Has God ever spoken to you?
Have you ever seen a sign?
Heard a voice?
Met God in a dream?
As I was finishing up my senior year of high school, I was kind of a mess. I could not figure out where I wanted to go to college, and my indecision was creating a lot of anxiety. I worried that if I made the wrong choice it would affect everything from that point on in my life.
I had this portable filing box filled with folders and acceptance letters and brochures and applications and I was overwhelmed by it all.
But one afternoon, I found myself driving home from a youth event and I knew….
Like a light bulb turning on above my head…
I knew that I was going to Simpson College.
Never mind that it wasn’t even one of the schools in my folders or that I hadn’t even applied yet.
It just came to me and felt like everything was suddenly right with the world.
The word Epiphany means “an appearance or manifestation” and the twelfth day after Christmas we celebrate how God’s love became manifest in human form
And we remember all of the people who first experienced this revelation of good news: the shepherds in the fields, Mary and Joseph, and the wise men from the East.
I keep thinking about how God acted and spoke and moved and showed up in the lives of these totally unrelated people from different background and realities.
Some of them might not even have known the God of the Israelites.
But through dreams and signs and nudges and messengers, God showed up in their lives.
As the prophet, Isaiah, cried out…
Arise! Shine! For your light has come… though darkness covers the earth and gloom the nations, the Lord will shine upon you… Nations will come to your light and kings to your dawning radiance. (60:1-3)
Not just the faithful people of God would be drawn near, but nations! Kings! Strangers! Unbelievers!
As Matthew tells us, it wasn’t simply a star in the sky that drew the magi to Bethlehem.
They recognized that the star itself was a sign, a message of something bigger. It was the light of Christ himself, revealed to the entire world, that pulled those magi over mountains and deserts and seas to the countryside surrounding Jerusalem.
Before they even knew who he would become or what it meant for their lives, this epiphany, appearance, manifestation, changed their lives.
They felt a nudge to move, to act, to respond.
And they did.
When John Wesley talked about the grace that transforms our lives, he started out by talking about prevenient grace.
The grace that goes before us.
The grace that shows up in the lives of people before they even know who God is.
Prevenient grace is why we baptize little babies.
It was the neighbor who reached out to invite you to come to church.
It was website you stumbled across when you were looking for a new faith home.
It was the faithful actions of your parents and grandparents that laid a foundation for you.
Prevenient grace is that first nudge.
The invitation.
The awareness of a different kind of possibility.
A sign. A star. A word.
Something that shifts.
We don’t always know yet how, or why, or what it means, but it changes us.
I saw how many of you were drawn out of your homes just a couple of weeks ago to catch a glimpse of that great conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in the sky. While it was possible to see with your naked eye or through binoculars, this particular photo was made available by Greg Hogan. It was taken as a long exposure shot from central Georgia.
This was a once-in-a-lifetime experience… after all it has been 800 years since these planets appeared so closely.
But I think part of what was so powerful about this experience is that we are hungry for light.
We are hungry for hope.
We are hungry for just a glimmer of possibility and joy.
We find ourselves at the start of a new year, and yet still in the midst of a pandemic.
Our world, feels kind of bleak right now.
But so it was at the time of Jesus’ birth and in the time of Isaiah.
Forces of death and violence, power and pride lurked around every corner.
They knew the despair of exile and occupation.
They knew isolation and helplessness.
But into their midst, Isaiah heard God’s call:
“Arise! Shine! Lift up your Eyes!”
In the midst of everything that is going wrong, LOOK!
Look for those glimmers of grace.
Those indications of hope.
Those moments of possibility.
Pay attention to the invitation…
See what God is doing all around you…
The magi in the East recognized that this star was leading them on a journey into the unknown. And they chose to follow the star that led them to Jesus.
This Epiphany, in the midst of everything happening in our world that feels bleak and difficult, I want to invite you to get up. To shine. To pay attention.
I want to invite you on a journey.
For the last few years on this Sunday, we have come forward to draw star words.
Each star came with a word, an intention, a little nudge from God… something to pay attention to in the coming year.
This year, rather than each drawing our own words, we are going to follow the stars together.
We are going to take time each Sunday to focus on how a few star words speak into our lives.
How they call us to go deeper.
Live more faithfully.
Grow in our discipleship.
And just like the magi, I want to invite you to not only be willing to offer your gifts with God… but I want to invite you to be open to what God might be giving to you in this journey.
You know, when I had that epiphany to go to Simpson College, I had no clue what God had in store for me.
Heck, Simpson didn’t even have a meteorology department and that was what I intended to study.
But I opened myself to the possibilities and how I could best serve God and just look where I ended up.
It was all because I allowed myself to pay attention to those nudges and I decided to take a risk and follow them.
Whether we are new to this faith or we have been coming to church for nearly a century… God is still shining in your life.
God is still guiding you.
God is still speaking… nudging… showing up…
God is still creating a new thing in you….
Renewing you…
Transforming you…
So that every one of us might become more and more like Christ.
Friends, a star is shining in the sky.
In a world that is bleak and frustrated and tired and worn out, there is a glimmer of possibility.
Of something new.
Unknown.
And if you open your life up to it…
If you take one step… and then another…
If you bring along some friends…
If you let that nudge work in your life…
It just might change everything.
May it be so…