The Epiphany of our Lord

Isaiah 60:1-6: Light, peace, well-being, security - these are the themes of this prophecy from the Third Isaiah; these are the gifts of God to God's people.

When God brought these precious gifts to Judah, God completely changed the situation of their lives. Judah's life had been marked by their opposites. Darkness had covered the earth, thick darkness enveloped the people. Exile had been their lot, living far from their home their way of life. Hunger and poverty were the properties of their days. But in the thick darkness, light! From their exile God brings them home! Their hunger is fed: the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you, the wealth of the nations come to you! From Sheba they shall come, with gold and frankincense to proclaim the praise of the Lord!

With those last words, we are suddenly projected into Matthew's story of Christmas. The gold and frankincense from Sheba becomes the gold, frankincense, and myrrh that the wise men brought to pay homage to the infant Jesus. As those of old came from afar to honor what God has done for his restored land of Judah, even so do some come from afar to honor what God has done in the birth of Jesus Christ. The glory of the Lord has risen upon you, says the prophet to Judah. The glory of the Lord has shined upon you, said the angel choirs at the birth of the infant king. Light, peace, well-being, security will come in him. Arise, shine, for your light has come!

Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14: This psalm strikes a note that is not often heard in the Book of Psalms and is very rarely heard in contemporary life: the cause of the poor is the cause of God, and therefore the cause of kings and legislatures is the cause of the poor. "May the ruling powers, the kings and presidents of the earth, judge the poor with righteousness. . . . May the Congress defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush their oppressors. . . . May our state legislators everywhere deliver the needy when they call, the poor and those who have no helper. May our mayors and city councils have pity on the weak and the needy, and save the lives of the needy." Why should they do this? Because God does this, says the psalm, and those in power should use their power as God uses his power: "From oppression and violence God redeems their life, and precious is their blood in God's sight."

This psalm was used in the coronation of the kings of Judah. At the moment these kings were installed in office, they were reminded that the service of justice results in care for the poor. The God who came to Moses long before with the words "The cry of my oppressed people has come to my ears" will not permit nations and rulers to forget the poor of the land. The kings of Judah forgot that, and the result was the destruction of their kingdom.

Nor will this same God forget the oppressed when God comes in Jesus Christ. What better job description do we have for Christ than the one that this psalm sets forth? "He judges the people with righteousness, the poor with justice. He defends the cause of the poor of the people, he gives deliverance to the needy, he crushes the oppressor." The kings of Sheba and Seba, distant lands, would seek out such a righteous king if he sat on Judah's throne, and they would fall down before him. The magi of the east sought our righteous king when our Lord was born and showered him with gifts. A righteous king, wherever he is, is the jewel in the crown of God.

Matthew 2:1-12: During this Christmas season, we have already considered the Christmas story in Paul's letter to the Galatians, John's prologue to his gospel, and Luke's account of the coming of the shepherds to Bethlehem. All these stories are different from each other. We turn now to the story in Matthew's Gospel of the birth of Jesus. It too is a distinct story. While it shares some things with Luke's story - the name of the parents, the fact that the birth took place in Bethlehem of Judah, about six miles south of Jerusalem - it also differs from all the others in perspective and in detail.

Luke had put Jesus' birth in the perspective of world-wide empire by announcing that it took place during a world-wide census in the time of Emperor Augustus. Matthew, on the other hand, sets his account in the Jerusalem of King Herod. Herod's court is surprised when "wise men" come from the east with a disturbing question: "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?'

These "wise men," magi, were most likely Zoroastrian priests from Persia or Babylonia who were experts in such matters as the science of astrology and the interpretation of dreams. The names by which we know them do not come from Matthew but from a mosaic in Ravenna in Italy, where they are named Melchior, Balthazar and Gaspar. Stories and legends of all kinds have surrounded them. John of Hildeshaim, in the 14^th century, wrote a popular account of the magi and used the names on the mosaic. The Arab historian al-Tabari, writing in the 9th century, told how the magi went out to search for the messiah, bearing gifts of gold and myrrh and incense. On the way they met the King of Syria, Herod, who asked them what they were seeking. When they told him, Herod replied:

"What is the meaning of the gold, the myrrh and the frankincense, which you are offering in preference to all other gifts?" And they said: "These are symbolic of Him, for gold is the lord of the material world, and this prophet is the lord of the people of his time. Myrrh is used to heal wounds and sores, and thus God through this prophet will heal the crippled and the sick. The smoke of incense reaches heaven as does no other smoke, and thus this prophet will be raised to God in heaven as no other prophet of his time shall be." In the 12th century, Saint Bernard offered a more practical interpretation of the gifts. He proposed that the gold was given to Mary "to relieve her poverty, incense against the stench of the stable... and myrrh... to put away vermin." It never became a popular explanation. (Caroline Stone, Aramco World Magazine 31:6 Nov Dec 1990 2-4)

The magi came to Jerusalem, it is said, because they had seen the child's star "at its rising." Speculation has centered as much on the star as it has on the magi. If there was an actual star, C. J. Humphreys describes it best ("The Star of Bethlehem, a Comet in 5 BC and the Date of Christ's Birth," TynBull 43 (1, '92) 31-56). According to Matthew, he said, the star of Bethlehem appeared suddenly, traveled slowly through the sky against its cosmic background, and stood over Bethlehem. Three astronomical events may have come together to create this "star." In 7 B.C. there was a triple conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in the constellation Pisces. Three planets (Mars, Saturn, Jupiter) massed in Pisces in 6 B.C. Chinese records mention a comet that materialized in 5 B.C. Astronomers as observant as these men were would have noted these unusual events and would have tried to find an explanation for them. The way the New Revised Standard Version translates this verse, however, tells us that the translators did not believe it was necessary to locate such a "star." "To observe one's star at its rising" was a common way of describing the birth of an important person. Such a star is reported to have greeted the birth of Mithridates (ca. 131-63 B.C.), and a late Jewish legend ascribes a like star to the birth of Abraham. Jewish tradition rooted in the text of Numbers 24:17 related the hope for the Messiah to the "star out of Jacob." This line of interpretation understands the "star" to be the miraculous announcement of the birth of the Jewish messiah to these learned men who immediately embarked on a journey to find the meaning of what they had learned.

The news of the birth of a Jewish messiah greatly disturbed the court of King Herod in Jerusalem. Herod had been "king" of Judea, Galilee, and Peraea since 40 B.C. "King" meant that he had been appointed by the Emperor Augustus to be governor of the area. Herod was not Jewish; he came from an Idumean family whose home was in the deserts to the east and south of Jerusalem. Three things mark his rule over his kingdom.

- Herod was a determined builder. He built and rebuilt cities all over Judea and Galilee. He built fortresses and palaces, like Fortress Antonia in Jerusalem, Masada near the Dead Sea, and the Herodium near Jerusalem. He rebuilt Sebaste, the ancient capital of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. He built Caesarea by the Sea by taking a small village and turning it into a magnificent city whose name honored his patron Augustus. His crowning achievement was the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem; under his hand, it became one of the most beautiful buildings in the world.

- Herod was also an able governor. For nearly forty years Herod held restive Judea together, and he did this without the use of armies. He did this so effectively that Augustus, whose oversight of his provinces was very exacting, had added section after section to Herod's area of rule, in the confidence that they would be well governed.

- Herod could also be cruel and inhuman. He dealt ruthlessly with his enemies, and, when he believed it was necessary, he even killed members of his own family to forward his own ambitions. The massacre of children in Bethlehem, attributed to him by Matthew, was certainly within his capabilities.

Herod's court in Jerusalem consisted of chief priests and scribes. Chief priests were those of a particular priestly family who presided regularly at the Temple in Jerusalem and who benefitted greatly from the sacrifices and offerings brought to the Temple. Scribes were a class of professional scholars who had studied the Law of Moses and who could read and write; this skill made them valuable to both the political and religious leaders of the time. These were the ones that told Herod where the child was to be born. They did so by consulting the prophecy of Micah. From Bethlehem of Judea, said the prophet, would come one who is a ruler, who is to shepherd God's people, Israel. "a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel" (2:6). The Greek verb translated as "shepherd" shows what shepherds do with their flocks. They tend them, protect them, guide them, nurture them. The rule of this messiah will not be like Herod's rule. This king is also the servant who suffers, and he will use his power for the well-being of the people and not of the king.

Herod's next act was greatly in character. He summoned the wise men to come secretly to his chambers. He learned when the star had appeared; this information gave him the approximate age of the child. He sent them to Bethlehem to find the child. He asked them to report their findings to him. He already had a plan in mind to dispose of the child.

The magi went to Bethlehem as the prophecy had directed them. The "star" went before them and came to rest over the child. They entered the house (Matthew agrees with Luke that Jesus was born in a house) and saw him with Mary his mother. They knelt down and paid homage to the child. They opened the gifts they had brought for the child. They were warned in a dream not to return to Herod, so they departed to their own country by another road.

Like other stories of his birth, Matthew's account of the birth of the child calls forth awe and wonder from us. We approach it like the wise men, to kneel before the child and offer him the best of our hearts and lives. As we read it, God is indeed with us, and the miraculous child rises from his small crib to become the center of our lives.

We also have to ask the question, Is this story accurate in its telling of the birth of Jesus? We cannot say with certainty. It differs in significant ways from the other stories in Luke and Paul and John that were told about his birth. So much of Matthew's story can be drawn together from other sources. We know that a party of Parthian magi paid homage to Nero at Naples in 66 A.D. and returned to their homes by another route. Philo of Alexandria reports that, according to his reading of the Jewish Law, advisors informed Pharaoh about the birth of the child Moses; they too are called magoi (Brown, BAR Mar/Ap 81, 53). Isa 60:6 refers to "they from Sheba" (south Arabia) who will bring gold and incense. Ps 72:10 tells of "kings of Sheba and Saba bring(ing) gifts." The passage from Micah that points to the place of Jesus' birth is one of seven major Old Testament texts around which the birth stories in Matthew are told. We know that in Egyptian mythology "dreams" were important ways for the gods to communicate to humans. God communicated in dreams to Joseph son of Jacob, prime minister in Egypt fourteen centuries before Jesus' birth. In these stories God communicated twice through dreams to the husband of Mary, who, interestingly enough, is also named "Joseph son of Jacob." But Herod is real, and his actions are fully in character with what we know of him. Mary is real; she was the mother of the child. Jesus is also real. He was born, as the story says, to be "king of the Jews," and according to Matthew (27:29,42) it was as "king of the Jews" that he died. It is also true that this king of the Jews was paid homage by gentiles like the magi, both in the time of his ministry in Judea and Galilee and after his resurrection by gentiles in Rome and Alexandria and Antioch and Ephesus and Corinth and in other cities north and south, east and west. As J. E. CROUCH said ("How Early Christians Viewed the Birth of Jesus," BibRev 7 [5,'91] 34-38), this story is a statement of faith. It is intended to evoke faith in others. The story it tells transcends the issues of whether the story is literally or symbolically true. It points us to Jesus of Nazareth, born King of the Jews, who becomes Lord of all the world.

Ephesians 3:1-12: Matthew in his birth story showed what was about to happen: gentiles and people from the ends of the earth would see the light of God in the face of Jesus Christ. This is the meaning of the word Epiphany: the light shines upon all the people, and in our lives we reflect the glory of that light. The Letter to the Ephesians declares that this great epiphany has already come. "Gentiles have become fellow heirs with their Jewish friends, members of the same body, sharers in the promise of Jesus Christ through the gospel" (3:6).

Despite his many sufferings in the course of his ministry, Paul is proud that God has called him to this work. Even more, Paul is proud of the church that God through Christ has called into being. In the church the wisdom of God in all its rich variety is now demonstrated before heaven and earth. But Paul is much more proud of Jesus Christ than he is even of the church. Christ gives us access to God, so that we can speak the message of the gospel without fear of the consequences involved in our preaching. Through this bold message, both Jews and Gentiles can be incorporated into its fellowship. This idea, Ephesians insists, is not an innovation on our part. It has been God's eternal purpose from the beginning that Jews and Gentiles should share this fellowship and be one in the church, the body of Christ.

So our time of Epiphany begins with the light shining upon Jesus Christ. This light sends its shining beacon to both gentiles and Jews, and they seek him in homage and in faith. When all are welcomed into the fellowship of the church, then God's eternal purposes are in process of being fulfilled. God plans that in his rich diversity all those who call upon his name - women and men, Jew and gentile, strong or weak, in power or out of it - can be incorporated into the one church of Jesus Christ.