The Last Sunday of Christmas

Light of Christ Anglican Church
Rev. Bart Morrison

January 4, 2026 

A Star Shines in the Darkness 

Text: Ephesians 1:10 

Lord God, I pray that you would be with us in this moment as we go to your  word, Lord. I pray that you would sanctify your word in us, Lord. And we’ll give  you the glory in Jesus name. Amen.  

So, here we are. We’re on the verge of a a new season. Tomorrow, who knows  what tomorrow is in our in our church, our church calendar. Tomorrow is the  last day of the Christmas season. Now, in some elements of our tradition, and  I’m a big Christmas nerd, and I like to expand Christmas as long as I can. I listen  

to Christmas carols and choirs all year round. But tomorrow is the last day of  Christmas and the sixth is Epiphany. “Epiphany” comes from the Greek word  epiphania which means a god visited earth.  

I’m going to be dwelling on Ephesians 1:10, which is your second your second  reading in the bulletin for this Sunday. If you haven’t read Ephesians lately, it’s a  it’s kind of a quick read, but very rich, especially chapter one of Ephesians—it is  rich theologically. Some theologians in our Christian history have spent years just  preaching on on chapter 1.  

But we’re going to focus today on on uh verse 1:10. Let me read it for you : 

…as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Christ, things  in heaven and things on earth in him. 

Epiphany, brothers and sisters, is is about light. We’re over Christmas season, we  had the infant Jesus being presented to essentially the kingdom of Israel, in that  he was presented to the shepherds and and those in Judea. But in the Epiphany  we are seeing the revelation of our Lord of our our Lord to us, the Gentiles.  

It’s a it’s a moment when God is turning on the lights to us in the Gentile world 

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and shows us what has really been true all along. A star shines in the darkness.  And I don’t think any of us would deny that in our our cultural moment, as  the young people like to say, “we’re in a dark time.” Never, perhaps in human  history, have we needed a a bright star to illumine our way. Strangers from from  far away are drawn to this star in this story. A child is revealed not only as a baby  in Bethlehem but as a king of the whole world.  

I would expand that. You know we have the the new James Webb space telescope  and they tell us that there are more stars, known stars, visible in the night  sky through the James Webb telescope than there are sand particles on all the  beaches. There’s a lot to God’s physical kingdom. 

Epiphany tells us this: Jesus is not a private savior. Although it’s very important  to us that he is our savior. But go with me—he is the one around whom  everything else is meant to turn. Some people talk about his birth being the hinge  of history. And I think, as believers, we would agree with that. This is no more  important event in history.  

Now we could say the resurrection clearly is pretty important too, right? But  without without the incarnate eternal son coming to us as a child our salvation is  for naught, and that’s exactly what Paul is saying when he tells us in verse 1:10  that God’s plan is to unite all things in Christ.  

God is not just taking control at the end of time. And clearly we see signs all  around us that things seem to be being summed up. But he’s doing more than  that—he’s putting the whole world back together.  

Well, how do we how do we talk about this with our unbelieving friends and and  remind ourselves of what happened?  

The Bible never really treats sin as just breaking the rules. Sin does much more  than that. It pulls lives apart. First, sin pulls us away from God. We were made,  brothers and sisters, to live connected to him, to receive life and direction from  

him. Sin said “I will live on my own. I will be an autonomous agent. I don’t need  anything else but what’s in internal to me.” The result friends was not freedom  but distance from the way God intended us to live.  

Second, sin pulled us away from one another. Blame and casting negative  thoughts on each other replace trust. Fear replaces love. Other people become  threats or tools for our advancement instead of gifts to us. 

Third and lastly, sin pulled us apart inside ourselves. We become divided people  wanting what cannot satisfy us; doing what we know is wrong. Living restless  and exhausted lives. And sin even pulled creation out of harmony. Work becomes  toil. Creation groans. Nothing quite works the way it was meant to, despite all of  our best intentions.  

Sin unplugged the whole cosmos from its source.  

So what what does God really mean when he says well he’s uniting or  recapitulating putting us back together again? We need to hear Paul very clearly  here. When Paul says God will unite all things, he does not mean God will flatten  everything into sameness like our Hindu brothers and sisters believe. Sweet as  they can be, that’s not that’s not what the Bible tells us.  

God means he’s going to reconnect everything to the one who gives it life, who  is life itself. Often times we tell our our children, you know, God is love. And we  we really need to embrace that idea because that is what trinitarian love is. It’s  love: the love for the father for the son, the love of the son for the father, and both  for the love of the holy spirit. God wants to reconnect us to that power. Think of a  lamp unplugged from the wall.  

[And as we went off for our trip last week, Leslye unpluged every doggone thing  in the house. And I’m searching around trying to print my sermon last night. I  didn’t know the outlet where the printer was plugged. I finally crawled around  in the dark found it.] 

But if things, lights, are unplugged from the wall there they still exist, but they  don’t shine. And that’s how we are. Sin unplugs creation from God. To unite all  things means to plug the world back into Christ, the one through whom it was  made.  

Paul says all things are united in Christ and that matters for us. Jesus is not  added on top of the world. It’s not another resume filler that goes in your  resume. Jesus is not just a teaching. This Jesus is not a teacher pointing us toward  God. He is where God meets us. And that’s especially part of our Anglican  tradition. And we’ll talk about that in a minute.  

In a in a few minutes, we’re going to be going to the table. We’ll experience  the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. God did not fix the world from a  distance. He stepped into it. Jesus ate. He touched. He suffered. He died and he rose again. Our God Jesus heals by entering into it with us.  

Now, I’m not trying to downplay our personal salvation. Thank goodness our  Lord does save us personally. Forgiveness matters. Justification matters. As as  Anglicans, we hold true those biblical principles.  

But God’s goal is bigger than clearing our guilt. As important as that is, God  wants us back in communion with him. 

Salvation, brothers and sisters, is not just being forgiven and sent away. It’s being  welcomed home. I like home. I love spending time with my son and daughter in-law and we had a great time. It’s but it’s their home. When I got back at the  car I knew I was on the path back to our home. And we have a longing for our  heavenly home. Now, as we’re getting ready to go into to Lent and Passion Week,  let’s cultivate that longing together for our heavenly home. 

That’s this is why scripture speaks of adoption for us, new creation, and sharing  in Christ. God is not escuing souls out of the world. He is restoring people within  it. This is why this is where the our Anglican understanding of the real presence  fits quite naturally with this season. When we come to the Lord’s table, we are  not just remembering something long ago. Christ is truly present to his people in  this sacrament. Not because the bread stops being bred, not by magical thinking,  but because Christ gives himself to us through the Holy Spirit. When we receive  the bread and and the cup in faithfulness, we truly receive Christ.  

God uses ordinary things. We should be very cognizant of this living on the  Northern Neck. He uses the ordinary things in our world to give real grace  because God intends to heal all of his creation and draw it back to him.  

And what’s amazing is that God doesn’t do anything on a small scale. He plans  to do this everywhere in the cosmos. It is a living picture in Ephesians 1:10.  Brothers and sisters, our church, our part of a a universal church, exists because  this uniting work has already begun and you’re a part of that. When when  different people kneel at the same rail, as we will do shortly, when forgiven  sinners share the same bread, God is showing the world a glimpse of its future.  

But not everyone wants this type of communion. We pray that they would.  Judgment is not God being cruel. It is a God-honoring choice. Christ will be  Lord of all. Brothers and sisters, the question is whether we receive his life or  refuse it. And I pray that there’s anyone here who doesn’t know him as Lord and Savior will come to love him and trust him as savior, even today. Now is  the appointed time. Epiphany tells us in closing, the light has been revealed.  Ephesians tells us where the light is leading. God thankfully is not discarding the  world. He is healing it. He is not abolishing differences. He is restoring harmony.  And he invites us now to trust Christ, to receive this life and be plugged into the  source—to live connected to the one who holds all things together, who unites all  things in him. This is not wishful thinking. This is God’s promise. By by grace, it  has already begun.  

In Jesus name we pray. Amen. 

©2026 The Rev. Bart Morrison