When I was in High School, I had a teacher named Miss Mary Bartram. She taught English and Literature. One day she read a poem to us by Robert Frost, entitled “The Road Not Taken”. She read it with such commitment and passion that I believe she changed a lot of lives that day, including mine. When I thought of the Wise Men and their decision to go back a different way, I remembered Miss Bartram’s dramatic rendering.
I am now going to read it to you, and let me say, that in no way can I match her passion.
So here it is, Robert Frost’s, "The Road Not Taken."
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
When people find Jesus, they return to life along a different path. Jesus makes all things different. As wise men, choose your paths carefully - for one leads to life with a king, spiritual leader, and Savior, but the other leads to death, destruction and eternal sorrow. Yes, the road you take certainly does make all the difference - an eternal difference. Choose it wisely.
I started this sermon by stating that “Today is not Epiphany”. But I was wrong, every day is epiphany. Epiphany means “God Revealed”. Everyday God allows us to talk and visit with him, and our final Epiphany will be revealed at last when we will be in God’s presence, in heaven, for eternity. Amen.