By Penny Biddy

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, magi from the east came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star in the east and have come to pay him homage.” Matthew 2:1-3

As the church calendar turns from Christmas to Epiphany, I usually feel a bit sad. I am never ready for Christmas to end. I love all the Christmas “stuff,” the lights and carols and cookies and specials. Epiphany often feels like an intrusion on the cozy Christmas space I like to build for myself. Yet, even as I want to hold onto Christmas, I find myself reflecting on the Wise Men’s question: Where is the child? Especially at the end of the Christmas season, I am sometimes too certain that I already know where Jesus is. We have just spent weeks telling the stories of his birth, setting out our nativity scenes, and preparing our hearts for the birth of the baby who was laid in the manger. I have made comprehensive plans about how to serve Jesus, what I will do to worship Him, and what practices will help me encounter him. I seldom pause to ask where Jesus is, because I’ve already decided where I will find him. The Wise Men didn’t find Jesus exactly where they thought they would, but, unlike me, they had the humility (and good sense!) to ask. We would all do well to follow their example, though, because Epiphany teaches us that the manger scene we so carefully attend to at Christmas is not the end of the story.

 In the second chapter of Matthew, the Christmas story’s tight focus on Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus expands to include scenes from the wider world in which they live. The arrival of visitors from distant lands, bearing rich gifts fit for a king, reveals that Jesus’s coming is noticed and welcomed by people we might not expect. We see that people who seem too far away, or too different to belong in the story may be the very ones who see Jesus most clearly, who welcome him most generously. Epiphany celebrations often focus on the Wise Men, but the same story also reveals that not everyone who notices Jesus’s birth welcomes the news. The visitors’ seemingly-innocent inquiries about the Christ child’s location set off a chain reaction of fear and anxiety, unleashing hell upon the families of Bethlehem. The tranquility of the Christmas story is shattered by violence and weeping. 

Just when we have gotten comfortable with our cheerful Christmas message of a Savior who brings hope, peace, love and joy into the world, Epiphany comes along to remind us that those gifts don’t arrive in an empty space. Instead, they come colliding with all the things that are already there: All the people, all the habits, all the expectations, fears, agendas, and needs that fill the world. In fact, as Epiphany moves the story beyond the Christmas scene, the true meaning of Christmas becomes clear at last. The Child who is born at Christmas is the Light of the world, the whole world, lost and broken, surprising and wondrous as it is. The Light of the world shines on folks who have gifts to share, and on others who have kingdoms to defend. Some will be so captivated by the light that they will journey untold miles to find its source. Some fear the light so much that they will wreak tremendous destruction trying to put it out. The Light comes because the world is in darkness. The Savior comes because we are lost. The Healer comes because there is unimaginable suffering in the world. 

 Sometimes it seems like Epiphany is the moment when the world breaks in upon the peace and tranquility of Christmas, but maybe the world doesn’t break in. Maybe the Light of the world breaks out, to shine over more spaces, bless more distant people, and generally upend more kingdoms than we expected. Maybe if we want to serve the Light, we have to follow Him into the darkest places, even when the darkness is closer to home than we wanted to believe.

After all our planning, preparing, and celebrating Jesus’s birth, we would do well to ponder the question the Wise Men ask: Where is the child who has been born? Did we expect him to stay in the Christmas-shaped box we built for him? Have we asked ourselves “what is Jesus doing today?” Were we ever really ready for the fact that once Jesus shows up, he plans to break through into the whole world, comforting and disrupting as he goes? What will we do while the Light spreads out to shine over the world? Will we stay put, planning next year’s perfect Christmas in the hope that we can catch Him for just a moment there? Or will we step out with him into the next space he is breaking into, the next darkness he is shining into, the next desolation he comes to comfort? After the decorations are all put away, and the last Christmas song has been played, and we begin to navigate another new year, will we still look for the shining of the Light? May we always have the faith to run towards Jesus’s light, wherever we see it, and humbly join in whatever God is doing in those places, even if it is somewhere we never expected to be.

Penny Biddy is co-pastor of Brook Hollow Christian Church