[Mcgregorpage] McGregorPage #642, Epiphany Sunday, 1/4/09

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Epiphany Sunday – January 4, 2009

Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14
Isaiah 60:1-6
Ephesians 3:1-12
Matthew 2:1-12


The meaning of Epiphany is that the birth of Jesus was not just a Jewish event and not just a first century event.  It was a universal event, an eternal event, an event of God.  One Christmas Eve years ago, I was touched by the witness of a Rabbi to the Christ event's being a saving event for his mother.  The coming of Christ is a world saving event, not just an event for the Christian
Religion.

On National Public Radio's Morning Edition, Christmas Eve 1996, Rabbi Abie (AY bee) Ingbersaid that this day will always be special to him because it was on Christmas Eve that Christians miraculously appeared to save his mother's life in 1942.  It was in Poland.  The Nazis were rounding up her family along with the rest of the Jews preparing them for a horrible end.  His mother, a young girl was sheltered that night by a series of evangelical Christians, each hiding her at the risk of their own lives.  Attics, sheds and even an oven became her saving place that night, but finally the danger became too much for her last protector, and he turned her out into last hours of that cold Christmas Eve.  She wandered, freezing in her tattered dress until she came to the house of a local official.  His dogs attacked her, tore her clothes and bit her.  He emerged carrying a gun, and she20asked him to shoot her so that she could join the fate of her family.  He said he would not kill her on this night.  Instead, he took her in and fed her, gave her a new dress and took her to another Christian family who eventually got her to Russia.  

Rabbi Abie Ingber added that two more Christians would intervene on her behalf before she would be free and living in the United States.  It wasn't until years later that he learned of the old Polish saying, "On Christmas eve, even a stray cat has a home."  He said that he is grateful to be a Jew and a Rabbi, but at the same time he is grateful to God for having used Christmas Eve to bring about a miracle of peace on earth and goodwill among people. 


May these thoughts strengthen you. 
 
An Open Letter to Fellow Pastors 
>From Roland McGregor, United Methodist Pastor 
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