“Arise, shine, for your light has come”

But, of course, it is more than that – it is a call to arise, to stand up and be noticed, to shine!

Isaiah 60:1+6 and Ephesians 3:1-12

January 4, 2026

Dr. Todd R. Wright

Most years, Epiphany means a visit from the Magi.

We love their story – Matthew gives us just enough information about them to spark our imagination and then allows us the freedom to fill in the rest of the details; they bring mysterious and symbolic gifts; and they arrive with a flourish wearing exotic clothes!

Plus, thanks to a dream, they outsmart Herod, the clear bad guy! (Love it!)

No wonder Epiphany became one of the three oldest Christian feast days – older, even, than Christmas!

Theologically, the Magi are poster children for God’s practice of revealing something wonderful to the gentiles! (This always surprises Israel!) As if God wants to love everyone!

The Magi respond by being drawn to the light! (Literally following a star from the east.)

It’s a great story! But it is tied to what went before and what will come next.

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To be clear – God has always wanted Israel to be a blessing to the nations. Look back:

To the covenant with Abraham in Genesis!

Or to the call to be a light to the nations, repeated, over and over, by Isaiah,

even when the country has suffered humiliating defeat, exile, and a rocky return to the land.

So when Matthew is crafting the story of the Magi, he is drawing on powerful images. It’s all there in Isaiah’s prophecy – light in the darkness, nations being drawn to Jerusalem, camels and kings, gifts of gold and frankincense! All the ingredients for a great story!

But, of course, it is more than that – it is a call to arise, to stand up and be noticed, to shine!

It is an absurd thing for Isaiah to say. The Israel he is speaking to has no inclination to or aptitude for rising or shining. They are a beaten-down people. Their city is rubble and ashes. So are their dreams and their confidence. And who would notice their weak flicker? Who would listen to their inconsequential voice? Who would be drawn to visit them, as if they had all the answers or were worthy of receiving gifts? It’s ridiculous!

But Isaiah does not flinch. He believes in them; well, more precisely, believes in what God is doing through them! God has made them to shine, to be a light in the darkness – so that others who are stumbling around, bumping their shins, might find their way; so that others who have wasted their time worshiping false gods, might discover one worthy of their devotion; so that others who have spent so much time chasing after wealth and power might see what God can do with a people who have been humbled; a people who are powerless apart from the God they serve.

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Now, look forward to centuries after the Exile, to decades after the Magi, to the early church:

Paul does not tell his listeners to arise and shine, as Isaiah does. He has taken on that ministry himself. And like Israel, he is doing it in unlikely circumstances. He is in prison. He is suffering. And he has given his life to carrying the good news to the gentiles. As if God almighty has been working toward this goal the whole time! As if now was the time to reveal the mystery of the boundless riches of Christ and to make everyone see what can only be seen in the right light!

Of course, Paul never points to himself, unless he is offering up an example for others to follow, so that they too might arise and shine and tell others that the light has come!  

The Ephesians might have raised the same objections as Israel after the exile: who us?

Yes!

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Sometimes it is poets who say what needs to be said.

Ada Limón, the former U.S. Poet Laureate, writes of gazing at the night sky while rolling her recycling to the curb …

“But mostly we’re forgetting we’re dead stars too,

my mouth is full of dust and I wish to reclaim the rising —

to lean in the spotlight of streetlight with you,

toward what’s larger within us, toward how we were born.

Look, we are not unspectacular things.

We’ve come this far, survived this much.

What would happen if we decided to survive more? To love harder?

What if we stood up with our synapses and flesh and said, No …

What would happen if we used our bodies to bargain for the safety of others …

if we stopped being terrified,

if we launched our demands into the sky,

made ourselves so big people could point to us with the arrows they make in their minds

[to point out constellations]?”[1]

I think she is asking, “What if we took Isaiah seriously, if we arose and shone?”

Ann Weems responds this way:

“The Holy Spirit is poured out upon us and sends us out together aflame with new life,

inheritors of the wealth of God: life abundant.

We are liberated from the prisons of pettiness, jealousy, and greed,

liberated to be the church.

We are freed to free others ...

We are loved to love others.

We are family; we are community.

We are the church triumphant – you, me, anyone who would come unto the Lord –

renewed, redirected, empowered

to change things and lives together in love and wholeness.

We are the Lord's church, the church of justice and mercy,

the people sent to open prisons, to heal the sick, to clothe the naked, to feed the hungry,

to reconcile, to be alleluias when there is no music.”[2]

Wouldn’t that make for a fitting continuation of the Epiphany story, so that everyone might be drawn to what God is doing?” Amen

[1] From her poem, “Dead stars”

[2] From her poem, “The Church Year”, in Kneeling in Bethlehem, page 81