Dear friends in Christ, today is a great day in our church.  January 6 is Epiphany, the day we remember the Magi who came calling on the Holy Family because the star had guided them.  It's also the day we remember with joy the beginning of our Epiphany Lutheran congregation, the miracle church that began with a phone call, a suggestion and a few willing people.  The Magi's Epiphany was the revealing of the newborn King of the Jews.  Our Epiphany happens every week as Christ is revealed to all who come here to worship the risen and glorious Savior.

          Look at the front bulletin cover to our logo -- the star with five rays coming from its five points.  These five rays stand for the five purposes of our Church which you see printed near the top - (1) Joyful Worship, (2) Faithful Service, (3) Positive Outreach, (4) Loving Fellowship and (5) Biblical Nurture.  We probably don't emphasize these points often enough, but when you see them, try to remember them, for they are the framework on which Epiphany congregation exists.  They're five great concepts in ten simple words, our abbreviated "Mission Statement" around which we organize and through which we do our work.

          "After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem."  It all started with the star God gave the Magi to follow, and it's a star we still follow, no longer to the manger, but to the Gift that came in it.  Epiphany's name means "revealed," and our unofficial motto is "Revealing Christ To All People."  And that's what we're here for.  The Magi travelled a long ways to see this Unknown King and because they did, we know who He is.

          Like those Wise men, we're all travelling through life.  Sometimes the road is smooth and often it's not.  But we all must travel it, and it's up to us as to the road we will travel and how we will react to the obstacles along the way.

          In 1982, New Yorker Roberta Gaspari, faithful wife and mother, was served with divorce papers from her husband of fifteen years.  No reasons were given, no calls were returned - he just disappeared from their lives, leaving her with her two young sons and only her wits to provide for them.  For the first time in her life she felt crushed, but it didn't last long.

          All she knew was to give violin lessons, but it soon was apparent this would not provide them a living.  So she went to her boys' school, the East Harlem School District, and offered to teach violin to students there for no pay.  If they were pleased, she said, they could offer her a staff position.  It was a hard sell, but finally they allowed her a semester trial period, but it would be with only minimal pay.

          This woman's plight is not that uncommon.  Tragically, more and more people are abandoning their marital commitments and expecting someone else to pick up the pieces and assume responsibility.  But that's only one big obstacle in the road of life.  There are others.  The potholes of disease, financial reversals, tragic accidents, evil people and our own bad judgment can make the journey on life's road filled with remorse and regret.  They can make us angry and cynical.  We may even despair, but it's up to us how we will react.  No one ever promised us life in a rose garden, but thorns don't have to force us into our caves of self-pity.

          Roberta Gaspari's trial semester of teaching was a great success, and she was offered a paid teaching position.  Within a year, she had over a hundred violin students, there, among a dozen ethnic groups of students in the middle of the East Harlem slums.  Her gentle yet demanding nature not only taught many young musicians, it changed many lives.  Some of her first students were accepted into prestigious music schools, including Julliard and Eastman.  Her popular programs brought hundreds of children to her auditions each year.

          But in 1993, after ten very successful years, she was shocked again, this time to learn her program was going to be cut due to budget restrictions.  Hundreds of students were waiting to learn, but the school district cut her program.  Roberta Gaspari felt crushed, but not for long.  Undaunted, she offered to find funds to keep her program going.  School officials finally agreed but offered her no assistance.

          With some parents' help and encouragement, she planned a benefit concert to fund the program.  She worked her students hard to prepare, and parents did what they could to sell tickets and promote the event.  Then one day a parent came with the news, the small hall they'd rented had been condemned and couldn't be used.  And the concert was only a month away!

          St. Paul knew trials in his life journey, but he also knew God doesn't forsake His children, and so he wrote, "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed;  perplexed, but not in despair;  persecuted, but not abandoned;  struck down, but not destroyed." (2 Corinthians 4:8-9)   It's not that we fall down and break a leg or get robbed by thieves on the road to Jericho;  everyone has that happen.  It's all in whether we get up and how fast we do it.

          Sometimes God brings us a Good Samaritan to help, and other times we have to bandage our own wounds.  There is a dangerous attitude around these days, that all our troubles can be blamed on someone else and that they should be responsible for fixing our troubles.  It's what's behind many lawsuits and reparations.  I heard there's a teenager in Littleton who sued his parents for not doing a good job.  He lives with them next to our good friends, and I wonder what their home life is like.

          Can I blame someone else for what happens to me?  Will it do any good to try?  Adam blamed Eve and she blamed the serpent, and nothing good came from that, except that God saw their pitiful condition and bailed them out.  He has to do that for all of us.  God set up the covenant of faith with them and later did it again with Abraham and Isaac and again with Jacob.  And always God fixes the covenant when we've broken it.  That's the reason He sent His Son.  God knows we are frail and made of dust, so He arranges to pick us up out of the dirt, dust us off and help us start all over again.  That's what God's forgiveness and love are all about.

          Back to our friend the violinist.  Hearing their concert hall had been cancelled, Roberta Gaspari again felt crushed, but not for long.  Through various contacts, word of her plight came to another violinist who offered her the use of a hall for her concert, "But only," he said, "if I and some of my friends may play along.  We like what you are doing."  The hall he offered turned out to be Carnegie Hall!  And the man was none other than virtuoso Isaac Stern, and his friends included Itzhak Perlman and other symphony greats!

          What a difference those men made!  The benefit concert was a huge success and so well received that her East Harlem violin program was fully endowed and is still going strong today.  Young lives are still being changed, and violin music is heard in the streets of East Harlem.  Roberta Gaspari could have given up many times.  Often she felt crushed, but not for long.  Though we don't know of her faith, what she did is a great lesson for all of us.  You can hear all about her true story in the cable movie, "Music of the Heart."

          As we are faced with obstacles on our journey, you and I can't avoid feeling crushed from time to time, pushed into the ditch on the road of life by chance events, stupid decisions, or people who don't care.  But it's up to us if we are going to stay in the ditch or get back on the road as soon as we can.  God has a plan for us to be with Him forever, and the potholes or rough roads we encounter can either keep us down or make us work harder to find newer and better ways to travel.  Sometimes you just have to choose another road.  But whatever you do, let Jesus be your travelling companion wherever you go.

          The text says, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?  We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him."  They worshipped Him, those pagan Gentile men from the Middle East.  We modern Gentiles must follow their example and keep on worshipping Him.  Even if we don't want to go or find reason to criticize or are tired or feel too busy or any other reason, don't give up worship.  We need worship, all of us, because only community worship can restore us to God and to each other.  Don't give up your spiritual food just because the menu isn't exactly to your taste.

          Finally, the Magi brought Him gifts, and so can we.  Our offerings to God are not what He or the church need to get, but something we need to do.  I want to thank so many of you who brought your gold, incense and myrrh for Care Center residents or the Peace Officer's Ministry or our single mother of twins or General Fund or Building Fund.  Christ has given His all for us, and we can only give back a little here and there as a show of faith.  May we all go with God in our Epiphany travels during 2002.  Amen

Copyright © 2002 by Pastor Bob Tasler.  All rights reserved.