Katie Derksen
As most of you may have heard, I grew up in a family that moved around a fair bit. In fact, four years was the longest stretch of time that we ever lived in a place – except for the time that we lived in the same town for eight years, but it was in two four year segments, with three years in another place in between.
Such oddities aside, the point is that we moved a lot. And, as both of my parents are from the Niagara Peninsula, and we lived for the most part in Saskatchewan or Manitoba, we did a lot of driving. In fact, I've even told some people that I at least partially grew up in the back of Jetta, on almost yearly treks to the Peninsula and back.
Though we were travelling to the same place each time, we sometimes took different routes. Sometimes we travelled through the States, and sometimes we travelled through Canada - and in either country, there were different routes that were taken, although I'm sure that there were favourite routes that my parents stuck to. Sometimes we drove through the night, other times we stopped. I remember one year getting stopped somewhere in the Canadian Shield because of a forest fire, and another year when just my dad, my sister and I were travelling the other direction, from Ontario to Saskatchewan, and we stopped at the side of the highway for night beside one of the Great Lakes, enjoying the view.
Though I certainly wouldn't say that I come from a family of wise men, or wise people, we certainly trekked like we were. We'd pick up and go, and sometimes we'd even have gifts in tow, if we were heading down for the Christmas season. And, sometimes, like the wise men, we'd follow a glow - though the glow that we followed was more likely the light pollution above Toronto or Hamilton than any particular star....
Today is Epiphany and it's the day that we celebrate the arrival of the wise men to the stable where Jesus was born. I'm sure that just the words "wise men" will conjure up images of three robed and crowned men on camels, with their gifts held out before them, or bring the song to mind. Today, though, I would like to look at what these gentlemen, whatever their actual number may have been, were travelling towards.
Now, don't get nervous, I'm not going to spend time describing what I think their physical journey looked like - there are people here in this congregation who have been to that part of the world, and could do a much better job describing it than I ever could. I'm not going to get into the significance of the gifts that they brought, or what Mary and Joseph might have done with them. I'm not going to spend lots of time creating the scene of the stable, or describing what I think the swaddling cloth looked like, or any of that stuff. I'm not even going to spend time talking about what Jesus may have looked like: in fact, what I want to talk about is more of an aspect that Jesus embodied, than his actual physical being.
The coming of the Messiah was something that had been foretold for centuries, and I'm sure that people had created many images in their minds of what the coming Messiah would be like. These images of the Messiah were probably as varied as the number of people coming up with them, and it seemed that many people were expecting something other than what they got. What the world received as the Messiah wasn't a warrior in the stereotypical sense of the word, or a judge intent on condemning as many people as possible, or even a gentle-as-fleece shepherd who coddled them and told them what a good job they were already doing. We've all heard of the many different aspects of Jesus, and what he all embodied to the world, both believers and non-believers. What I want to look at today, though, is an aspect that I think can sometimes be overlooked. At the same time, the word that is used to describe this aspect can be overused, and under comprehended. What I would like us to spend some time considering today is the fact that, among other things, Jesus came to the world to extend grace to it, and to encourage us to extend grace to those around us.
The Most Beautiful Word
I love the word "grace" - when you truly look at the meaning of the word, this simple, five-letter word becomes one of the most beautiful words in the English language, especially when used in a Christian context. Grace is something that we get, undeserved, and something that we can never really escape from. According to a Bible dictionary, the word "grace" can be defined as "God's free and unmerited favour for sinful humanity." Most of the Bible dictionaries that I looked at included the concept of the sin of humanity in relation to grace and, as uncomfortable as I can be concentrating on that, it does need to be acknowledged that we, as humans, have a tendency to sin, often despite our best intentions to do otherwise. This is where grace, among other things, comes into play.
When we sin, we go against God's wishes for us. Think about it in terms of a friendship. Often, there are things that aren't desired in the relationship, either as a part of the relationship as a whole, or as something that one or the other person just doesn't like. These things then, would hopefully be made known, and as a good friend, if your friend points something like this out to you, you would try to not do those things, or the two of you would come to a compromise or understanding. Of course the odd slip up would hopefully be understood, but if the noted dislike was continually brought up, or acted on, chances are the friend, no matter how much he or she liked you, after mentioning it enough times, would probably say goodbye, and end the friendship, or change the nature of it. In some ways, we're like the friend who keeps doing what has been noted as undesirable, and God is the friend who tries to call us to task. Grace would be the word that is used to describe how God keeps on forgiving, and extending love and faithfulness to us, despite the fact that we seem to be ignoring what God has asked us to not do.
There's no cause for God to continue to forgive us, or even to continue to love us – we keep messing up, over and over, and sometimes downright ignoring rules and wishes that have been laid out for us. And yet God forgives. God is gracious and loving and compassionate and merciful enough to do that. That's grace in action.
Jesus Came to Spread Grace
Among other things, Jesus came to spread grace. He came to earth to make evident to us the grace that God extends towards us, and that we in turn are called to extend to others. We hear of God's grace in the healings and the miracles that Jesus performed. We hear of it in the Sermon on the Mount, and any time there's reference to equality being brought to all people. We are called to it when Jesus says "whatever you have done to the least of these, you have done to me" (paraphrased from Matthew 25:40). We are called to extend grace when we are reminded that God opened up his grace and mercy beyond those who were his original people, to those who were initially scorned by his followers.
We hear of grace in our reading from Isaiah. Listen again to these words, and be warmed and comforted by the images they hold. "Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you…. You shall see and be radiant: your heart shall thrill and rejoice…." (Isaiah 60:1-2, 5, emphasis mine). Despite the darkness that comes, God will continue to shine on God's people, to extend to God's people the light and warmth that they need.
A New Appreciation for Darkness
A lot of people struggle with the lack of light that fall and winter bring, but perhaps we should re-learn to appreciate what comes with the setting of the sun. It's in darkness that we can truly appreciate what light there is: stars are just one thing that we can see only when the sun's gone, and, the farther we get from the city, the more stars we can see. In certain parts of the world, the night sky is lit up with the aurora borealis, or the northern lights, a beautiful and breathtaking phenomenon that can both inspire and frighten, but can only be seen in the absence of sunlight. Sometimes the shedding of a little light into the darkness can bring a sense of intimacy or closeness with it, such as the desire to cuddle up under a blanket with a good book, or the introspection that can come when one isn't distracted by all the things that can be seen during the day.
In the Isaiah passage, where it says "…for darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you" (Isaiah 60:2), I envision this like the sun rising on the earth, and shining its light for all to see. The sun rises to warm and to comfort us, and to dispel the monsters that can sometimes come to get us in the dark. Even though we know in our minds that there's nothing in the darkness that would or even could come and get us, we all have things that come out at night to haunt us - perhaps it's a scene from the day that keeps replaying, each time with a different ending, or a thought that we want to ignore, or a hurt or slight that we just can't get over. But God comes to dispel that darkness for us, shining a light that is glorious and bountiful on those parts of our lives. Grace is that light, shining for us out of the darkness, bringing us back to a place of healing, and of wholeness.
If you look at the cover of the bulletin, you'll see that it says "Scattering Grace" and has images of two hands encircling the earth, and stars and planets surrounding the earth. It could be suggesting that maybe God scatters grace as God has scattered the stars in the sky. I like how much bigger than the earth the hands are, and how the hands don't look too pampered – they look like they've been working, but they look soft enough to be comforting. And the stars – they're scattered around, casting light for the world, and reminding people that even in the darkness, there are points of light that can be seen and experienced. As well, just as the light of the stars can take a very long time to reach us, perhaps sometimes so can God's grace - or rather, our realizations of God's grace being evident in our lives.
Whether we realize it or not, God has surrounded us with grace at every turn. It's like those hands on the cover of the bulletin – they're there, surrounding and inescapable: so is grace. There is nothing we can do that would make God quit extending grace to us. And, like so many things that God has extended to us unasked for and sometimes undeserved, we are called to extend that same grace to those around us.
Last week, Don talked about the darkness that Jesus was born into, and that we live in, but that we know the hope of the light of Christ. We also know of the light of the star that the wise men followed: God is a God of grace and mercy, and Jesus came to show us that. The wise men, whether they knew of this or not, were following the star that lead to Grace Embodied. We, too, are called to follow that star. And, just like the wise men could experience the light of the star even as they were travelling towards it, so we, too, can experience grace as we strive to become more graceful, and to be able to recognize the grace of God that is already active in our lives.
All quotations of Scripture, unless otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard Version.