"Stars and Black Holes" | The Rev. Heidi Thorsen | January 5, 2025

Sermon Preached: January 5, 2025 at Trinity on the Green

Epiphany, Year C (transferred): Isaiah 60:1-6 | Ephesians 3:1-12 | Matthew 2:1-12

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be pleasing to you, O God, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Here in the United States, we begin this winter season with the bookend holidays of Christmas and New Year’s Eve. These are significant holidays in our culture. For example, if I asked where you were on Christmas last year, you could probably tell me. If I asked you how you spent your New Year’s Eve, you’d probably remember that too (or at least I hope you would). On the other hand, if I asked where you were on the Feast of the Epiphany, I expect a little confusion and, perhaps, silence. Epiphany is the actual bookend to the Christmas Season (not New Year’s Eve), and it is celebrated every year on the first day after the twelve days of Christmas, which is January 6. Today we’ve transferred that feast day one day earlier. Despite our annual observance of Epiphany in church, chances are that the day itself passes by largely unnoticed, just another day in the new year. I would be hard pressed to say where I was on Epiphany last year, or the year before that— though I can think of at least one exception. My favorite Epiphany is the one I spent in El Salvador, the Central American country, when I was caught up in the local parade and customs of a small town called Arcatao.

Our small group from seminary had arrived that afternoon, after driving hours on winding mountain roads. We were greeted by locals at the town church, and then sent off two by two to our host homes across the town. I can’t remember much about what my hosts looked like, but I remember experiencing hospitality unlike any I have experienced anywhere else. My friend and I were welcomed into their cinder-block home, with concrete floors, one bedroom, a kitchen in the main room, and an outhouse. We were offered the only bed in the building to sleep in at night, as the family of five or six slept in hammocks in the main room. They caught us a fish from the river the next day, and gave us the better part– the tail– while the family split the head, eating every part. It is a unique kind of challenge to receive such hospitality at the expense of one’s host, but that is what we were told by our guide to do: to accept the gifts that the hosts wanted to give, rather than refusing them that honor.

Before we went off to our separate houses, our guide informed us that there would be a parade in the town square that evening, in celebration of the Feast of the Epiphany. Those of us who were interested in joining met at a familiar intersection, and waited to see what would come next. It didn’t take long to hear the sounds of celebration, and to see people walking in growing numbers in a certain direction. We followed, and somehow the parade escalated. There was music, people playing guitars and walking. There were people holding stars high in the air on sticks with streamers, symbolizing the star that the wise men followed to find the young Jesus– this being the central story of Epiphany. And there were fireworks glowing red in the distance, leading us like more stars to a square in the town.

We followed dirt roads to this destination, swept up in the joy of the moment. When we arrived there was more music, more singing, and an open invitation to roam the small square that was packed with people serving tamales to long lines of people. There was a plastic nativity scene, more fireworks, and a group of children dressed up like a Christmas pageant. I’m not sure if we ever returned to that particular place during our visit, or if it just seemed so different in the light of day. We walked home that night to our cinder-block houses, “overwhelmed with joy” like the kings in the Gospel of Matthew.

It is an incredible thing to experience a celebration of the Epiphany in Latin American communities, like the town of Arcatao. But what is even more incredible to me is the contrast between that height of celebration, and the depth of painful history that we learned about in the following days. Like so many rural communities in El Salvador, Arcatao was hit hard by the Salvadoran Civil War. In 1979, violence broke out between El Salvador’s oppressive military government and the FMLA, a resistance group representing the interests of rural Salvadorans. Unfortunately, the government interpreted all rural Salvadorans, or campesinos, as a threat. Over 75,000 people were killed in the ensuing thirteen years of civil war, some of them in massacres of defenseless citizens. One such massacre took place on the banks of the Sumpul River, just outside of Arcatao, where 300 to 600 Salvadorans died by violence in an attempt to cross the river as refugees into Honduras. As a result, the town of Arcatao was temporarily abandoned.

Today, Arcatao has a modest population of about 2,500 people, and they have not forgotten the events of the past. Murals depicting the massacre at the Sumpul River decorate popular picnic areas. Random walls throughout the city are painted with the face of Archbishop  Oscar Romero, a saint and martyr who for many people represented a voice for the voiceless. Volunteers in the city of Arcatao maintain a two room museum, full of stories and artifacts from the war— including numerous shells of weapons supplied to the oppressive Salvadoran government by the United States. For Americans, the Civil War in El Salvador stands as a cautionary tale about the intervention of the US military in other parts of the world, reminding us that we have just as much power to enable unnecessary killing as we have to abate it.

How were the people of Arcatao able to celebrate, and still tell the stories of their recent past? Perhaps they were able to do this in the same way that the wise men were able to seek out the young Jesus, be overwhelmed with joy, and then return to their country by another road. The wise men were aware, on some level, of the threat that Herod posed. And when we read further in the Gospel of Matthew, we see just what that threat looks like. Herod, infuriated that the wise men ignored his attempt to find Jesus, orders that all children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under be killed– a last ditch attempt to kill the hope that Jesus represents for so many. 

These stories stand back to back in the Gospel: a story of incredible wonder, and a story of incredible hate. This contrast points us to what the Feast of Epiphany is all about: it is about finding light in the shadows. It is about recognizing joy– not in a world that is always overflowing with happiness, but in a world that is mixed with love and hate, with hope and fear, with joy and sadness. This is the world that God chose to enter, in sending Jesus to become human. This is the world that the people of Arcatao live in, holding their history close and their loved ones closer. And this is the world that we are a part of, too.

In this season of celebration, with Christmas and New Year’s, the hard realities of life are never far away. For many this is a season of mourning, as the holidays bring our losses of the past year, or years, into greater focus. And then there is the news. Fifteen people, killed in a domestic terrorist action in New Orleans during New Year’s celebrations. Ongoing violence in the war between Israel and Hamas, and so many casualties on both sides, especially in Gaza where it has become a human rights issue– not unlike the massacres in El Salvador. We also keep in our minds the ongoing violence in Ukraine, Sudan, and so many other places around the world.

Nevertheless– I believe that our willingness to look at these sources of pain with open eyes can only increase our capacity to experience joy, when we find it. This is what it means to be human. And this is why Jesus became human in the first place– to be with us in that range of human experience, and to lift us up above it. This is what true wisdom looks like, as we think of those so-called wise men. True wisdom means holding the joy and holding the pain– not leaning too far into joy or despair, but honoring them both as real and present parts of our lives.

The wise men maintained this important balance by following a star. And so the question is this morning: which are the stars that God is calling you to follow? What star of incredible joy is God calling you to keep your eye on– so that you never lose hope, or faith in the transformative power of love? What star of the past, present, or hope for the future gives you that warmth of joy and wonder? Never lose sight of it.

And, on the other hand, what star of pain or tragedy has God asked you to keep in your vision? These are the Herods of our lives– not stars, exactly, but something that God asks us to keep our eyes on nevertheless. What star of pain or sadness pulses in your heart, either in your own story or in the greater story of the world? May your persistent attention to those black holes of our lives make you better able to love, and make room for joy for every living being.

Follow the light in this season of Epiphany, and don’t ignore the shadows either. Be open to seeing it all, feeling it all, and engaging with it all. And if you ever feel too overwhelmed by the black holes and shadows, remember these words about Jesus in the Gospel of John, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:5). Amen.