It’s time to put some old myths about this Epiphany
feast to rest. We talk about the wise men as if they were kings, come to pay
homage to a newborn king that they had foreseen in the stars, but the truth is
actually a little bit different. They were, in fact, astronomers, and they
didn’t travel alone. Any group of people of any status traveling a long
distance would have had a retinue of workers, most likely slaves, who took care
of the animals, preparation of meals, and such on a long journey. It is
unlikely that they came on Christmas night – the fact that Herod issued his
murderous order against all children 2 or younger meant that some time had
passed until the magi arrived in Judea. They probably came from Babylon, the
place where astronomy reached its highest expression.
Their notation of what was happening in the skies was a
surprise to Herod, who didn’t notice anything special happening in the skies.
His response was to assemble the Sanhedrin, and to ask them “have you heard of
any ‘King of the Jews’ being born? For him, this was a political problem, since
he was certainly not a well-liked king himself, as a pawn of the Romans, and he
always worried about an uprising against him.
And then the magi left, with instructions from Herod to
return and tell him what they found.
When they got to Bethlehem and the child, they were
overcome with joy when they saw the star there – most likely because they
hadn’t seen it when they were in Jerusalem. Seeing it again confirmed that
their understanding of this astronomical occurrence was correct.
And so they found the child and gave their gifts. They
were the standard gifts brought on important occasions – they are referred to
in both Isaiah and Song of Songs.
So if we take away the romantic understanding of three
kings coming to worship another king, arriving on that cold night (which
probably was not in December, by the way) hard on the heels of the shepherds,
bringing kingly gifts, what are we left with?
Something remarkable. Something that previews what the
very end of Matthew’s gospel will announce: this is someone who came for Jews
AND Gentiles, for all the nations, not just the home team.
It’s an eye-opener, isn’t it? And isn’t that precisely
what we think of when we hear the word “epiphany?” Eye-opener! In Greek,
epiphaneia means a manifestation or a revelation. We use the word the same way
when we have a sudden “aha” moment, a new idea, the lightbulb going off!
There’s a famous picture of Arthur Fry, the inventor of the Post-It note, with
one of those ubiquitous yellow notes on his forehead with a lightbulb drawn on it.
And there is certainly an ‘aha’ moment here.
We might want to ask the question “Why does Matthew
think that this story is important?” It would make more sense appearing in
Luke’s gospel, where the inclusion of non-Jews is taken as a given, but here it
is in the midst of Matthew’s very Jewish gospel, which is all about showing how
Jesus is the fulfillment of the ancient Hebrew prophecies.
But
here it is in Matthew, because it is, in fact, the fulfillment of a Jewish
prophecy. It not only fulfills Micah 5:2, which says “But you, O Bethlehem of
Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come
forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from
ancient days,” it also fulfills Isaiah
66:18 : "And I, because of their actions and their imaginations, am about
to come and gather all nations and tongues, and they will come and see my
glory."
The magi are the first Gentiles to recognize who this
child is. They see it before many of the Jews do. They have their “aha” moment
and it teaches us something…
…because it raises the question “are WE open to the
‘aha’ moment? Are we ready to feel the power of this Christ in our lives?”
Sometimes we may feel that these are all stories from
long ago, stories that don’t happen now. But what if that weren’t the case?
Where might our epiphanies come from? An interaction at the Farmer’s market? A
conversation with our child? A smile returned by a homeless man begging on the
corner? An unexpected gift from someone we least expected to present it?
Those moments that happen in our lives – and they do
happen, don’t they? – are our own epiphanies, our own lightbulbs on the
forehead.
And they are something else as well, the most remarkable
of gifts. They are the ongoing revelation of the Word made flesh. They are
Christ made incarnate, 2013 years after he was born, still fresh, still new,
still making us sit up and take notice. There may not be stars or scary kings
on a dark cold night, but there is the best of it distilled into what we really
need: Aha! He is here, present, moving among us and changing us.
Amen.
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