Visit of the wise men 2022, 12 step Eucharist
January 5, 2022, Christmas II, Matthew 2:1-12, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Little Rock
We hear tonight, and we will again celebrate tomorrow night at 6:30, the visit of the wise men. Our tradition calls this Epiphany, the revelation, the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles, which is most of us, you and me. The Christ child, the God of my understanding, is indeed manifested to me almost sensuously at Epiphany. It first happened in the mid-fifties, when I attended my first Epiphany Feast of Lights service around the age of eleven in a small Virginia church with a boyfriend and his family. I still remember the unfamiliar liturgy, the candlelight, and the haunting mystic melodies. As we walked out of the small-town church on that bitter, cold January night, carrying our candles, we were surprised by the winter’s first snow. I knew that night that God spoke most clearly to me through this tradition.
A decade later, I again encountered the beauty of the Feast of Lights at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Memphis, with their choral procession of the costumed wise men bearing their extraordinary gifts. Here in Little Rock at St. Mark’s, you can again experience that haunting call of Epiphany at their candlelight evening service at 6:30 tomorrow. To me, the choir and candlelight recessional out of the church into the dark night is always breathtaking. I watch the beautiful, often familiar faces of those walking out behind me. Their expressions seem to ask, “What will we encounter next in the night? Will this light be enough for me to see?”/
This service empowers us to think about carrying our single small candle out into the world. As the candlelight service concludes, we realize that we can only see our path in the dark night because of the light from so many others. This is also our 12-step tradition. It is a we program. We stay sober because we stay connected to a community of others. Occasionally our light shines brightly in recovery. But, more often, we need the light of others for us to see the path ahead.//
Let’s listen to one more part of the journey of the wise men that speaks to our recovery. “They were warned in a dream… and left for their country by another road.” “They were warned in a dream… and left for their country by another road.” This is also our story. We were warned in a dream, by another person, a judge, our family, consequences of our behavior, an intervention, whatever brought us to a moment of clarity to return home, to a new life by another road. Living the path of the 12 steps is the other road we have been called to travel. It is often called the road less traveled. What a privilege it is to trudge, to travel this road of happy destiny in community with each of you.
Joanna joannaseibert.com