‘Epiphany’ simply means something has been revealed. When you shed light on something, or see something for the first time, you’ve just had an epiphany. When you’re in school, and you do your reading for class and learn something new, you have an epiphany. And when you don’t do your reading for class, and find out the test is today, you also have an epiphany. The thing about epiphanies is they can go both ways: good news can become bad news. It depends on who you are (and how you prepare) and exactly what is being revealed.

So far in this season we have seen this distinction rather clearly. Back on January 6, the Epiphany of Our Lord, Jesus was epiphanied to the gentiles, to magi from the (far-away lands of the) east. These gentiles (had done their homework apparently, and) were so excited to see his star when it rose that they loaded up their camels with gold, frankincense and myrrh and followed until they found the place where the child was.

By contrast, when Jesus is epiphanied to King Herod in Jerusalem (by those magi), it becomes clear the old king hadn’t done his reading. He knew neither the scriptures nor the power therein, and he was driven so mad with shock and envy, that he murdered half the children in Bethlehem. The thing about epiphanies is that they can go both ways.

And the irony of course is this: it is the insiders, those who had every advantage and every reason to receive the Epiphany as good news, who turn away from the light, and even try to snuff it out. It is the outsiders who receive it with joy, and who even become lights themselves.

Today in our gospel it happens all over again. Jesus comes home to Nazareth, a hometown boy who made good. “Is not this Joseph’s son?” the locals say with pride. They even have him do the readings in church, and he does not disappoint:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” he reads, “because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And then comes the Epiphany: “Today,” Jesus says, “this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing,” and he sits down. Jesus claims for himself the title of Anointed One, of Messiah. He has come to proclaim the Lord’s favor; he liberates the oppressed; he enlightens the blind; he is the one, finally, who has good news for the poor.

This is the Epiphany—and notice who it is for: the poor, the blind, the oppressed and captive. Epiphany is good news for outsiders, for those who don’t seem to fit in to God’s people, and Jesus uses two Old Testament stories to illustrate. There were many widows in Israel in the days to Elijah the Prophet, but he was sent instead to an outsider, a gentile widow at Zarephath. In the days of Elisha there were plenty of lepers in Israel, but none of them were cleansed, only Naaman, a gentile from Syria.

This is a relentless theme in the Bible. Blessing comes to the least likely: to the younger sons, to the lesser daughters, to the barren, to the stubborn and sinful, to the foreign and the far-from-God. At almost every step in the story there is a reversal; the genealogy of Jesus is actually littered with shameful and icky outsiders whom God has woven into his beautiful tapestry of grace.

And actually even in the case of insiders, such as God’s own people, God’s promises are fulfilled only after they are turned into de facto outsiders themselves, after they are kicked out of their promised land and become refugees—quasi-gentiles—themselves. Only in that fragmented weakness, dispersed in Babylon and Persia, did faithful Jews like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and Nehemiah succeed in turning the hearts of gentile emperors and kings toward God. The world is reached only when God’s people are broken in pieces and sprinkled among the nations.

This is exactly the story that the crowds of Nazareth did not want to hear. They did not want to hear about the strange and even backward ways of God (working first with gentiles, calling the godless to himself). They did not want to see themselves in this broken and pieced-together story which we call Epiphany.

This is why we are so adamant as historic Christians that you must confess your sins. Today, and every Lord’s Day, is an Epiphany of Jesus Christ, and we cannot afford to be another Nazareth who would rather drive Jesus off a cliff than repent. We must see ourselves in the story that Jesus tells: of outsiders and gentiles and bad people who finally find the favor of God.

Confessing our sins means claiming this story. Being sinful and unclean, being a miserable sinner, is actually the only way in. That’s why this Divine Service always start there. Because that is always where God’s story begins. It is where Jesus’ story begins. And today, it is where Myla Elisabeth’s story begins.

And this story (Myla’s story) isn’t only the story Jesus tells about you. Remember how his earthly life begins. He is born and immediately exiled, driven with Mary and Joseph all the way back into Egypt. Jesus lived the life of a gentile outsider. He lived the live of the poor and blind and oppressed. He heals the broken, and feeds the poor, and liberates the captive by touching them, breaking bread with them, and sharing their bonds.

And when he comes at last to Jerusalem to be crucified, remember he isn’t crucified in the city. (The book of Hebrews makes a big deal of this—Hebrews 13:12-16.) He is crucified as an outsider himself, driven outside the walls (that Nehemiah built in our Old Testament Lesson). And there, outside the walls, he joins himself to us—to Myla, to me, to each one of you—to the outsiders.

Epiphanies, as we have said, depend on who you are. And because we are baptized in the the death of Christ, because we are the sinners whom Jesus loves, whom he has grafted into his own body, Epiphany is our good news. Whoever dies with Christ will rise with Christ. Whoever confesses their sins—confesses that they do not belong—is welcomed at his table. Whoever will be an outsider, a captive—they will be set at liberty, and receive in their mouths the Lord’s favor.