Bishop Mathes’ Epiphany Message 2017

“In just a few days, we will celebrate the feast of the epiphany and then be launched into that season of epiphany where increasingly Jesus is, more and more, revealed to us as the messiah. Through his teaching, through the miracles that he performs as he calls his first disciples, we see who he is, and what it means to be Emmanuel, God With Us.

Let’s take a moment and reflect more deeply on that first Epiphany when the wise men came from the east as gentiles, discovering the Christ, the Messiah. It’s worth noting that as they come, they pause in Jerusalem, to seek the guidance from Herod, to discern where this child may be. They followed the star just a few miles further down to Bethlehem where the Son of David is to be born. We are told there, in Matthew’s gospel, that that find the holy family not in a manger, but in a house, and in that house, they present their gifts and then go back another way.

This first Epiphany occurs in the real world where kings are present and where political intrigue is a part of the world. Indeed if we were to read just a few pages further we would hear of the flight into Egypt as that holy family flees as Herod seeks to end the Christ’s reign before he even begins.

We, too, like those wise men, seek Christ today in the real world, a world filled with intrigues and problems and fears but if we are relentless like those wise men of old, we too can find on the pathways of our lives, Jesus. So I invite you in the season of epiphany to listen well to the stories, but also to be watchful in your daily lives, that Christ will be manifest in your presence.”