We should not hear any of that as though the sermon were saying, “Try harder.” That would miss the Gospel and the Collect entirely. We pray, “Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily.” The One who calls us is the One from whom the grace to answer comes.
The confession is a gift before it is anything else. The Church does not invent Christ and then confess the Christ she has designed. She receives the apostolic faith. We did not generate it, and therefore we are not free to revise it whenever the surrounding culture finds it inconvenient.
At Epiphany, Gentiles come to worship Israel’s Messiah. The Magi anticipate that reality dramatically. They are not Israelites returning from exile. They are Gentiles coming from beyond the covenant people, yet the light of Israel’s Messiah draws them to worship.
What happens at the Jordan is the season’s opening declaration. If the Epiphany asks the question, who is this Child? the Baptism of Our Lord answers it before the season has properly begun. The Father speaks. The Spirit descends.
The word of God, in the hands of Matthew, does not require the sufferers to stop weeping before it is willing to speak. Rachel refuses to be comforted, and Matthew does not correct her.
The kingdom has drawn near in Jesus Christ, and that means we cannot remain neutral. When the true King comes near, every rival kingdom is exposed, the kingdom of self, the kingdom of money, the kingdom of pleasure, the kingdom of political power, the kingdom of religious respectability.