Sermon 612+January 10, 2010

Sermon 612

St. Matthew’s in-the-Pines

Feast of Epiphany

January 10, 2010

Seeing God Face to Face.

Peace be to this place, and to all who dwell in it. Amen.

The God of Salvation History.

The story of the people of God, found in the Hebrew Scriptures, called the Old Testament, and the Christian Testament, or New Testament, is actually the story of God. Known first as YHWH, whose name was considered so holy that it was not to be written or spoken aloud, he was the God who brought all things into being out of absolute nothingness. Ex nihilo is the term, “out of nothing,” for the God of the Holy Scriptures created all matter and all life simply by the naming of things—heaven, earth, water, light. The scientists would come to call this singularity the “Big Bang,” but they have not attempted to explain why all life came into existence, or who was responsible for bringing it all into being.

In a sequence of seven days, and who knows how long a day was, this God YHWH of the Hebrew Scriptures made life forms, from the simple to the complex: plants, trees, the fish of the seas, the animals of marsh and bog and desert and woodland. And finally he made the human beings, male and female. In the 19^th Century, Charles Darwin would develop his Theory of Evolution to explain the process of creation and development, selection and survival. The son of an Anglican priest, Darwin was himself a non-believer. Little matter that he could not give YHWH credit for his creation; after all, the God of the Universe depends upon no one and no thing to do his mighty work ex nihilo.

YHWH would be known by other names in the sacred stories: LORD, Elohim, God, I AM WHO I AM, or “I will be who I will be,” or even “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious,” and more: “I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.” 

God’s Steadfast Love.

In the stories of the Patriarchs (or as I prefer, the Patriarchs and Matriarchs)—Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel—and in the Exodus from Egypt led by Moses, the God of Israel would show himself mighty in power and steadfast in love. Steadfast love, or chesed, is that quality of God which is to be faithful to his people, and concerned with their welfare, no matter the behavior or beliefs of his people. In the King James Bible, the word used is “loving-kindness,” and it is the kind of loving-kindness that knows no bounds and never reaches an end. Think of the devoted parent who would do anything for a child. Better yet, think of the love that I have for my grandson, John Wells. Steadfast love is intensely personal. It is not distant, or occasional, or conditional. God himself is intensely interested in the lives of his people. He would make his people holy by making a Covenant with them. This kind of holiness is not about people being righteous or deserving; no, God makes people holy by choosing them, and by setting them apart from the rest of the world. God takes their lives seriously, and I believe that God plays a crucial role in the lives of his people. Just look at the sacred stories: God creates us. God calls us into relationship with himself. God makes his covenant with us. God gives us his law, the commandments that will form a way of life based on loyalty to God as individuals and together as the people of God. Our God is a God of history, of Salvation History.

I hope that you are able to look back on your own life and see some evidence of God’s involvement and activity in it. Leigh says that we tend to see that God has been present in our lives only after he has passed by.

God’s Glory.

There’s a good Biblical precedent for this idea of seeing God only “after the fact.” God hides Moses in a crack in the rock, putting his hand over Moses’ eyes so that he cannot see God’s face. “For no one shall see me and live,” says YHWH in the Book of Exodus (33:20). In a later story, the prophet Elijah is hiding in a cave from the wrath of Ahab and Jezebel. There is a storm, and an earthquake, a fire, and then the sound of sheer silence. Elijah cannot see YHWH directly, but he experiences his glory in the sound of silence. This glory of God, or in the Hebrew shekinah, is what Moses and Elijah both experience. They cannot see God face to face. But the glory of God reveals God’s presence to them. A bright light, a shimmering glow, what it is the scriptures do not say. Some scholars compare shekinah to the patina or glow from a halo or nimbus.

God in Community.

So God is active and involved in our personal lives, whether or not we recognize it at the time. But God is also found and experienced in community. Do you recall the first words that YHWH spoke to Adam in the Garden of Eden? “It is not good for the man to be alone.” It could mean that the man needed a wife, or a family, or a community. Or as he said, “Go forth, be fruitful, and multiply.” Or make a community. YHWH called Abraham to go to the Promised Land, but he told him to take everybody in his household with him. Then he extended the Covenant with Abraham first to Isaac and his family, then to Jacob and his family, and then to all the People of Israel. God delivered Israel out of Egypt as a people, a community. And God gave them the Law in order to learn how to live as a community responsible to God. There is something essential and important about our being here, as the Christian Community. It implies something about God himself: our God involves himself in our history and in our common life. He is concerned with the life that we live together. There is more: God is not simply a power—although his power to create, to destroy, to transform, is mighty. God is not an abstract theological concept. God cares for us, his people. He enters into relationship with us. He acts and responds to our thoughts and prayers and actions. And God comes to us. He enters into our lives. He possesses us and makes us his own. He inspires us and leads us to right actions in his name. This is the very meaning of the word Epiphany, an experience of God. Epiphany is traditionally known as the shortest day and the longest night of the year. It is a time of cold and of darkness. And yet, in that darkness we experience a great Light. It is the Light of God coming into the world, coming to his people, as one of us. We experience his glory, his shekinah. We receive his loving-kindness, his chesed. We celebrate his long-awaited arrival in community. And we welcome him as the Child Jesus, the one true Son of God, Emannuel, God-who-is-with-us—the God we see face to face. Amen.

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