“Jesus is Desire of Nations”
By Rev. Dr. Jason Byassee
Sunday, January 5, 2025
Reading: Haggai 1:15b-2:9
In the year 1158, the city of St. Andrews in Scotland began building the largest church in that country’s history. Construction took 160 years, and when it was consecrated in July of 1318, none other than Robert the Bruce is said to have ridden down the centre aisle on his horse.
When the Scots broke ground on that cathedral there was only one church in all of Europe. But with the Reformation in the 1500s, that church splintered into shards. Scotland outlawed the Roman Catholic mass, and St. Andrew’s great cathedral was ransacked by a mob, incited by a preacher like me named John Knox. Not a very pleasant fellow. Scotland’s greatest ever church was left to rot for more than a quarter of a millennium. Folks carried off its best stone for building materials. And it became a splendid ruin. A friend of mine went to grad school in St. Andrew’s in the early 2000s and passed by that hulking shell of a building every day. Since 1826 it’s been preserved with great care. The Romantic movement loved ruins and loved to explain why in Latin: sic transit gloria mundi. So goes all worldly glory. Today St. Andrew’s is known for golf and tourism, That glory will one day fade too. As will all human accomplishment.
Happy new year everybody. Why am I starting out my first word to you in 2025 with a slightly depressing history of how all things fade? I guess I can’t help it. If our broader world is out there celebrating, as in late December’s party season or New Year’s Eve, I like to join in. Jesus can always be found at the best parties. But every party ends. If folks are as miserable as some are at Christmas, as victims of terror attacks in places like New Orleans are, Jesus is the best comforter, the only comfort I know anything about really. Then it’s good news to say, “this too shall pass.” Whether the gospel is good news or bad news sort of depends on where you sit.
Today we celebrate the Epiphany. Twelve days after Christmas, three guests come and bring gifts to the Christ child. You know this story. This painting of it by our own Komi Olaf hangs in our reception area. Komi is from Nigeria originally and trained as an architect—there’s a reason the buildings look so real. The wise ones historically represent three continents: Europe, Asia, and Africa, usually in that order. But in the New Testament, the gospel begins in Asia. The so-called “Middle East”? That’s a British colonial description, named for the department that ruled those particular waves.
Christianity spread to Africa first in the book of Acts. Philip the apostle evangelized a man from Ethiopia who worked for Candace, queen of all Ethiopia. The Ethiopic Orthodox Church today traces its origins to this story in Acts 8. The gospel got to Europe last in the New Testament. Now, last is no bad place to be if you’re a Jesus-y sort of person (the first will be last, after all, and the last first, right?). But Komi has taken this tradition and creatively reworked it. So, one wise one is from west Africa, where Nigeria is. Another is from East Africa, where Ethiopia is. And a third is Arab: Christianity spread far into places that are today Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, India, and as far east as China. And that angel who looks like Angela Davis? How do we know what angels look like? All we know is when anybody sees one, they’re afraid. This angel is directing the wise ones to go home another way.
There is something about beauty like in this painting that cuts through all our defenses and leaves us face to face with God.
Epiphany means, roughly: “light shines.” You have an Epiphany when you realize something. The penny drops. Your eyes are opened. Your ears hear music. Your senses smell in a way that’s not of this world. You touch something mysterious, quasi-forbidden, but ultimately good for you. Epiphanies don’t usually come when you want them. But they’re always on time.
Have a look at the image on your bulletin cover. The wise ones here have become kings, as in our hymns and pageants. One is on his knees to kiss the feet of the Christ child. Another is starting to remove his crown to cast it before him. But here’s what strikes me about the image—look at the train of humanity in the wake of the kings. Everybody is coming. Even folks who don’t much look interested—they’re laughing, or ignoring, or just joined in with the party. And you can’t see the end of the line. All humanity is coming to worship this infant. Wise kings know when there’s a greater king. Usually they know that because they lose in combat. Here they know because well, they’ve had an Epiphany. Anybody else want one of those?
Want to get even more radical?
The wise men aren’t from Israel. They’re from the east. We don’t know where. Their religions are anybody’s guess, it hardly matters to us. Matters to them I bet though. They’re following a star, remember? Biblical faiths don’t do stargazing. We do revelation. Our Jewish and Muslim siblings agree entirely here. Faith isn’t something we come up with. It’s something God reveals to us. We have epiphany because God unveils who God is and we say oh, right, we thought x, but it’s really y. But as Christians we go a step farther. Ours isn’t a religion of the book. It’s a religion of a person. Jesus. Jews do not worship Moses. Muslims do not worship Mohammed. But we worship Jesus. And the first ones to show us how to do it are not Jewish. They’re not Christian either—Christianity doesn’t exist until the resurrection. They’re whatever blessed thing they are, we don’t know, remember? They get to Jesus by following whatever they’re following. Stars or something. Doesn’t matter. God uses whatever they are to get them to Jesus. Sometimes God’s people miss out on God. And it takes other people to show humanity the way. And I gotta tell you this makes me very uncomfortable. I’m a Jesus guy, a Bible guy, a Christian. But apparently God is willing to use whatever God has made to show us all who God is. The great Karl Barth said this: “God may speak to us through Russian Communism, a flute concerto, a blossoming shrub, or a dead dog. We do well to listen to Him if He really does.”
Barth said that at the height of the Cold War. Them’s fighting words. Get you arrested. And not just in the USA.
On this Epiphany Sunday we celebrate the surprising ways God can work. A student of Barth’s, Robert Jenson, often said that the difference between the living God and a dead idol is that the true God can surprise you. And when you’re surprised by God, you laugh and laugh and laugh. Not at anybody else but at ourselves.
I imagine Haggai was surprised that the word of the Lord came to him. Has anybody heard of Haggai? Me neither. The prophet writes down when it happened as if a little unsure himself. God’s summons is this: “Speak now to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, and say ... “
Now whozat again? Zerubawho? Jehozawhat? These are the kinds of names that make people swear off reading scripture altogether. Zerubbabel is governor in waiting, gonna rule Judah. Even funnier name than usual because it’s a Babylonian one. The people are returning from exile. Jehozadak is high priest of a temple that’s only existed for a few weeks. Not sure what a high priest does without a temple, but now he has one. And Haggai is addressing the government and the religious authorities. Politics and religion. In disarray. Any political issues in our country at the moment? Elsewhere in the English-speaking world? Any religious problems? Just wondering out loud a little here.
Haggai is what we call a minor prophet. Not because he’s unimportant: here he is lecturing Trudeau and Ford, ordering the pope around and telling the United Church of Canada a thing or two. He’s “minor” only because the book is short, two chapters, Dayle could have read the whole thing. And the remnant of the people? That’s an important word, remnant. God will not leave the world without a witness. It may feel like the world is God-forsaken. You might feel alone. You’re not. God is there, but that’s not all. There is a people who have been faithful. Even if you don’t know who they are. Even if they don’t know who they are. In Judaism today, you need at least ten Jews to pray corporately. No minyan, only got nine, okay, let’s go to breakfast. Jesus lowers the bar. Wherever two are three gather in my name there I am with you. Every time we gather here there are more than two or three. There are all the angels and saints. Folks who feel most alone among the alone, say, in solitary confinement—so bad they torture people with it—they’re not. We’re not. Jesus Christ is there. With all his people. Haggai calls God “the Lord of hosts,” and summons the promise made at the Exodus: “My Spirit abides among you; do not fear.” Yeah, easy for you to say God. You used to split seas back then. Maybe you could break a prison bar or two now?
In the new year we sometimes like to argue about this question: how are things? Getting better or worse? Those who are ready to get better hit the gym hard. Don’t worry, we’ll be gone by February, as will our resolutions. Those who think things are getting worse have plenty of evidence in our favour. But it’s hard not to admit that life is better for billions today. Unless you want to die of smallpox. The great Jimmy Carter, not long before he died, was asked what he still had left to accomplish. “Well,” he said, “I hope the Guinea worm dies before I do.” Not an ailment you or I worry about or struggle with, but a farmer from Georgia and farmers in Africa know well. Carter almost made it, but the worm still lives, but there were only 14 human cases last year. Actually, Carter still lives. He will make it. When Christ makes all things new, parasites aren’t invited.
God asks through Haggai, who remembers the former temple, the one the Babylonians destroyed entirely? That is, who is old enough to have survived the exile, 70 years, with memory of the first temple?
3 Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing?
Not a thing ever said about our building— it’s not been destroyed or rebuilt. But imagine it were. Seventy years from now how old will you be? I’ll be, let’s see, 120. Not gonna be here. My kids will be 90ish. They’ve got a chance. We have a parishioner who remembers church union in 1925. Not a lot of folks drawing breath who remember that. She was a little girl. Now well north of 100. And she can tell you all about it. Some say people didn’t live for a long time back then. I don’t mean 1925. I mean in biblical times. They are wrong. If men survive heart attacks and women survive breast cancer we can go a long time. In Haggai, the ones who remember are in tears. That temple was magnificent. This one? No one can hear Haggai through the grief.
The nobody prophet from nowhere speaks. We got God. Who frees slaves from Egypt. Not freed, past tense, but frees, present tense. We got God’s Holy Spirit, who is God all over again. We have a remnant bearing witness. What more do we need?
Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land, 7 and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the Lord of hosts. 8 The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the Lord of hosts. 9 The latter splendour of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts, and in this place, I will give prosperity, says the Lord of hosts.”
Do you see? This is written in future tense, which is how prophets talk. But for us Christians, it’s also past tense: God has shaken the heavens. And the earth. And the sea. And the dry land. With Exodus. With Jesus’ baptism that we celebrate next week. In each of our lives. And did you notice? “The latter splendour shall be greater than the former.” This is the rare contemporary argument where the Bible directly weighs in. What’s to come is greater. Now I don’t love this. Religions are conserving institutions. We treasure what’s been. But there it is in the Bible so… it must be true. Some say the politics of joy are dead. Those people, including me, stand corrected. Martin Luther King used to say he wasn’t optimistic, but he was hopeful. Avery Cardinal Dulles, asked if he was optimistic about the future, said no, but he is hopeful. The future includes Christ’s coming in glory.
I’ll close with this story: my mentor and friend Sam Wells loves to tell it. It’s of St. Lawrence, for whom our great river is named. When Christianity is under persecution, Lawrence is a deacon in Rome, and he is told to gather the church’s treasure. Then as now folks assume we’re sitting on treasure that we’re not sharing. Haggai says, “The silver is mine, and the gold is mine,” well, sure enough. The Roman authorities demand it all in three days. Lawrence says no problem, I’ll just find my way to a cash machine. Three days pass and the authorities are back, and the church of Rome is full of ... the poor, the lame, the blind, the deaf, the actual treasure, the only treasure worth having. For his troubles Lawrence is grilled alive on a spit. Tradition says he asked to be turned over. He was done on that side.
Happy new year y’all. Meet me at Christ’s table. If you dare.