It is all well and good to celebrate Christmas as the birth of Jesus, our Saviour.  . . . But it is even better to remember that Christmas is the celebration of the Incarnation of God, wherein we recall with awe and wonder that by the mysterious and creative power which belongs to God alone . . . God became “Perfect Man” of the flesh of the Virgin Mary His mother.  Which means not that Jesus was better than any of us . . . but that He was perfectly like any one of us in every way; . . . God was born of a woman as a helpless infant just as each of us are; . . . and God lived among us as one of us . . . without benefit of x-ray vision; without benefit of “spider senses” or ninja training or any of the other extraordinary powers we tend to want to attribute to our heroes of imagination and fantasy.  No, . . . the One, True God -- the real God -- lived among us without any abilities more extraordinary than the very same talents and limitations which you and I possess as creatures created in His Image.

    But if this is so, one might ask, . . . if Jesus was so ordinary . . . then what gives us the right to claim that He is the Incarnate God?  How is Jesus different from any other exceptionally good or wise human person such as Socrates, perhaps, or Mahatma Gandhi or Albert Schweitzer?  Well, . . . we make this claim about Jesus because the power of God was manifested in Jesus.  Hence, following the Feast of Christmas is the Feast of the Epiphany:  the Feast of God’s Manifestation in Christ Jesus.  . . . And the Gospel appointed for this Festival teaches us three very important things about manifestations of God’s activity and power.

    First, we learn that it is possible and even necessary to discern God’s power and self-communicating activity and love in the natural world and in the events of our own lives.  For, the Gospel Lesson appointed for this Day tells us that God the Father announced the birth of His Son -- the Word Incarnate -- with a remarkable celestial event:  a Star; . . . a star so remarkable that it compelled a number of heathen astrologers to make a long, exhausting, and very dangerous journey in order to do homage -- to pay reverence -- to the King which they discerned to be so manifestly glorious that the very Heavens should announce His birth in this way.  … And yet, you see, . . . it was a star so subtle that Herod and all of Jerusalem had missed it -- hadn’t even noticed it!  . . . By this we are taught that you must always be alert.  You must always keep the eyes of your Faith opened wide.  You must continually look for God, . . . or you will miss His glorious, but unpretentiously simple, self-communicating love and power.

    The second thing to be learned from the event we remember with reverence tonight . . . is that it is necessary to interpret what we discern of God’s power in the light of the faith community’s collective experience of God.  Because, you see, although the wise men from the East knew by the star that something marvelous and momentous was afoot in the land of Judea, . . . they were at a loss to interpret its meaning without the aid of Holy Scripture . . . and without the aid of those who could comprehend Holy Scripture.  Clearly we learn from this that the individual experience of God is not self-authenticating.  Any personal experience of God is subject to the discipline of the communal experience of God.  It must stand with and not apart from how God has revealed Himself to the Community of Faith.  An example of this, which comes to mind, is that of a priest whose extraordinary life and ministry we celebrate on August 7th:  Father John Mason Neale, Founder of the Society of Saint Margaret (among other things).  . . . Father Neale, you see, was so catholic in his doctrinal and liturgical views that he alarmed his 19th century Protestant Bishop to the point that said bishop inhibited Father Neale from any parochial exercise of his priestly order.  But John Mason Neale did not go off and start “The Anglican Church of East Grinstead” or some such schismatic folly.  No, Father Neale obeyed his bishop.  . . . Father Neale obeyed his bishop, but in the course of time was given permission to found a nursing Sisterhood.  And what God had given to Father Neale to communicate to the Church . . . was given through the marvelous prayer and ministry of the Sisters of Saint Margaret.  . . . And my point is this:  while each of us might be beloved of God to whom He manifests Himself -- and we are, without a doubt, each beloved of God -- . . . yet, we are also and especially members of a Body:  the Body of Christ.  However God may disclose Himself to you, its meaning is interpreted in and through our collective understanding of Christ Jesus; . . . the self-disclosures of God are interpreted by the teachings and sacred admonitions of Holy Scripture read through the lens of Christ; . . . they are interpreted by the disciplines and duties which are the example of Christ; . . . and they are interpreted by the prayer and Sacraments which are Life in Christ Jesus.

    Finally, tonight’s Gospel Lesson teaches us that the one thing which brings all things together is Wisdom.  Saint Matthew tells us that the men who came to do homage to the infant Jesus were wise.  . . . Because, you see, Wisdom is different from knowledge.  Facts alone are just things which, like a child’s toy blocks, can be stacked and arranged any which way.  There are a lot of people in this world who stack facts in one way in order to exclude God, and there are others who stack facts another way and wind up excluding Reason.  But Wisdom is the capacity to hold in balance both delight in what we know . . . and reverence for the mystery of what is unknowable.  And so, in the Gospel Lesson appointed for this Festival . . . here we have a group of strangers to the Hebrew God of Israel, Whose Incarnation was foretold by Scripture and which is proclaimed by the Heavens, . . . a group of strangers to all of this, . . . and yet, who are capable of being so filled with awe that they do what the Hebrew King Herod cannot:  they worship the child of Mary; . . . they worship Jesus because they are wise.  All that Herod could do, and all Jerusalem with him, . . . was to be troubled.

    These three things which we encounter on the Feast of the Epiphany are keys to comprehending all that is to be discovered throughout the Season of Epiphany.  I commend them to your keeping:  to look for God Whose love and power is manifest in your life and in the events of your life; . . . to seek God in the faith and discipline of the holy, catholic Church of which we are members -- to seek God in daily Prayer; in daily study of Holy Scripture; in the Church’s Worship; and in spiritual guidance to be found in godly writings and in the counsel of godly fathers and mothers ordained to minister to Christ’s Body; . . . and I commend to your keeping a love for the grace of Wisdom; . . . to pray, as Solomon did; to pray for the grace of Wisdom . . . so that you might attain a holy balance between the triumph of mastering intricacies of knowledge . . . and the simplicity of being humble before your God.  Value and practice these three things, and God’s power and love in Christ Jesus shall be manifest to you; . . . and what’s even more to the point . . . they will be manifest in you as well!