God Loved The World In This Way

January 4, 2025 Pastor: Rev. Dean Kavouras

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Christ Lutheran Church
Cleveland, Ohio
January 5, 2025
by: Rev. Dean Kavouras

Epiphany C
God Loved The World In This Way

“Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea during the reign of Herod the King, Behold! Magi came from the East to Jerusalem saying, "Where is He who is born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the East and have come to worship Him.” (Mt. 2:1-2)

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Thank God for the feast of the Epiphany.

Praise Him that he did not limit atonement to any certain group of people, but that in Christ he redeemed the whole world, and invites every man, woman and child into his abiding love: and there is nothing better than that!

How do we know this? By Epiphany of course. But what is the Epiphany. The word means be enlightened. It is part of our common vocabulary. People say: “I had an epiphany,” by which they mean something that has long eluded them, has now dawned upon them.

This is what happened with the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Blessed Holy Trinity, the Father Son and Holy Spirit made the decision to bring salvation into the entire world through a chosen nation, the nation that we know as Israel. Not its present day iteration – that is a political entity that has nothing to do with the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation in Jesus Christ.

But in the eternal foreknowledge of God he called Abraham; and Scripture says that Abraham believed God and it was accounted unto him as righteousness. Abraham was not a godly man at that time. He, like all men, was a transgressor of the High and Holy Will and Word of God. It is likely before God called him to be the Father of many nations that he was a worshiper of the moon. That he was an idolater as all men are, until the Light of Christ dawns upon them. But again God called and chose Abram, and Abraham believed God by the power of the Holy Spirit!

As such Abraham became the Father of the Jewish nation and per the plan of the Blessed Holy Trinity the Christ was destined to come to earth as a Man, through this nation. You can read an abbreviated lineage or ancestry in Matthew Chapter One that lays out the genealogy. And as one continues along in St. Matthew’s account, which was dictated to him by the Holy Spirit, we come across Mt. 1:18 where it says, “Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.”

From that point in St. Matthew we learn all the details about the annunciation by the Angel to the Blessed Virgin Mary. We learn about St. Joseph her betrothed, and especially this beautiful fact, that once you have heard it you can never be the same! (Matthew 1:21) Namely this, “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." Yes, Beloved. He will save his people from their sins. And any person who hears this proclamation and will believe it, has what it says: the forgiveness of sins! Thus life, peace, calm and never-ending life.

So yes, the entire first chapter of Matthew is dedicated to the Lord’s lineage. Between the inspired Evangelist and St. Luke we learn the entire glorious and miraculous episode of what our God has done to redeem, restore, and renew us and make us a New Creation in Christ. For the Old has passed away, and Behold all things have become new for us.

That said the entire event was predicted in the Jewish Scriptures, cast in Jewish frame, and the Savior who was born was born a Jew. Moreover St. Matthew notes that, “He will save his people from their sins.” (Mt. 1:21)

His people! What a boon for the Jewish people. The salvation promised throughout the ages to the Jewish people, by the Jewish prophets, has finally arrived!

But … by a false understanding of these promises, many if not most Israelites came to believe that the Messiah, the Christ, the Savior was sent only for them – and even more off-base that the salvation he would provide them was not the gift of Life in with God with Christ. But a political victory so that Israel would forever be “king of the mountain.”

But what an error.

But the beauty of Epiphany is this: that salvation was not just for the Jews, but for the entire human race: past, present and future.

But we are in the dark no more. Because no sooner had St. Matthew given a brief outline of eternal; gospel, do we come to St. Matthew’s 2nd Chapter which starts like this:

These men, the Magi, began their lives like Abraham did as idolaters. Worshipers of a god made in their image. We don’t know all the details, but they may be been astrologers who, consorting with demons, tried to learn things that were not theirs to know. Trying to predict the future, which is a sin.

In any event the fact that he sent a special star to these men that they followed to the Incarnate Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, the world’s redeemer, means that salvation from sin, death, extinction and futility are not just for the Jews, but for the Gentile as well. That is what the Magi were, and that is what we are: Gentiles.

But this should come as no surprise to Jew or Gentile because today’s gospel is the fulfillment of today’s Old Testament lesson and today’s Psalm. Listen:

Psalm 72 –10 May the kings of Tarshish and of the coastlands render him tribute; may the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts! 11 May all kings fall down before him, all nations serve him!

And from the Prophet Isaiah 60: 3 “And the Gentiles shall come to your Light;
And kings to the brightness of your rising. ... 6 A multitude of camels shall cover you (r land), young camels of Midian and Ephah; they all from Sheba shall come. And they shall come bringing gold and frankincense and they shall bear glad tidings, the praises of the LORD.”

One last word now. Namely that, “the Gentiles are fellow-heirs, thus fellow members of the Body, thus fellow communicants in the promise of Christ Jesus through the gospel.”

So whereas our Lord Jesus Christ was promised to the Jews, came by the Jews, indeed was a Jew according to the flesh, all people regardless of whatever else they may be, can now be part of Christ. A member of his Very Eucharistic Flesh and Blood. A member of Him and of one another.

“Arise, shine; For your light has come! And the glory of the LORD is risen upon you.” Isaiah 60:1