Read Matthew 2:1-12
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| Image Courtesy of Vanderbilt Divinity Library |
This Sunday we celebrate a time in the life of
the Church know as Epiphany. Like normal, we have read the story of the wise
men as they travel from Herod to go see the Christ child. So often for us as
Christian this story is just the perfect ending to the season of Christmas. We
celebrate the birth of Christ, we celebrate the shepherds visit, and we end by
celebrating the arrival of the Magi. While this is ultimately correct, too
often we hold all of these pieces together as though they make perfect sense, as
though shepherds and magi visiting a carpenter’s baby is completely normal.
Because we as Christians are privy to know the whole story of the celebration
of Christ’s birth we act as if the shepherd’s story and the magi’s story might
as well be the same story, our nativities even depict them all there together.
The truth of the matter is that the story of the shepherds and the story of the
magi are two drastically different stories. The shepherds are Jewish, they are
waiting for the coming Messiah that has been promised in scripture. The angels
of the Lord come and sing to them telling them of the good news that the
Messiah is born, and then they go see the child and tell all who would listen
that Christ is born. They were not evangelical in the way we think about it
now, converting someone who never believed, instead they were just messengers,
like town heralds, telling all of their Jewish friends that the Messiah they
were waiting for was here. The shepherd’s story is a story about the
fulfillment of expectations.
The magi’s story is completely different. To truly
understand the magi and their journey we have to for a moment forget about the
birth story in Luke that we are so familiar with. To better understand the
magi, we must first remove them from our thoughts of the nativity scene, and
from our own expectations of the Christmas. In Christmas we celebrate the
fulfillment of all the expectations we had be waiting for during Advent, but
there is a reason why Epiphany signals the end of the Christmas celebration,
because here on Epiphany the good news of Christ’s birth stops just being a
celebration of the arrival of the Messiah, and becomes a signal for Christ’s
mission to all the world.
So for a moment, let’s forget the shepherds, forget the
angels singing, and forget the Messianic expectation, for a moment let’s forget
Christmas, and let’s put ourselves in the shoes of the Magi. The Magi or the
wise men as they are sometimes called are not Jewish, they are part of a
religion such as Zoroastrianism that studies the stars to find true about any
deities. The know only enough Jewish tradition to be dangerous, sort of how
like today most of us know Muslims believe in a prophet named Muhammad or the
Buddhists believe in reaching some state called Nirvana, but other than that we
don’t know all that much about other religions. This is how the Magi were, but
as they were reading the stars, they found something, a disturbance in the
force if you will, the stars were telling of the birth of a king in Bethlehem.
These magi decide to set off west most likely from Persia towards Bethlehem to
see this new king. As they arrive in Jerusalem, the meet with King Herod and
ask where this child might be, but Herod is stunned to hear the news, so he
calls together his chief priests. Herod is in one of the most privileged
positions in our story, he is told by foreigners of a revelation of theirs
about a king that was born, but unlike the Magi he and his scribes know of the
Jewish texts that foretell of this coming. Unfortunately, Herod is more full of
fear than joy, since this child could mean trouble to his throne, and so he
send the magi to find this child, not telling them the reason he wants to find
Jesus so bad is so that he can kill him.
So the Magi once again continue on their journey reading
the stars, until the star leads them to Mary and the baby child. And when they
see the baby they recognize that this child is King, not just the “King of the
Jews” the title mocking Jesus at his death, but this child is their King, he is
the King of all. And so having just met
this child, having never read the scriptures about the Messiah and his coming,
these Zoroastrian sorcerers if you will, bow down before Christ and offer him
gifts fitting of a King; gold, frankincense, and myrrh
This is the beauty of the Epiphany story, God choses to
work through the actions of gentiles, these pagans, in order to profess not
just to the Jews but to the world that Christ is King. God grace was able to
grab the attention of the wise men who had never before known God, this grace
drew them in and towards Christ, and that grace forever transformed their
lives; for they did not go back to Herod, but returned home a different way,
for their lives from this point on would be different. When we put away our own
preconceived notions of this story, when we for a moment forget Christmas and
look at this text from fresh new eyes, then we realize that this moment truly
is an epiphany. God took something ordinary, something profane; God spoke not
to the chosen people but to pagans; and in doing so told the whole world of the
good news of Christ.
As we celebrate Epiphany today, we celebrate as gentiles,
that Christ has included us in his salvation narrative. We celebrate that like
the magi, God’s grace has drawn us from our lives of despair, sometimes through
such profane and mundane ways, and helped us to see the Christ child, our King.
We celebrate that this grace continues to transform our lives that we in our
lives go now a different way. Finally we celebrate that this good news is not
just for us, but that is good news for all the world to hear, and that the
pressure is not on us to change the world, but to simply be the messengers of
that good news; for if God can use the stars to bring the magi to Christ, what
other mundane ways can God’s grace work through us to do the same for others
today. We celebrate because as we gather around the table this morning like the
star for the magi, God can take this ordinary bread and juice and make them be
for us a moment of Epiphany, a moment where we recognize the grace of God
working in our lives, and realize we must go a different way.
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