Feast of the Epiphany, 01/06/2014

Sermon on Matthew 2:1-12, by Richard O. Johnson

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, 2 saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” 3 When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; 4 and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. 5 They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet:

6 “‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;

for from you shall come a ruler

who will shepherd my people Israel.’”

7 Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. 8 And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.” 9 After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. 11 And going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. 12 And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way. Matthew 2.1-12 [ESV]

A few years back I heard a radio talk show host trying to work out a very interesting problem: How much would it cost, given today’s prices, for someone really to send his true love all the gifts enumerated in the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas”? The fellow had gathered together information on partridges, pear trees, turtle doves, and all the rest, but now he was revising the estimate as listeners called in to suggest things he had forgotten. He had neglected, for instance, to provide milking stools for the eight maids a-milking—and so the price of all those stools had to be added in. The price went up again when it was pointed out that all those people he would have to hire—the milking maids, of course, but also the lords and ladies leaping and dancing, the pipers and drummers piping and drumming—would have to be paid time and a half on at least a couple of the days of the twelve days of Christmas since they were legal holidays. The highlight of the show was a call from a man who worked for the Environmental Protections Agency, who reminded him that some of the gifts would require the filing of an environmental impact report. Then there were indications that the Health Department might have a problem with partridges, turtle doves, French hens and swans. And finally someone suggested factoring in the lawyer’s fees he’d have to pay to defend himself against likely legal action from the poor true love who had to deal with all these gifts.

The twelve days of Christmas—a favorite holiday song, and one of the last vestiges in our secular society of the original “twelve days of Christmas”—that is, the Christian season of Christmas that begins on Christmas Day and ends twelve days later on Epiphany—that’s today! “Epiphany” means “manifestation” or “showing.” To talk about the Epiphany of Jesus is to talk about his being “shown” to the world, “made known” to the world. And so that is the theme for this whole season that stretches from today until the beginning of Lent. We begin by hearing the story of the three wise men this morning, the first people outside of Judea to learn about the birth of Jesus. Next Sunday we will hear the story of Jesus’ baptism, since that is when he first appeared in Judea and began to preach publicly. The lessons through the rest of January will come from the earliest days of Jesus’ ministry, as he was being made known to the world.

Legend and mythology

But today it is the wise men, and I would like to take a new look at this old and precious story. There is probably no gospel story that has had more legend and mythology grow up around it than this one. The Christmas carol that focuses most closely on this story is the beloved “We Three Kings.” Right there in the first three words, there are two problems. First, who says there were three of these visitors from the East? Matthew’s gospel doesn’t say so! In the early church, the tradition was that there were a dozen of them. And even in medieval paintings, you will often see two or four or some other number. The idea that there were three seems to come from Matthew’s telling us there were three gifts, but that doesn’t really say anything definitive about how many visitors from the East there were. So tradition tells us there were three—even sometimes gives them names, Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar—but the Bible is utterly silent about this.

And the carol calls them “kings,” but Matthew doesn’t say that. He uses the word “magi”—a difficult Greek word, which most translators render as “wise men.” Most scholars today think these were members of the priestly class of Persia, that they were astrologers, magicians, alchemists, wizards—strange men who dealt in the superstitious magical religion of ancient Persia. But whatever they were, Matthew says nothing about them being kings.

Camels and magicians

There are other misconceptions, ideas based on legends rather than Scripture. Take the camels, for instance. We always picture them arriving on camels, but Matthew says nothing about that. And the gifts: Matthew tells us they collectively brought gold, frankincense and myrrh, and the popular interpretation is that these were the costliest gifts they could bring. That fits in well with the idea of their being kings, but there’s another way to look at this. Scholars suggest that these substances had a special role in the astrology-based religion of ancient Persia. The priests of that religion used frankincense and myrrh as part of their ceremonies, and they seem to have thought that gold had certain magical properties.

Now what’s interesting is that in the early church, magicians and sorcerers were a serious problem. They were quite popular at the time, and they represented an alternative religion to Christianity. The book of Acts tells us about two different magicians who caused problems for the Apostles—Simon Magus in chapter 8, and the magician Elymas in chapter 13. The word used to describe each of these guys is the same word Matthew uses here with reference to the wise men—they were magi.

The reason they posed such a problem is that they offered astrology, superstition, magical incantations as a way of influencing human affairs. “It’s all in the stars,” they would say. “Let us interpret the stars, and we can tell you the meaning of life, the mystery of the universe.” For many people in the ancient world, that was an attractive lure.

Seeking something better

Against that background, the wise men, the magi, take on a very different meaning than what we often assume. It suggests that these men from the East came all those miles seeking something better than what they had known. They had dabbled in magic and superstition, but God told them through that marvelous star to leave all that and seek a Savior. And so they came and found him—and what they offered him had great meaning, not because it had great monetary value, but because it meant they were giving up to this Baby the very objects that symbolized their former lives. They were giving up their magic, their superstition—because they had found the Savior! And then, as if to emphasize this, Matthew tells us that they were instructed in dream to go home by another road. Their lives, in short, were changed forever. They were now on a new path.

Now all our traditional understandings of the wise men are precious and beautiful, but I find this other interpretation to be quite stunning. We live in world still filled with superstition. There was a poll a while back that showed that twice as many adults in America read their horoscope regularly as read the Bible regularly. People look for direction and guidance about how to live—and so often they pass right by the one place that can honestly offer them that guidance and direction!

The community where I live is filled with groups representing what has come to be known as “New Age” spirituality. There is a hunger for God out there, but so much of what is offered will never satisfy that hunger. St. Augustine put it best: “Our hearts are restless till they find their rest in Thee.”

And that is the church’s task, the church’s mission: to proclaim the good news that this Savior born in Bethlehem is the Lord, God among us. It is he and he alone who can satisfy that hunger in the human heart, and fill up that emptiness in the human soul. The church has many other functions, of course: we are here to serve others, here to share fellowship with one another, here to learn and grow. But first and foremost, and above everything else, we are here to proclaim that in Jesus Christ, God has come among us; and that only in Jesus Christ can human beings find salvation.

Offering oneself

One day—oh, it must be thirty-five years ago—I happened to pick up a hitchhiker. He was a quiet, sensitive-looking young man in his twenties whose accent revealed he was from New Zealand. I asked him where he was coming from, and he told me he had just spent several days at a Trappist monastery in Northern California. Gradually his story unfolded. He had left New Zealand when he graduated from high school, and had been traveling the world since then. He had been involved in all kinds of different movements—political movements, spiritual movements, different lifestyles. He had, he said, been searching for something he could never seem to find—until recently he had rediscovered Jesus Christ. Suddenly his search seemed over, he said. He had found a peace and satisfaction quite unlike anything he had ever known. And now he was preparing to enter the monastery—to give up everything he valued and possessed, and to turn his entire life over to Christ. He was offering to Christ the symbols of his own search, quite like those visitors from the East offered to Christ the symbols of their life-long quest for meaning and truth.

We who have offered out own lives to Christ live under a heavy obligation. Our world is filled with people looking for the light we have found, but not knowing where to find it. They search in many places, but find only darkness. In this world, you see, our task is essentially the same described by St. Paul in our second lesson: “To bring to the nations the news of the boundless riches of Christ, and to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; so that through the church”—through you and through me—“the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known.” That is our task; that is our calling.

The Rev. Richard O. Johnson
Grass Valley, CA
E-Mail: roj@nccn.net

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