Too Much Magic: January 2, 2022

 Epiphany  Year C                                           Matthew 2:1-12                                                     

 Over the last month several people have commented to me how wonderful it is to have Christmas with a child.  They often tell me to enjoy the magic of the experience, because this is the time when it’s especially magical for children.  I follow a few parenting groups online and I watched people talk about how to make this time especially magical for their children and then worry about losing the  magic.  I found myself wondering when we became so obsessed with having a magical Christmas.  I don’t remember that from my childhood. I remember the excitement and the anticipation, but I don’t recall people talking about magic. I have seen it in the Christmas cards as well.  Instead of religious language referencing Jesus,  cards will say something like, “Enjoy the magic of the season.” I suppose we could blame it on the secularization of Christmas.  But how weird is it that in order to secularize Christmas we have to give it magical powers?

            When I was much younger I was curious about astrology and psychics.  I went to a couple psychics and palm readers in high school and college.  For some reason I always felt drawn to these people. I know some people think it’s a sin.  I think it is only dangerous when people actually live their life according to what a psychic advises. I was never sure what to believe as they were never very helpful.  I guess I was so desperate for answers at that time in my life, I would try anything.  Obviously if Jesus was sitting at a table somewhere, I would have preferred to ask him the questions, but he was not.  I had to rely on my own ability to discern God’s answers to my questions, and as we all know, that is not very easy. 

I guess that was what I was looking for, something as tangible as a palm reader, but still magical in some way.  I was looking for the manifestation of magic, or really—the divine.  We are starved for those things when we grow up and enter the so called real world.  That is why books like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings are so popular.  Yet where we fail to look is in the one story that we all know so well, the life of Jesus.

               One place where we can really see the miraculous is in the story of the wise men. There are many theories about the wise men.  Sometimes they are referred to as wise men, sometimes as kings.  The Greek word that was translated to wise men is magi.  It has many translations, but one of the most accurate is an astrologist.  Today, astrologers are not seen as extremely significant, but in this day, they were the wise and insightful people.  They were the philosophers, scientists and poets.  They were also very spiritual and adhered to another religion, Zorastrianism which was an ancient religion from the area which is now Iran.  The unique thing about this religion was its belief in one God (monotheism).  At this time, it was primarily the Hebrew people who believed in one god, so the fact that these magi coming from a far off place and believed in one true god is significant.  Knowing this, it makes more sense that these magi knew what they were looking for.  They were looking for the one true God. 

            Zorastrians believed that a star could be a counterpart or an angel to a great man.  Thus, each great man would receive a star at his birth.  This was a pretty common belief at the time.  So when news of a traveling star reached Herod, even he knew that this was no ordinary star, no ordinary child.  People have been trying to make sense of this star for many many years.  Some say it was Jupiter and Saturn because they were in close alignment at the time and therefore would create a bright light that would only be present for a short time.  Some say it was Hailey’s comet which passed through that region in 12 AD. 

While all these theories are interesting, I think the people who try to identify the star are missing the point.  If this indeed was the Star of David that had been prophesied in the Old Testament and if this star led the magi to the exact location of Jesus, do you really think there should be some rational explanation for that?  It’s the birth of God.  Isn’t that enough of an explanation?  You want to talk about magic, there it is.  There are so many things that are magical about the birth of Jesus.  Yet, it’s not just magical when we are talking about God, it’s miraculous.  Why do we have to explain it all?  Why do we need to come up with simple/rational answers for a mystery?  Doesn’t Jesus deserve more than that?  Don’t we deserve more than that?  We would not have to look for magic in other places if we could stop removing the magic and miracles from the greatest story ever told. 

            Perhaps these card makers are also desperate for magic, or know that all of us are.  Maybe that is why the story of the wise men is such a popular one.  We can identify with their search, their longing.  I have often wished that I were so bold as to follow a star.  I wish that I were not so desperate for easy answers, and so ashamed to admit it.   These wise men followed stars and their dreams.  They were able to see God in more than just scripture, more than just words—which is something that I think we as Episcopalians sometimes lose sight of. 

We love our books. We love the beautiful prayers, and as someone who considers herself a lover of the written word and a bit of a snob, I get that.  Yet what the Episcopal Church (and others like it) try to capture in our liturgy (which is the way the service is put together) is some of the mystery of God’s presence with us. Because in the end, words cannot capture the miracle of God in the flesh.  Nothing can.  But what we try to do in our worship is share glimpses of the miracle, glimpses of the divine.  

  And so my wish for you is that you too can have the courage to search for God in both unexpected and expected places.  I pray that when you find that guiding light, that you hold on to it with everything you have, and follow it no matter how difficult the terrain may be---no matter how evasive  the divine might feel. Because I promise, if you look for it, you will find it.   

Google has no good news: December 24

Year C, Christmas                  Isaiah 9:2-7  and Luke 2:1-20                                                                    

            This Christmas was supposed to be our triumphant return...or maybe that was last Christmas. At some point, we were supposed to have a triumphant return.  Yet even when planning back in November when the infections were low and omicron was just a word no one could properly pronounce—even then we knew it would not be as triumphant as we hoped.  There would still be masks, still be anxiety.  But…we would be able to sing Christmas carols and put on a Christmas pageant.  While I am usually someone who likes to be realistic and keep expectations low, I was pretty excited about Christmas Eve.  And then just this week, it has seemed like the sky is falling again.  It’s not.  But it feels that way.

            “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness---on them light has shined.”  What a beautiful verse.  When I read it about 10 days ago, I thought—this is perfect.  We have been walking in darkness for almost two years and now we have seen the great light.  When I read it a week later (just a few days ago), I found myself asking—how great would this light have to be, to shine on those haunted by darkness.  Sometimes the darkness feels impenetrable.

            I have preached many times about the importance of not expecting huge miracles, or impressive signs from God.  God comes to us in more subtle ways.  Yet I found myself yearning for something dramatic this year, yearning for it more than ever.  So I come back to the question, how bright would that light have to be to penetrate the current darkness?

            We all know the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke.  We hear it every year.  The repetition lulls us into a sense of complacency.  We see the story in gauzy light, like a halo in the fog. But this story is not meant to comfort.  It’s about disruption and drama.  When you consider the Christmas story—it’s full of disruption.  Mary and Joseph’s life was first disrupted by Mary’s pregnancy and then by the long and arduous trip to Bethlehem when she was 9 months pregnant.  And then we see the shepherd’s lives disrupted.  There they were, doing their jobs—protecting their flock and a heavenly host showed up and told them to leave that place, abandon their jobs and search for a baby.

            It’s easy to overlook the shepherds.  They are extras in the story and rarely have any lines in the Christmas pageant.  But imagine for a moment what kind of scene that must have been.  They were in their field in the middle of the night, probably sleeping and suddenly an angel appeared.   They were terrified- understandably.  Even if the angel did appear in human form, it must have still been unsettling. Now when I have imagined this scene, I have always imagined a bright light surrounding the angel.  That’s probably because every painting and picture I have ever seen has depicted the scene this way. Yet as I thought about it, I could not help but wonder why an angel would need extra light.  They would probably need a little light since it was pitch dark, but not much.  We all know how even a small amount of light can illuminate a very dark space.

            How bright would the light have to be? Now the shepherds had an angel.  Even if there was no magnificent light show, someone extraordinary appeared before them and gave them a message that inspired them to leave their sheep and search for a baby in a manger.

            The world right now is dark and I would really like an angel, or a light show.  At the beginning of the pandemic, I found myself googling “good news about COVID.”  There were no hits on the world wide web for that search criteria.  I found myself doing that again this week.  While there were not an overwhelming amount of hits, there were some.  There were some saying that while a new wave was hitting us, we are much more prepared than we were previously. We have vaccines and even medicine for those who have gotten very sick as a result of COVID.  Yet I have to confess, I found little comfort there.  It’s just been too long and we are all so tired of it all. 

            What I realized as I was desperately googling “good news” was that I was forgetting something kind of important about our Gospel message. It is the good news.  The Gospel—the story of Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection is the good news.  But I still feel like I need the light to illuminate the good news because it’s been a really hard couple of years. Then I was reminded of a line from Psalm 139: “If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,’ even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.”  I keep praying for a light that will overcome the darkness.  But perhaps what we should really pray for is that the darkness will no longer have power over us, because with God, darkness is just different lighting. 

            I don’t know what is going to happen with COVID, or the environment, or inflation, or the rampant violence in our nation and world.  What I know is that we cannot merely search for good news using google.  The good news is in God’s love for us.  The good news is in a God that loved the world so much that he sent his son to become a human so he would know what it is to walk in darkness and search for the light. The good news is that we have a God who loves us so much that he died and came back to life to show us what it really is to live in the light.