Rev. Dr. Joel D. Biermann
Isaiah 60:1-6
January 15, 2017
Have you noticed? It’s happening ever so gradually, and ever so slowly, but it is happening. On schedule and with clockwork precision, with each passing day, the days are getting just a little longer. There’s a bit more sunlight at the end of the day; and in the morning, the sun appears a few minutes earlier than it did only a week or two ago. Indeed, each day we’ll be adding about two minutes of daylight. So, the world around us actually mirrors the church year. Out there, the winter light is on the increase, and in here, it’s Epiphany, the season of light. During Epiphany, we celebrate that in Jesus, God’s light has blazed forth into the world. That’s what the word means: epiphany is just Greek for “to shine upon”. So, Epiphany and light belong together perfectly. They fit together like St. Louis and baseball, or like cold cereal and 2% milk. You can’t have the first without the second—at least not in my home, you can’t. But, like cold cereal and milk, most sermons about God’s light coming into the world are regrettably common and painfully predictable. The light metaphor is great and powerful, but it only goes so far and a preacher can only do so much with it. In our text for this morning, the classic epiphany text from Isaiah 60, we have that powerful metaphor of God’s light breaking into the world. And we know that that great metaphor was fulfilled to overflowing when God himself broke into the world as the one true light. But, you’ve heard that sermon before. So, have I.
The light imagery is great—and it is beautifully described by Isaiah, but the part of Isaiah’s text that captured my attention and my imagination as I was thinking about this sermon was not, “Arise, shine, for your light has come.” For all the tingling wonder and sparkling grandeur that those words engender, they didn’t hook me. But, verse six did. Verse six packed one of those, “always-there-but-I-never-really-noticed-before-surprises” that got me; and verse six hasn’t let go yet. The “arise, shine” part I’ve heard to the point of unhearing numbness, but I don’t know that I ever really noticed verse six before. But there it was: “A multitude of camels shall cover you.” What a wonderful and wild image that has conjured for me. Let it take shape in your mind: camels…big, ungainly, noisy, slow, irritable, ugly, camels—but not just two or three or even a small herd like you can see at Grants’ Farm or the zoo, no, a multitude of camels stretching as far as the eye can see…camels everywhere, camels covering the land. Imagine the sound. Imagine the stench. “A multitude of camels shall cover you.” What a picture.
My western mind delights in the oddity of the image. Actually, to me, it seems less like a blessing than a strange plague. But, of course, Isaiah is not suggesting an invasion and overrunning of the countryside by occupying hordes of camels; his point is what the camels carry. In Isaiah’s world of the ancient near east, camels were the 18-wheelers of the road. They carried everything that needed to be transported. And the camels of Isaiah’s vision are groaning under the burden of the wealth of the nations. Gentile nations, heathen nations, and their camel caravans are bringing gifts of gold and frankincense—gifts fit for a king…or for the nation that is basking in the astounding brilliant light and glory of God, their king. When the light beams with dazzling radiance, people notice…everyone has to notice…and they know what to do: they come running with gifts. Isaiah pictures a time when God’s glory and grace have shined so brightly and unmistakably on his chosen people, Israel, that all the rest of the world cannot help but take note, and are so captivated and excited by the wonder and glory of God, that they are moved irresistibly to join in the celebration. They’ve just got to be part of it, too. It’s sort of like the enthusiasm that attends a royal wedding or coronation it’s a once-in-a-lifetime national celebration, only in Isaiah it’s a once in the history of the world moment. Isaiah looks ahead and sees a day when all the world will notice what God is doing for Israel, and all the world will join in the festivities by sending their best gifts, and they’ll send them, certainly, on camels, a multitude of camels.
And, that, of course, is what Epiphany is all about. Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar finally make their belated appearance at the Christmas scene. They come bearing their gifts from their Gentile nations: myrrh, gold, and frankincense. And they come, naturally, on camels…at least in any crèche that’s worth displaying, they come on camels. Their mini-caravan arrives at the source of the light that summoned them and they unload their cargo—wonderful gifts. But, this is not the final or ultimate fulfillment of Isaiah’s vision. It’s just a foretaste of the camel multitude still to come. It’s a down payment, or better a first-fruits example for all to follow when the great final day comes and the “glory of the Lord has risen upon you.” On that day, when Christ comes again in full glory and brings to completion the entire plan of God for his people, on that day, when he at last weds his chosen bride, on that great day of celebration, the nations will load their camels and their 18-wheelers, and their railcars and shipping containers and they’ll bring their best gifts to the ultimate celebration. They will bring extraordinary gifts to God’s Messiah, the King, and also to that great king’s chosen bride, his people, his church. Such a flood of gifts from the nations will be quite right and appropriate on that day as the bride and her groom will finally fulfill their long engagement and mark the event with the much-anticipated marriage feast. What a day that will be: a new earth, fresh heavens, all of creation remade and perfect, endless crowds of men and women from every tongue and tribe, happy reunions among God’s people, a wedding and the feast to go with it, celebrating and rejoicing, and camels, or course, camels everywhere, multitudes of camels
Epiphany and its season is all of that. The light shines in stunning splendor. The Messiah is manifest in all of his eschatological, end-of-time, resurrection glory. God’s people, the chosen nation, thrills and rejoices and every other nation, the Gentiles and the heathen, stunned by that light cannot but obey it: “every knee will bow and every tongue will confess.” But, in the meantime, in the now of the present, in the today of hope-filled anticipation of the final and full epiphany when Christ appears in heaven’s glory, we still delight in the light. The last great epiphany, when Christ returns, still lies ahead; but Epiphany is right now. The manifestation of God’s brilliant gospel plan is a present reality. The light, the glory of the gospel, shines today. It shines here…and now. God has visited his people. He’s visiting them, he’s visiting you, still. The light of forgiveness, restoration, and righteousness blasts onto and into the lives of God’s people and they delight in that radiance. And the nations, the unbelievers, those not the people of God, are also invited and, even they come, and here they also find a place. Just like the magi, they belong in the scene. Once not a part of the people, now they too are the people of God. When people come together in the light of Christ that is now present in the world, there are no foreigners, no Gentiles, no immigrants, no aliens, no outsiders. There, in that light, all people are Israel…in the light of Christ, everyone is part of the chosen nation of God, the people of God. And, it is the light that brings them. It is always and only the light of the Gospel that finally brings those who are outside inside to become part of the repentant and forgiven people of God. Only Christ and his true light can draw outsiders in, and make people God’s people.
So, what then, is the business of this gospel-bathed nation? What is the task of this people washed in the brightness of Epiphany glory? What is God’s church supposed to be doing in this dark world? More pressing and to the point, what are you, one of those who has been blessed by Epiphany light, what are you supposed to be doing? The answer is actually easy and obvious. Isaiah made it clear: “Arise and shine!” In other words, do your part to shine God’s light onto those around you. You are to proclaim, to make known, the Gospel—the light of God. And with all due respect and sincere deference to pious and tireless Sunday School and preschool teachers everywhere, this Gospel light is neither “little,” nor is it “mine.” When you go out into the neighborhood of your world, you go shining the screaming brilliance of Christ’s light. This is not a small pinprick of light in a world of stifling darkness. The light of Christ is a consuming, dazzling, flood of glory-light. It blazes out directly form God’s presence. The bright light is not your own. It belongs to Christ.
When the light of Christ shines on his people, that radiant reality cannot be concealed. That’s how it is in the church. That’s the purpose of God’s people. That’s your purpose. You have God’s light. You were first given that light personally and powerfully when you were baptized, and it shines on you fresh and new each time you hear his word of promise and every time that you kneel at his altar and receive Christ’s Body and Blood. God’s light shines on you and so you now live an authentic, faithful, forgiven life in the brilliance of the reality of Christ. That’s what pushes back the darkness. That’s what declares the gospel. That’s what pulls in the nations as they are drawn to Christ’s light. What does this look like? It’s not complicated or mysterious. The light is just the people of God living all of their lives with integrity and authenticity. The light shines when you live knowing who you are, what you’re doing, and where you’re going living in the reality of God’s grace, and following in the way of Christ. The light shines when you do what God gives you to do with zeal and compassion, fulfilling all of your responsibilities to all of those you meet. The light shines when at every possible opening, you speak his gospel truth to all of those you meet with real words. That’s how the light of Christ shines. And when it does, people notice and people come.
There is something profoundly wrong-headed about schemes intended to lure the nations into the church by some means of making the church more attractive or relevant to unbelievers. The church must remember her true identity and must never trade in the dollars of darkness. Christ’s gospel is not just another product to be peddled in the media. It is not a commodity to be made interesting and attractive and so more desirable to consumers. The gospel is not an idea that needs to find shelf-space in the marketplace of ideas. When we treat the gospel like a product or another consumer option that must compete for the attention of shoppers, when we try to make it more captivating or relevant to contemporary people, when we saddle the gospel with gimmicks and slick packaging, we diminish the truth and beauty that are inherent in the gospel. The gospel of Christ does not need to be marketed or promoted or updated or re-packaged. The light of Christ does not need to be refocused or diffused or refreshed so that people will notice it. It is God’s truth. It is always right. It is always relevant. It is always interesting and inherently attractive. It does not need our help to give it a make-over. It simply needs to be proclaimed. It simply needs to be lived. When the gospel shines on and in God’s people, it gets noticed. Always. It can’t be ignored. Christ’s light is never little. It always shines full-blast and all-out. And when people see that light, they come. They come with gifts. They come with camels. They come ready to give what they have, ready to give themselves to the light, ready to become part of the people who know and live in that light.
Christ’s light shines today. It shines here. It shines on you. It shines in you. You hear God’s truth spoken to you. You taste the bread and the wine and know his grace and power. You know that you belong to him. His light shines, and when it does his people are stunned and amazed one more time, overwhelmed again by the wonder, warmth, security and comfort of God’s light that comes to them and gives them everything. Christ claims his own. He claims you. Forgiven and redeemed, you bask and revel in his light, and the nations around you notice. They can’t help but notice. They hear and see the Gospel shining in the midst of God’s people. They see it shining in you. That’s what goes on here, in God’s church and among his people. In this place, God’s truth is proclaimed and celebrated. God’s truth, his light, his Christ shines in the work, the prayers, and the worship of this congregation. And it shines in the individual lives of each you as you live in God’s light and then shine that light into and through the way that you live and interact with everyone that you meet.
It’s Epiphany. The light has come. Arise and shine, people. Shine with the brilliance of Christ’s incredible Gospel. And, don’t forget to be on the lookout for camels. They are certainly coming! Amen.