The Divine Secret
Epiphany • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 11 viewsNotes
Transcript
At some point in our lives, every one of us has been asked to keep a secret. Some people are good at it; some are not. The ones that are really, really good at keeping a secret drive the rest of us crazy. The longer someone keeps a secret, the more we want to know what that secret is.
But no one is as good at keeping secrets as God is. He can keep a secret for a terribly long time. I mean, he may tease us a little bit along the way—you know, through the millennia—but that just turns the secret into mystery. When he’s ready for the big reveal, the mystery that has been hidden from everyone throughout the ages is divulged—not to a few, but throughout the world. He wants everyone to know what was once a divine secret, a mystery hidden in God.
Let us pray. Open your Word to us, God, so that the Light who is Christ Jesus might shine upon us this morning. Amen
God made it clear since early Genesis that he would one day send his Messiah or Anointed One. We call him Christ, which means the same thing as Messiah or Anointed One but is from the Greek Christos instead of the Hebrew Mashiach. Regardless of the language you employ, God intended to send his anointed savior from early on, and first promised to do it in what is called the protoevangelium, meaning “original gospel.” Here it is from Genesis 3:15.
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.
There, in one verse, is the promise of the one who would not only confound and overturn, but utterly destroy the plans of the evil one. Still, beyond the messianic theme echoed by Isaiah in our First Lesson is another great and associated promise.
Throughout the millennia, darkness seems to have cut off all light and hope. This was the sad case of Judas, who hoped for a different deliver, a political savior, and lost all hope when his dream didn’t pan out. This is the leaning of many a Christian yet today, leaning into politics as presumed savior.
For example, many Jewish people were preoccupied with the notion that the Messiah was for them alone—that he would deliver them from the imperial power of their generation. But God will not to be confined by our cheap will. We pray that his will be done. And God’s will is to deliver all people—Jews and otherwise—from the the power of darkness that envelops the world throughout time—not just the Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, and Roman empires.
Nor will he deliver the world through the means of liberation theologies that again, focus on specific people groups—in this case, the poor—and use human ideologies to carry the load. Marx is no Christ. Liberation theology is not good news. And the idea that good news is simply for the poor of some countries today rather than the poor in spirit throughout the history of the world falls far short of the gospel mystery.
The divine secret, hidden in God for ages, is that his Christ would be the Light who arises upon people of faith—a particular faith, a belief in this specific Messiah, this Light shining in the darkness, that the darkness cannot overcome (John 1:5). Though the moon perishes (and the sun with it), there will still be light, even in eternity, for the Lamb is all the light we need (Revelation 21:23). God himself is heaven’s bright star, the same guiding light that steered kings and shepherds to the infant Light of the World. And so, the mystery once veiled is now revealed. God’s plan to save all people, Jews and Gentiles alike, is unveiled through his Christ. His “eternal purpose” is finally realized, or brought to light through him who is the Light of the World.
A prophet’s main tasks, according to Luther, are first, to rebuke and correct sins, and second, to point to the Christ (Luther’s Works, Vol. 17). In other words, to preach law and gospel. The sin addressed by Isaiah in our First Lesson is the worst possible sin, and so many commit it. This sin is to love the darkness, to live in it and hear that the Light has come but refuse to see. It is to avert one’s eyes from glory, looking down again into the life of darkness and sin. The greatest sin is to want to live in the darkness, to ignore the Light, to refuse it. To refuse him who is the Light.
The Church is called to shine in the light of the Lord so that those living in darkness will come to the light of Christ. There is only one way for us to arise in the darkness and shine, and it is not something we muster in ourselves. However, if we will wake up and stand up in faith, Christ will shine upon us (Ephesians 5:14) for all the world to see.
Anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Awake, O sleeper,
and arise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”
We arise and shine by reflecting his light. Though at times we stumble, we arise again and again, and walking in his light as children of light (Ephesians 5:8). We refuse to lapse back into the darkness, to be left behind. So, we turn and follow his gracious glory just as the ancient Hebrews followed the pillar of fiery light through the wilderness darkness. We repent and follow him down the aisle to his table to receive his grace and walk anew in his light.
At one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.
This is the Christian path: always turning to the light. It does not mean that you will not stumble and sense the encroaching darkness that would reclaim you. It means you admit and confess those transgressions and move back into the light.
There are those who would tell you that Christians do not sin. They do not say it with a smile but with a grimace, a perplexed disdain that you have not figured out how to be as perfect as they have come to be. Yes, I have met these wonders who claim to never sin. We confess otherwise in our liturgy.
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
Beware the perfect people. Those who think they are perfect confuse their tenses. There is a big difference between “perfect” and “perfected.” I am not “perfect.” I am “perfected.” It is not what I do or don’t do; it is what Christ Jesus has done.
For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
We live in this tension of being simultaneously sinners and saints, of being imperfect in ourselves yet perfected in Christ. So, we press on in the light of him who is making us his own.
He accomplishes this by constantly showing us our sins. Luther rightly points out that Christ first condemns us, but does so in order that he might save us (Luther’s Works, Vol. 10). First, seeing us as we are, he shows us who we are: condemned to death because we are already dead in our sin. But the gospel does not stop there.
The good news of Jesus Christ shows us there is life available even for dead sinners. Christ dispels the darkness and, with mercy, removes our iniquities far from us (Psalm 103:11-12). Because grace is above the letter of the law, Jesus is able to lift us out of the darkness of sin. He has pity on us and redeems our lives (Psalm 72:14).
But who is this “us.” It is in this “us” that we discover the divine secret, the mystery of Christ. The mystery of God’s will itself is revealed in the word “us.”
This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
This is the holy Christian church that we confess, the communion of saints. the Israel of God (Galatians 6:16), the Una Sancta Ecclesia of Jews first and then we Gentiles.
This is the mystery delivered to Paul by revelation. It was also revealed to the Jews through the prophets, so it should have been no secret to them. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zechariah foretold it.
I will make you as a light for the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
But now, through Paul, the other apostles, and the church, this long-secreted mystery is to be made known throughout the earth, proclaimed to all peoples.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
“Whoever.” First “in Jerusalem,” then "in all Judea and Samaria, and” finally, “to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). To Gentiles. To you and me. On the same basis as the Jews—through the Messiah. Through Jesus who delivers the promises of Jesus the Christ equally to Jews and Gentiles. That is the good news.
We are equal heirs of the kingdom of God.
God desires and requires that we believe this mystery of his grace. As a result, his purpose in uniting to himself all things in Christ (Ephesians 1:10) was made known to Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus Road (Acts 9:3-22). It pleased God to reveal his Son to Paul (Galatians 1:12, 15-16) so that even the Gentiles would be united to God in Christ. Paul received the mystery—the light of God’s grace, the gospel—so that we, too, might believe by hearing what is written (Ephesians 1:17; Romans 10:17).
This is what we celebrate today on the Sunday of the Epiphany. Epiphany… We get that English word “epiphany” from the Greek. Epiphainen means “to shine” (phainen) upon (epi). We get many English words from phainen, such as “phenomenon” (something observable) and “diaphanous” (to shine through, as in translucent).
Hopefully, this helps you understand what we are doing here today. The noun form of this word (epiphaneia) is often translated as “appearance,” in the sense of enlightening one’s understanding—making something appear that one had not been seen before. So, we say that someone “had an epiphany.”
The shepherds and the magi were shown the way by the appearance of a star shining in the east. It pointed the way to a manger, and when they arrived, they rejoiced exceedingly (Matthew 2:10) at the birth of the Messiah whom that start shone upon. These lowly shepherds were given an epiphany: they were shown the Messiah, who might have merely lain in the obscurity of a manger, tucked away in a dark alley in some tiny, backwater nation in the Roman Empire.
Nonetheless, the joyous shepherds were shown the way to this little Messiah by the light of his star.
How much greater is our joy when we realize that the true Light lay under that eastern star.
Today, we marvel at the mystery that the Light of Heaven has appeared and now shines forever in the Christ, the Messiah, as Savior of the whole world—Jews and Gentiles.
Pssst. It’s not a secret. Spread the word.
