Today, the Christian world celebrates Twelfth Night. As we church folk measure time we call Twelfth Night Epiphany, and recognize the moment those Magi, led by the rising star, make their way to the Bethlehem stable. In this season, we recognize the light leading the whole world to affirm a new sovereign. No longer is this Jesus simply one born a so-called "king of the Jews." When those Magi kneel in homage at the manger, when they offer their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, Jesus gains recognition as the Christ, the One sent as King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Sovereign of Sovereigns. Today we recognize in Matthew's great passage the manifestation, the revelation within human life of the Christ who changes the world, the revelation of the Almighty's design for a new creation, a new humanity, a new you, a new me. And yet another darker, more ominous thread wends its way through this passage as well. It colors all of Matthew's narrative. We find Jesus born into Herod's kind of world. While those visitors from abroad kneel at the manger, King Herod sets out to kill the baby. While one sector of the world pays homage and receives Jesus as the Christ, another sector reacts in terror and rejects him. On the occasion of the new age breaking in upon us, the rulers of the old age slaughter little boy babies across Judah. In this event, in this stark narrative, we encounter the choices Jesus Christ confronts us with always: acceptance or rejection; yes or no. Indeed, this story of Matthew's has been called "The Gospel in Miniature" because it anticipates the response to Jesus as the Christ not only in the Gospels, but throughout all of history. Matthew puts it bluntly: shall we, like those three magi, receive this Christ; or shall we, like Herod, or solid religious characters like the scribes and Pharisees, reject the Christ?

I

As we confront Matthew's choices, we need see what acceptance means. The New Testament is clear about that: The receiving and acceptance of Jesus as the Christ in this kind of world means openness; it means a certain re-creation. To stand by the manger means, ethically, we take on God's cause, a cause no less than the cause of humankind, your cause and mine. To follow the Bethlehem star means throwing ourselves into the wellbeing of men, women, children, our brothers and sisters. It means not-counting-the-cost, so that healing, reconciliation and peace may serve as the measure of our lives and the life of the world. And yes, those who kneel with Magi at the manger in Herod's kind of world will get laughed at, find themselves accused of naiveté, out of touch with reality; they may discover themselves impoverished, overextended or in court; they will find themselves stretched, avoided, uninvited to chic parties in the right precincts, but they will finally discover joy, purpose, a new, true self.

Dorothy Day, that radical Catholic, who spent much of her life stumbling after Christ's rising star, captures the essence of our saying "yes" to Jesus in Herod's kind of world. Listen:

We have to think in terms of the Beatitudes and the sermon on the mount . . . We have not yet loved our neighbor with the kind of love that is a precept to the extent of laying down our life for him or her. And our life very often means our money that we have sweated for; it means our bread, our daily living, our rent, our clothes. We haven't shown ourselves ready to lay down our life. That is the new precept, it is a new way, it is a new person we are supposed to become. To say "yes" to Christ in Herod's world means risk, it means danger, it means finally discovering a radiance and joy in life we so desperately long for.

II

Yet in so many cases our choices miss the mark. Herod and his ilk continue to rule us. Herod is the real world we say; the world of clashing interests, the world of necessity, the world where we have to do what we have to do. In one of the great modern meditations dealing with the constraints and limitations of our lives, W.H. Auden describes Herod himself brooding over what he considers the necessary assassination of this newborn baby, this rumored king. Jesus must die. Reality demands it. Auden's Herod sees the world turned upside down by Jesus, "a new aristocracy," he laments, "hermits, bums, rough diamonds, consumptive whores, bandits who are good to their mothers." "Naturally," he exclaims, "this cannot be allowed to happen." Civilization must be saved even it means sending for the military, as I suppose it does. "Why is it," Herod asks, "that civilization always has to call in these professional tidiers to whom it is all one whether it be Pythagoras or a homicidal lunatic they are instructed to exterminate. O dear, why couldn't this wretched infant be born somewhere else? Why can't people be sensible? I don't want to be horrid." So what does this reflective, conscientious governor, who wishes only to maintain order, do? He sends his minions to wipe out every man-child born within two years, intent on destroying but one of them, the boy born in Bethlehem, the threat to his civilization. "It's simply surviving," he says; "doing what I have to do to maintain body and soul, to keep the system going, to get my kids to college, to pay the rent, put bread on the table, pay my taxes and stay out of jail. Friends: that's life. That's the way most of us live. It surely describes the context of my life. It's not so bad." Or is it? I wonder. Is the world you and I struggle to manage, cope with and master the very kind of world Herod fights finally to protect against Jesus Christ?

We find our choices corroded, not only by the world of necessity represented by Herod, but how can we forget the religious types who set their hearts against Jesus from the very beginning? Their world, too, threatened by upset. Indeed, my world, our world this morning of elegant space, music, symbols, stained glass, prayer, preachers. I am made very uneasy by the impact of the child born under that star. Ursula Soleck, in a poignant, unforgettable reflection lays out the danger we face, and the choice:

What, finally shall we say
In the last moment
When we will be confronted
By the Unimaginable,
The One
Who could not be measured
Or contained
In space or time,
Who was Love
Unlimited?
What shall we answer
When the question is asked
About the undeeds
committed
In his name—
In the name of Him
For whose sake we promised
To have courage,
To abandon everything?
Shall we say that we didn't know—
That we couldn't hear the clatter
Of hearts breaking—
millions of them—
In lonely rooms, in alleys and
prisons
And in bars?
Shall we explain
That we thought it mattered
That buildings were constructed
And maintained in His honor—
That we were occupied
With the arrangements
Of Hymns and prayers
And the proper, the responsible way
Of doing things?
Shall we tell Him
That we had to take care
Of the orderly definition of dogmas
So that there was no time
to listen to the sobbing
Of little ones
Huddled in corners,
Or the silent despair
Of those already sobbing?
Or shall we say this too:
That we were afraid—
That we were keeping busy with all this
To avoid confrontation
With the reality of his meaning
Which could lead us to repentance—
That it was fear that kept us
Hiding in church pews
And in the important boards and
committees
As he went by?

Oh friends, the New Testament knows us well. In the world of Herod, in the world of the conventional religious types—my type—we make our choices about the meaning of Jesus Christ for our lives. Are we trapped by Herod's world? Are we deceived by religious cover-up? What choice do we make?

III

We can choose light! We can choose Hope . . . For God's sake; for humanity's sake. The point of Matthew's marvelous narrative lies in the freedom it offers you and me. When those Magi kneel at the manger, they give up all the necessity binding them; they surrender their ideologies, their petty kingdoms, their way of doing things, and offer themselves to Christ. When they return home that other way, they openly defy and resist Herod; his kind of world need not always hold sway. We are not stuck in ruts, compelled always to go on with life as usual. Another world of love and risk makes itself available to us. It is here! It is ready! It can embrace and recreate us. That is what the star, that is what the Magi, that is what Epiphany can mean: a new kind of life revealed as possible for you, for me, for this church, for our world; a life and existence reshaped by surrendering to the sovereign way, truth and life of this manger child. We have only—only?—to receive, accept and be grasped by it.

Almost two weeks ago, on Christmas eve, something wonderful happened here. Hundreds of people—few of them connected in any way with this church, or perhaps any church—hundreds of people stood in this room with lighted candles amid the darkness. That universal metaphor of light amid darkness speaks powerfully to all of us. It conveys the meaning of Christmas, to be sure, but no less so, does light amid darkness frame the meaning of Epiphany. A star in the night? Light in the darkness. The Christ, born into a world ruled by the likes of Herod? Hope in a troubled world. Magi, kneeling at the manger: choosing light, choosing hope! Their choice belongs to us. Our Epiphany challenge: How do I choose? How do you?

Scripture Reading

Matthew 2:1-12

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage." When king Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all of Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:

'And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
Are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
For from you shall come a ruler who is to
shepherd my people Israel.'"

Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage." When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.