First she admitted to being a closet nerd and a "star gazer". She observed that many of her pastoral colleagues are closet nerds. I admit to being a nerd as well. As evidence for this I will point out that I am posting this on January 6, 2021's actual Epiphany day.
The important epiphany on Sunday came for me with Pastor Angela's label "star gazer". This label tied some old associations with some new ones. The old one was from Pastor Amanda of Central Lutheran on a podcast about Jesus' Ascension when she was talking about her first call, This podcast gave its audience an opportunity to learn more about the importance of the Ascension and contemplate what would have happened had Jesus not ascended to heaven.
I was uncomfortable for years with the Acts 1:9-11 Ascension account. I fancied it as a supernatural reason to explain what happened to Jesus' body. Imagining Ascension, as a physical event, was awkward for me and questions naturally arose. Is the physical body of Jesus really going to heaven as physical as earth? Do I have faith in that kind of heaven? I shied away from contemplating the Ascension and from any uncomfortable questions.
Pastor Amanda presents a different and powerful view of the Ascension's importance for us today. After the Ascension God's mission, that continues in our world, moves from a resurrected Jesus to a collective and mutually accountable mission for believers to follow our call to be the body of Christ.
Pastor Amanda pointed out the Ascension tends to be downplayed because it is far easier for people to "star gaze". This reference is what called this podcast to my mind during Pastor Angela's sermon. A new insight for me that rings completely true. We like our stars and prefer looking to one savior who is perfect and beyond us rather than looking to the body of Christ as it exists today to bring about the kingdom of God.
I recognized myself at the end of the podcast as mostly being a star gazer. My vision of the Ascension, as just described, attests to my star gazing. My mind's eye attempted to look only to the physical body of Jesus in the sky and not to the body of Christ on earth, All this inspired me to read John 3:16-17 and understand these verses from a different perspective and a more Trinitarian view. Our eyes can train on the true body of Christ that still physically resides on the earth.
The new associations came from Creator's recent Advent sermons including those which focused on the Annunciation and visiting Pastor Nick's Advent sermon on the importance of the geography of God's kingdom.
I have posts describing the Sunday School vision of these birth narratives that affect my emotional understandings of these scripture texts. For years I understood the "Christmas Star" as a directional sign, guiding the wise men to the Bethlehem stable. Yet this is not God showed Moses and the Israelites the way to the Promised Land by appearing to them as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night (Exodus 13:21-22). Using a star in the sky to determine a specific location on earth is problematic, together with what the text, rather than tradition, tells us.
Most of the details we know of the Epiphany story are not part of scripture. We don't know the royalty, names or the number of the magi who visited Jesus. Nor do we know when or where their visit took place. The term magi suggests they were followers of the Zoroastrian tradition. Zoroastrians were not traditionally trusted by writers of the Bible. When read closely it is much more likely the star was not in the sky when they stood before King Herod, or he would have had others follow the star.
Rather than the star being a directional sign, I understand it today as a devotional sign. When King Herod asks where the Messiah is to be born the answers come from reading scripture to determine the time and place, not looking to the star in the sky. Verse 9 and 10 read, "When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy." Yet I cannot imagine a star moving and stopping in the sky providing this kind of direction to a particular place like a stable.
As a devotional sign I find the Epiphany story and the Ascension functioning as beautiful bookends to the Gospel texts of Jesus' life in the world. The "star gazers" turn their attention to a human child born of a woman as recorded in the nativity narratives. The story of the Ascension records how the normal tendency would be to have the attention move back to the sky.
Instead a legitimate alternative would be to focus on all believers who now constitute the body of Christ as we can perceive that body on earth today. As I write this America watched the marchers who feel the election was stolen from them and their leader are in the Capitol building.
January 3rd I experienced illuminating epiphanies. January 6th brought a sadder epiphany. Currently I am on Facebook live for the ELCA's 2021 Epiphany Worship Service and praying for the church and the world. Bishop Laurie's Prayer of the People was moving but how should believers who are the body of Christ act in the world at this moment? How will the body of Christ, with God's help, knit a divided America together?
These questions have no obvious answers tonight.
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