This was my final sermon as Rector of the Church of the Epiphany, a parish I have served with gratitude for twelve years, a people formed by and for the light and love of Christ. And yes, we did sing This Little Light of Mine as our sending hymn.

Having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road. I have been thinking a lot, it may not surprise you to learn, about that other road; those called to the manger to give witness to the birth of Christ the saviour, now being sent another way. 

I don’t know where it was that they found one another to travel together to Jerusalem and thence to Bethlehem. I do not know at what point on the journey home they said their goodbyes and parted ways, each to his own country. I imagine it was not easy to let go of such a fellowship forged in the fire of the star and the cold light of Herod’s treachery, and the gentle light of the stable full of the love of God. But at some point they divided their camel train and took the gospel home, each according to his own language, country, and call. 

You can see where I am going here. Nothing was lost. Nothing abandoned. Nothing diminished of what they had shared. They could not go back unchanged, unaffected by the stable light and the star’s insistent brightness and the soft glow of love that attended the infant and his mother. And they would always share that bond of knowledge of the love of God revealed there. Nothing could take away from that marvelous, miraculous journey, nor the moment of meeting Jesus. They simply travelled different roads home.

Now this version of events obviously makes some assumptions that build clouds of imagination out of the tight text of Matthew. It borrows from legends spun out over centuries of kings from continents and subcontinents converging on the holy land in search of a savior who would bring the world together.

There is another ancient version of events that builds its own mountain of myths. It is called The Revelation of the Magi,^[i] and it tells the story of a people descended from Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve, living in the land of Shir, on the easternmost edge of the world. For generations, the story goes, these Magi had passed on the prophecy of God’s incarnation and set aside treasure to bring as an offering. Now, the time had come to pass and the people in worship saw the star that would bear witness to the birth of God on earth.

It was not only three of the Magi, but a whole community, and each saw within the star an image, an icon of Christ, some in one phase or another of his earthly life, and others as he is in eternity. For Christ had – has – the ability to appear to each as they have need or desire to see him. We have seen him here, in community: life, in death, in life eternal; although Herod, of course, did not notice the Son of God within the Star of Bethlehem. 

In this legend, this Star-Jesus not only led the Magi but fed them on their way, sustained them in the wilderness, both coming to and going from Bethlehem. Returning to the land of Shir and to their people, they shared the holy food and drink given them by the Star-Jesus, and told them (and here I quote from the translation provided by Brent Landau),

“… his great power and his revelations will indeed stay with you, because he is also here in truth, as he spoke to us, and we believe that his light is not removed from our encampment. Indeed, again, he is in the entire world, for he is the light that is all-sufficient and all-enlightening by his perfect love. Everyone who wishes, receive without doubt, with a whole heart and true faith, and eat from these provisions, which have come with us. And be deemed worthy, and you, too, join in his blessing, which accompanies us and is with us forever.”

Doesn’t that sound familiar? It sounds to me like a Holy Communion.

The legends and myths of the kings and the Magi, drawn from faithful, imaginative engagement with the biblical text, resonate with us as a church as we draw together to seek the same saving grace: God with us, Emmanuel; a holy Communion in Christ. The legends reflect our life together as a church, as people, whose paths converge and cross and diverge on the journey toward Christ. We will mark one such departure this morning. After twelve years together, we will remain always united in our experience of God in Christ and in this gathering at the manger and the table and the cross; and yet we will leave by different roads. I will still love you and serve you as I can, but I will no longer be your rector. And you, you will still be the Church of the Epiphany, called and commissioned to shine as Christ’s light in the world, radiant with the revelation of the love of God that is for everyone; a whole community, called together and blessed to be a blessing for the world around you. I have seen, over the years, the gifts that you bring, the way that you shine, and the way that you love one another. And so you are, so you have been, and so you will be. And you will meet up with others on the same journey toward Bethlehem, and travel together for the time that God has given you on the same road, and Jesus will sustain you.

If the legends of the three kings emphasize our journey to find Christ, the Revelation of the Magi is concerned with Jesus’ journey to find us. He came to a whole community and showed them who he is, who he was, who he will be; and they bore witness to him, and shared with one another the light and the joy of his coming. When the Magi marvelled that Jesus could be in the Star, and on their mountain, and becoming born in Bethlehem, all at once, he told them (again, in the translation of Landau),

 “I am everywhere, and there is no land in which I am not. I am also where you departed from me, for I am greater than the sun, and there is no place in the world that is deprived of it, even though it is a single entity; yet if it departs from the world, all its inhabitants sit in darkness. How much more I, who am the Lord of the sun, … my light and word … more abundant … than the sun.”

“His great power and his revelations will indeed stay with you.” There is nowhere that Jesus is not, and no one for whom Jesus was not born in Bethlehem, and his star, his light shines upon and within and among us, all of us, wherever we are, wherever we go, forever, and undimmed. 

^[i] Summary and quotes derived from Revelation of the Magi: the lost tale of the wise men’s journey to Bethlehem, by Brent Landau (HarperCollins E-books, 2010), accessed via Kindle