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Epiphany Sunday

Isaiah 60
“Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.
2 See, darkness covers the earth
and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the Lord rises upon you
and his glory appears over you.
3 Nations will come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
4 “Lift up your eyes and look about you:
All assemble and come to you;
your sons come from afar,
and your daughters are carried on the hip.
5 Then you will look and be radiant,
your heart will throb and swell with joy;
the wealth on the seas will be brought to you,
to you the riches of the nations will come.
6 Herds of camels will cover your land,
young camels of Midian and Ephah.
And all from Sheba will come,
bearing gold and incense
and proclaiming the praise of the Lord.


Sitting here, in a Victorian church, on the edge of a Victorian village, in a Dominion formed in the Victorian era, if follows that there will be symbols.

Take a stroll through the village and look for symbols: on the gable immediately below the roof, on columns, door frames, fence posts, and in the brickwork itself. What first appear as design elements may have deeper meaning, something the architect or owner hoped to express to the passersby.

A cherub, for example, symbolizes love or fertility. A lion’s head says nobility, or love for the mother country. An owl means wisdom or vigilance, which leads to the symbol of an open book, for wisdom or learning. The green man is another common symbol, a face emerging from a leafy background, and one that is hotly debated (like the Christmas tree) regarding it’s pagan background.*

Head over to the cemetery, and the Victorians had even more to say. A column represented the death of the pillar of the household, often broken at the top to indicate taken too soon. An urn represented someone cultured (and not cremation, which was not practiced in Victorian times) and a veiled urn represented the veil between this world and the next. Most complex is the clasped hands, which often symbolized a couple reunited in death. You can generally tell which hand is clasping which, and the cuff of that hand tells you whether husband or wife died first, leading the other to the afterlife.**

Back in the village, one of the most common, to the point that we hardly notice it, is the symbol of the sun and the sun’s rays. It’s an optimistic symbol, certainly the symbol of a golden age of progress and prosperity, and in our context, a symbol of empire. Every Victorian child knew that the sun never set on the British empire, illustrated by maps and stamps with the empire in pink or red. It was an optimism that would endure into the century that followed—until the shadow of war fell across the empire—but the symbol of the sun endures to remind us of that unique time.

And the symbol of the unsetting sun had an ancient pedigree. Throughout the ancient near-east—Egyptians, Akkadians, and Israelites—the connection between royal power and the sun that never set was common. A version appears in Psalm 72: “may your anointed live as long as the sun endures.” And then it’s reinforces this with a verse that you might recognize: “he shall have dominion from sea unto sea.” That last part is also our motto (“A mari ad usque ad mare”), though oddly omitted from the version we read in our hymnbooks today. That’s not very Canadian, is it?

And like our hypothetical stroll through the village, the passage from Isaiah invites us to “lift up your eyes and look about you...look and be radiant” as your heart swells with joy.

“Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.
2 See, darkness covers the earth
and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the Lord rises upon you
and his glory appears over you.

The darkness, in this case, is exile. Long ago, the people were carried into exile, the great city destroyed, all hope seemingly lost. But for God, all was not lost. It remained God’s desire to lead these exiles home, to restore the people to the land, to bring light to the shadowed places that were never forgotten.

But there was problem with this plan, a shadow that the passage hints at but doesn’t fully reveal. Some, we know, were reluctant to return to the ruined places, even in the midst of great joy that they were allowed to return. Some clinged to comfort, or opportunity, and some perhaps to the belief that this redemption would be short-lived. Whatever the cause, some need to be convinced to return, and that convincing can be found in the text:

3 Nations will come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
4 “Lift up your eyes and look about you:
All assemble and come to you;
your sons come from afar,
and your daughters are carried on the hip.

See the dual promise: the nations will be drawn to this new Jerusalem, kings in the brightness of a new beginning. And the children (we always worry about the children!) they will assemble and come along too! Sons from afar, and daughters ‘carried on the hip,’ a delightful turn of phrase that should get anyone out the door and back to the land of light.

Through it all, there is an abiding sense that the prophet is trying too hard. He’s overselling it: again a reflection of the very human tendency to choose the ‘devil you know’ over the uncertain promise of return. Hear what I mean:

The wealth on the seas will be brought to you,
to you the riches of the nations will come.
6 Herds of camels will cover your land,
young camels of Midian and Ephah.
And all from Sheba will come,
bearing gold and incense
and proclaiming the praise of the Lord.

There is a reference here to something else you might be familiar with, but I’m going to set that aside to focus on the need to promote the very thing people longed for, prayed for, worked for, but some chose to ignore. Exile is a state-of-mind as well as a physical reality, and people needed to be convinced to make the trip. It was wrapped up in royal power, the promise that Jerusalem might become something it never was, and the sentimentality of taking the children home. It was a compelling message.

Again, why would you need to sell a return from exile? You would expect people to drop everything and run home, not wait around for a prophet to sweeten the deal. Doesn’t the promise of return sell itself?

There are a few things we should remember as we figure this out. First, the exile lasted decades, meaning many exiles were living in the only place they ever knew. Jerusalem sounded remarkable, but for most, it wasn’t home. Also, Babylon was world-class (as we would say today) and anyone living there might feel some pride being at home in such a great city. Finally, the exiles were hardly suffering in Babylon: they made lives for themselves, doctors and lawyers, and high places in the royal court such as our friend Daniel (of the lion’s den fame). They were the High Victorians of the ancient near-east.

Looking at the clock, it might be time for the ‘so what,’ the link to today that will help us put the whole thing together. And whenever the preacher talks exile, there is a moment when we need to complete the circle and decide who’s in exile today. Or, in the context of this passage, who is light-shy? As with all popular metaphors, there is a cast of usual suspects.

Some are in exile from themselves, and lack of sense of their true selves and who they were created to be. Some are in exile from the success and prosperity that many enjoy, and see no route to return or even begin. Some are in exile from any kind of higher meaning: they attach to status or things or the ‘perfect life,’ until they discover how truly fleeing these are. And some are just mad: mad at life, mad at the people around them, even mad at God.

Convinced that there are many forms of exile, and equally convinced that for many, it’s the only life they know, our task would seem to be light-bearers, or light-bringers, into the dark places we go. We are not the light, we bring the light, reflect the light, promote the light. “Arise, shine,” Isaiah said, “for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.” We allow the light to rise upon us, that others may see a way home from exile.

Again, we’re not making the light, we’re allowing the light to shine through our lives to cast a pure light on others. They may or may not choose to see it, embrace it, follow it. But we can bear witness to the power of the light in our lives and see what comes next. God will do the hard work.

May God shine through us, into the darkness of an often weary world, and make all things new. Amen.




*https://gizmodo.com/what-the-secret-symbols-in-victorian-architecture-reall-1529767254
**https://woodlandcemeteryhistory.wordpress.com/2017/06/01/victorian-monument-symbolism-expressions-carved-in-stone/

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 4:35 AM