to see.\u00a0 Sometimes we have too many distractions.\u00a0 Sometimes we are looking in the wrong places.<\/p>\n

We look for God to whisk away all our problems when sometimes God wants to lead us through them.<\/p>\n

Here I think of the days I have where it seems there is too much work to do. \u00a0I pray that God would just whisk some of the work away.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t.\u00a0 That doesn\u2019t mean that God doesn\u2019t help me with my work (especially since my work is God\u2019s ministry!).<\/p>\n

When I reflect on those tough days, often only after the fact do I see God\u2019s presence in a few ways.\u00a0 First, the work doesn\u2019t disappear but sometimes it gets done faster than I expected.\u00a0 Sometimes, when the work is done, I realize how amazing it is that it got done.\u00a0 In either of these cases, I realize God\u2019s grace in getting the work done.<\/p>\n

There can also be days when I have a lot to get done and never get to it because something else comes up like an unexpected call to the hospital.\u00a0 I go and realize that the emergency call is more important in God\u2019s eyes than the \u201cother stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, when I am having a bad day, I remember the times like these and realize I can count on God to help me.\u00a0 I don\u2019t get the huge epiphany I am looking for but I can live with an \u201cattitude of gratitude\u201d knowing that God will always help me.<\/p>\n

We can come to Jesus as a king to ask for something (and we should express our needs) but then to trust in him with an \u201cattitude of gratitude\u201d and seek to use our gifts to serve God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Epiphany, Year A Isaiah 60:1-6 Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6 Matthew 2:1-12 January 5, 2014 The magi see a star and knew it signified the birth of a newborn king and not just any king but a newborn king of the Jews. In those days, it was not uncommon for people to believe that a star would …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Homily – The Epiphany of the Lord, Year A’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-kt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1269"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1269"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1270,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1269\/revisions\/1270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}