Matthew 2:1-12
Epiphany
6 Jan 13
Throughout the Advent season we have talked a lot about the cast of characters surrounding Jesus’ birth: Zechariah, Elizabeth, parents of John the Baptist. Mary, and Joseph. We have talked about the shepherds and their response to the good news proclaimed to them by the angels. We have been concerned with one family , and one group of fields, as we’ve seen the story of the Christ child fulfilled.
Today, on epiphany, the story gets a wider audience. Epiphany means “manifestation” or even more accurately “striking appearance” in the Greek. Today is the day we celebrate that Christ was made manifest, or known, to more than just the surrounding neighborhood. We celebrate that and hear the story of the wise men who came from the East.
Often when we have a nativity scene it includes sheep, various other animals, shepherds, Mary, Joseph, the baby Jesus, some angels and three kings or wise men with presents. They are so much a part of the scene that we have incorporated them into our understanding without really thinking about who they are, or more importantly where they came from and HOW they came to be there in Bethlehem.
Because in fact, epiphany is the manifestation, or appearance, of Christ’s coming to people from far away. Beyond the fields of the shepherds in Bethlehem, Beyond the country of Judea, far to the East, these wise men saw signs in the sky that told them a King had been born to the Jews.
Epiphany, January 6, was my dad’s birthday. If he were alive today he would be turning 83. He felt a special affinity for the wise men because of his birthday and did a lot of research on what they may have seen in the night sky. It turns out there was a celestial anomaly that would have accounted for a bright star that could be seen over Bethlehem from the East. They knew enough about the stars to specifically predict that an important child, a ruler, was being born to the Jews.
They came to see Christ and to know his importance from all that distance. Not because they had been reading the Hebrew scriptures, not because they heard prophecies, not because the Angel Gabriel came to them in a dream, not because they were well versed in the law of the Jewish people ! They knew none of the Jewish religion at all.
They came from a distant land because they had been studying the stars! They were not familiar with scripture, or God! There was a religious group from Eastern Arabic lands called Zoroastrianism, which worshipped the sun and studied the stars as a guide for living and it is believed by many scholars that these men were probably priests of that religion.
This might make some feel uncomfortable. But not long after Jesus was born people who hadn’t ever heard of God, who worshipped in a different religion, who were arabs from the land of Persia, which we now know as Iran, came a long way because they were drawn by what they saw in the stars, to see Jesus, whom they called King, so that they might honor him.
God works in mysterious ways! And not always through the conventional means.
God reached these wise men in a way they would understand, in their language : the stars. He did so with an astronomical sign so obvious they came a very long distance bringing precious, expensive gifts on a treacherous road to a foreign king. If this is not evidence of God’s providence or dominion over absolutely everything then I don’t know what else is.: that he could call men from so far using only the stars to guide them.
Now look at Herod’s reaction to the wise men’s visit. He was struck with fear! And not just Herod, but all the capital city of Jerusalem with him. He got all the scribes and priests together to talk about it.
Why would Herod not want to hear about the coming of the Messiah, do you suppose? Why would anyone not want to hear about more people coming to know God’s love in the world?
In Herod’s case it’s pretty obvious: Herod was himself King. If there was a new baby who was to be king, Messiah, then where does that leave Herod? Displaced. He and the priests and scribes. He had a lot to lose if Jesus was the Christ, the one to come save them all. Everything in his title, everything he’d worked for and come to know, would change.
Today, God still speaks to people, I believe, in ways that are unknown to us Christians. In ways that are beyond our fields, beyond our shepherds, in the languages of other religions, in customs that are strange to us. God calls people from all over the world, from lowly and miserable to grand ruler, and does it like an all powerful God, using the entire universe as his invitation.
It’s so easy to go Herod on this idea. Even within Christianity we can’t even agree from denomination to denomination about the proper procedures for worship, or the way to administer the sacraments. Entire denominations have split over over disagreements on how to administer baptism, or who can take communion when. After the black slaves were freed in this country at first they were not allowed to take communion, and then later they took communion but at completely separate times. Even at God’s table, we humans find a way to divide ourselves and keep our power alive. We become accustomed to a ritual, and before long we say, “ Our way is right, everybody else is a heretic.” Yet, here, in the Biblical witness, right after the beautiful tale of the birth of Jesus, three scientists from another religion come all the way from Iran to tell king Herod they’ve been reading their horoscopes and heard there was a Messiah born to the Jews.
The fact is, we build our own empires within our belief in Christ, within our churches, our own little pockets of power, and like Herod, we work to protect them.
When Christ said in Matthew 19 it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God, I don’t think he was trying to say people with a lot of money are evil. I think he was trying to say if a person has got a lot that they are holding on to in this world, or a lot to lose as Herod did, that person is not going to be as open to the good news of Christ’s love. And they certainly won’t be ready to see God working in the stars or other unusual means.
Because it is the kind of manifestation that empties you, that changes you, that takes away what you thought was important and replaces it with something far more valuable.
Epiphany
6 Jan 13
Throughout the Advent season we have talked a lot about the cast of characters surrounding Jesus’ birth: Zechariah, Elizabeth, parents of John the Baptist. Mary, and Joseph. We have talked about the shepherds and their response to the good news proclaimed to them by the angels. We have been concerned with one family , and one group of fields, as we’ve seen the story of the Christ child fulfilled.
Today, on epiphany, the story gets a wider audience. Epiphany means “manifestation” or even more accurately “striking appearance” in the Greek. Today is the day we celebrate that Christ was made manifest, or known, to more than just the surrounding neighborhood. We celebrate that and hear the story of the wise men who came from the East.
Often when we have a nativity scene it includes sheep, various other animals, shepherds, Mary, Joseph, the baby Jesus, some angels and three kings or wise men with presents. They are so much a part of the scene that we have incorporated them into our understanding without really thinking about who they are, or more importantly where they came from and HOW they came to be there in Bethlehem.
Because in fact, epiphany is the manifestation, or appearance, of Christ’s coming to people from far away. Beyond the fields of the shepherds in Bethlehem, Beyond the country of Judea, far to the East, these wise men saw signs in the sky that told them a King had been born to the Jews.
Epiphany, January 6, was my dad’s birthday. If he were alive today he would be turning 83. He felt a special affinity for the wise men because of his birthday and did a lot of research on what they may have seen in the night sky. It turns out there was a celestial anomaly that would have accounted for a bright star that could be seen over Bethlehem from the East. They knew enough about the stars to specifically predict that an important child, a ruler, was being born to the Jews.
They came to see Christ and to know his importance from all that distance. Not because they had been reading the Hebrew scriptures, not because they heard prophecies, not because the Angel Gabriel came to them in a dream, not because they were well versed in the law of the Jewish people ! They knew none of the Jewish religion at all.
They came from a distant land because they had been studying the stars! They were not familiar with scripture, or God! There was a religious group from Eastern Arabic lands called Zoroastrianism, which worshipped the sun and studied the stars as a guide for living and it is believed by many scholars that these men were probably priests of that religion.
This might make some feel uncomfortable. But not long after Jesus was born people who hadn’t ever heard of God, who worshipped in a different religion, who were arabs from the land of Persia, which we now know as Iran, came a long way because they were drawn by what they saw in the stars, to see Jesus, whom they called King, so that they might honor him.
God works in mysterious ways! And not always through the conventional means.
God reached these wise men in a way they would understand, in their language : the stars. He did so with an astronomical sign so obvious they came a very long distance bringing precious, expensive gifts on a treacherous road to a foreign king. If this is not evidence of God’s providence or dominion over absolutely everything then I don’t know what else is.: that he could call men from so far using only the stars to guide them.
Now look at Herod’s reaction to the wise men’s visit. He was struck with fear! And not just Herod, but all the capital city of Jerusalem with him. He got all the scribes and priests together to talk about it.
Why would Herod not want to hear about the coming of the Messiah, do you suppose? Why would anyone not want to hear about more people coming to know God’s love in the world?
In Herod’s case it’s pretty obvious: Herod was himself King. If there was a new baby who was to be king, Messiah, then where does that leave Herod? Displaced. He and the priests and scribes. He had a lot to lose if Jesus was the Christ, the one to come save them all. Everything in his title, everything he’d worked for and come to know, would change.
Today, God still speaks to people, I believe, in ways that are unknown to us Christians. In ways that are beyond our fields, beyond our shepherds, in the languages of other religions, in customs that are strange to us. God calls people from all over the world, from lowly and miserable to grand ruler, and does it like an all powerful God, using the entire universe as his invitation.
It’s so easy to go Herod on this idea. Even within Christianity we can’t even agree from denomination to denomination about the proper procedures for worship, or the way to administer the sacraments. Entire denominations have split over over disagreements on how to administer baptism, or who can take communion when. After the black slaves were freed in this country at first they were not allowed to take communion, and then later they took communion but at completely separate times. Even at God’s table, we humans find a way to divide ourselves and keep our power alive. We become accustomed to a ritual, and before long we say, “ Our way is right, everybody else is a heretic.” Yet, here, in the Biblical witness, right after the beautiful tale of the birth of Jesus, three scientists from another religion come all the way from Iran to tell king Herod they’ve been reading their horoscopes and heard there was a Messiah born to the Jews.
The fact is, we build our own empires within our belief in Christ, within our churches, our own little pockets of power, and like Herod, we work to protect them.
When Christ said in Matthew 19 it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God, I don’t think he was trying to say people with a lot of money are evil. I think he was trying to say if a person has got a lot that they are holding on to in this world, or a lot to lose as Herod did, that person is not going to be as open to the good news of Christ’s love. And they certainly won’t be ready to see God working in the stars or other unusual means.
Because it is the kind of manifestation that empties you, that changes you, that takes away what you thought was important and replaces it with something far more valuable.
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