AN EPIPHANY
by Bob Wickizer
Scripture: EPHESIANS 3:1-12, MATTHEW 2:1-12, PSALMS 72:1-2, PSALMS 72:10-17
An Epiphany
Rev. Bob Wickizer
Isaiah 60:1-6,9; Psalm 72:1-2,10-17; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12
I had been doing some calculations in the sand when like a thunderbolt two of my old friends walked up the road to meet me. They said they heard stories of people beyond the river where wondrous signs foretold big changes - changes that would make the world different forever.
So we stood there in the road a long time, three old friends now living in far away places only to find ourselves called together by events and stories and signs we did not understand. We argued first about what we knew, then we argued about what we didn’t know. What do these things mean we wondered? What should we do? What can we do?
Next we began to plan our journey with the same excitement we had when we first encountered each other on a pilgrimage three decades earlier. We knew once again that we had to travel where the heavens directed us. Wandering planets, stars and great comets pointed the way.
What will we find and how will we know when we find it? Surely these signs we have all observed for months must herald a royal occasion. Will it be a wedding, a coronation, a death or a birth we wondered. Who are the people in this faraway land whose royalty is marked by signs in the heavens?
Whatever the occasion we would honor it with gifts suitable for a royal event. We packed and set off in the cold darkness guided only by our reckonings of the path the heavens gave us.
The long journey fueled many doubts and more arguments over campfires. This desert is not safe with wild animals and robbers. Why are we doing this anyway? What brought us all the way out here?
Yet each time doubt and fear rose in our bellies like indigestion, one of us would point out that you do not take a journey because you know all the answers. Someone else would note how our path seemed to be set out before us like a long carpet. We all knew just where we had to go. We just weren’t sure why.
A ...
Rev. Bob Wickizer
Isaiah 60:1-6,9; Psalm 72:1-2,10-17; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12
I had been doing some calculations in the sand when like a thunderbolt two of my old friends walked up the road to meet me. They said they heard stories of people beyond the river where wondrous signs foretold big changes - changes that would make the world different forever.
So we stood there in the road a long time, three old friends now living in far away places only to find ourselves called together by events and stories and signs we did not understand. We argued first about what we knew, then we argued about what we didn’t know. What do these things mean we wondered? What should we do? What can we do?
Next we began to plan our journey with the same excitement we had when we first encountered each other on a pilgrimage three decades earlier. We knew once again that we had to travel where the heavens directed us. Wandering planets, stars and great comets pointed the way.
What will we find and how will we know when we find it? Surely these signs we have all observed for months must herald a royal occasion. Will it be a wedding, a coronation, a death or a birth we wondered. Who are the people in this faraway land whose royalty is marked by signs in the heavens?
Whatever the occasion we would honor it with gifts suitable for a royal event. We packed and set off in the cold darkness guided only by our reckonings of the path the heavens gave us.
The long journey fueled many doubts and more arguments over campfires. This desert is not safe with wild animals and robbers. Why are we doing this anyway? What brought us all the way out here?
Yet each time doubt and fear rose in our bellies like indigestion, one of us would point out that you do not take a journey because you know all the answers. Someone else would note how our path seemed to be set out before us like a long carpet. We all knew just where we had to go. We just weren’t sure why.
A ...
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