Things are not always what they appear

This morning’s Gospel lesson contains not only an epiphany, or revelation, of Jesus to the Gentiles, but also an epiphany of God’s way of working in the world. The one strand that ties the various nativity stories together is summed up by Mary in the Magnificat, “He has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty.” Jesus Himself summarizes this grand reversal of fortunes with His saying, “the first will be last, and the last will be first.” What we see in these reversals, and which was prominent in our Gospel lesson this morning, is the strong element of irony in the way that God advances His purposes in the earth. The epiphany of David’s Greater Son provokes fear and plotting in Jerusalem, but joy and worship from the land of the east. And beloved we see the ritual enactment of this irony in the Table spread before us this morning. The “glorious and triumphant feast of the Lord” to which you are summoned each week would appear to many a rather inglorious and unsuccessful feast. I mean this isn’t a Table of fine choice meats and aged cheeses that we would picture on the Table of a King. And the feast is a celebration of the death and seeming defeat of the King, rather than the triumphal conquest that many of the Jews expected of their promised King. But to view the Table in this way is to miss the epiphany of God’s way of working in the world through Jesus. The simple of elements of bread and wine signify the transcendent glory of the King of kings and Lord and lords. And the death that is proclaimed by these simple elements is the means by which Jesus, “disarmed principalities and powers, making a public spectacle of them, [and] triumphing over them in it.” And beloved, despite all appearances to the contrary, as you feed you upon this bread and wine Christ’s victorious kingdom is advanced in your lives and throughout the earth. Despite all appearances to the contrary, this is “the glorious and triumphant feast of the Lord.”