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The Epiphany
O God, who by the leading of a star didst manifest thy only-begotten Son to the peoples of the earth: Lead us, who know thee now by faith, to thy presence, where we may behold thy glory face to face; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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The Epiphany
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Scripture citation(s): Matthew 2:1-12
A Sermon by
Fr. Daniels
on
Matthew 2:1-12
✛
What the Magi Saw
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Even though this, the feast of the Epiphany, marks the end of the Christmas season—the trees are down as you can see, the wrapping paper is put away, one’s true love has parted with the pipers piping and dancers dancing and so forth—we continue to hear what we think of as the Christmas story for a little while longer. That’s because we tell the story of the Magi on the Epiphany: the three wise men from the East, Matthew tells us, who arrive in Jerusalem looking for the recently born king of the Jews. They observed his star at its rising, and want to pay him homage.
We don’t know much about the Magi, biographically speaking. We don’t know exactly who they are; tradition has given them names, but the gospel did not. We don’t know exactly where they were from; Matthew’s descriptor of them as being “from the East” is basically Bible-speak for being from “really far away.” And we don’t know precisely what they did in the East: Magi were sorcerers, astrologers, something like that. What is extremely clear, however, is that they are definitely not Jews. Whoever they were, wherever they were from, and whatever they did there, what Matthew emphasizes is that they’re not from around here. They were strangers, and strange strangers at that. They were Gentiles, and about as far from the tribe of Israel as one could get.
Not in a bad way, however. They’re presented as being seekers of the truth, and it was that desire for the truth that led them to Jerusalem. They had left the comforts of their homes to respond to a call that had come from beyond themselves. “We have come,” they say, to find the child, and “to worship him,” he who is the king of the Jews. And in that worship of the child Jesus, the Magi then are the proto-Gentiles, the ones who show us the possibility for our relationship with God, because he has adopted us by grace; he has brought the outsiders inside; we foreigners are made citizens of the kingdom.
By doing so, the Magi are fulfilling the prophecies that have come since Abraham: that Israel would be a blessing to the world; that nations—that Gentiles—would stream to Israel’s light, and kings to the brightness of the dawning of that light. “All kings shall fall down before him,” the Psalmist wrote, “all nations shall do him service.” Such did the star, and the Magi, signify. The darkness of the minds of the Magi were enlightened by the light of Christ. The darkness of a world that didn’t know Christ; the darkness of a Gentile world that didn’t know about the promise of salvation that had been made by the God of Israel: with the birth of the child that the Magi worshipped, that darkness was dispelled. The star’s light enlightened the world, drawing not only the Magi, but everyone, to the source of the light. And the world, basking in the reflection of that light, would never look the same. It has never looked the same.
But that’s only half the story. The rest of the second chapter of Matthew—which we didn’t read—contains what comes next: the truly horrible story of the massacre of the male children in that region of Israel, which was ordered by King Herod after the Wise Men slipped away in secret. Old kings don’t like to hear about new kings; fearing a threat to his power, Herod had all the male children in Bethlehem, under two years old, killed, as well as those nearby. Matthew says, “Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah: ‘A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they were no more.’” If the story of the Magi in the first half of the chapter is the story of the light of the star, progressively dawning for Gentiles whose minds were dark, then the second half of the chapter is the story of how—Christ child or no—the earth remains in thick darkness. In heaven it may be different; but here below, it is still night.
The ecstatic arrival of the Magi to the Holy Family, then, was not the end of the story. Within the short space of a single chapter, we hear the celebratory rejoicing of the Magi, and then, suddenly, those sounds are overwhelmed by the keening laments of the mothers of Bethlehem. If we had been tempted to append “and they all lived happily ever after” to the departure of the Magi, Matthew reminds us: no, no they didn’t. As soon as the Magi left town, the night fell. Again. The star dipped back below the horizon.
If that’s the case, then we have to ask: what difference does the birth of the Christ make, then? If we’re just going to be back where we started? There were certain expectations that the Jews had for the Messiah, and they included such laudable goals as that the lions would lie down with the lambs, that imperial rulers wouldn’t be able to kill children, that a time of everlasting and perfect peace would arrive. Look at the psalm: there had been promises of the flourishing of the righteous, and the abundance of peace. And Matthew tells us, up front (chapter two!) that this simply hadn’t happened.
What difference does the birth of the Christ make? It’s terrible to say, but for the mothers in Bethlehem, the birth of the Christ was catastrophic; the birth of Christ resulted in the deaths of their children. So ask them about the Christmas story; ask them whether they welcome the visit of the Magi. What difference does the birth of the Christ make? Judging from the headlines, very little difference at all, then or now.
No difference but one: the birth of the Christ marks the birth of hope—a future-oriented difference—hope for both Jews and Gentiles. This hope doesn’t brush aside the cries of Rachel; it doesn’t ignore the anguish of the victims of Herods throughout the ages. The hope found in Christ is a hope against hope, the final “pay-off” of which is decisively beyond our grasp, even perhaps beyond our imagining. This hope is what we cling to. Perhaps we’re able to see the first indications of the light against the dark horizon—the morning star indicates that we’re not far from dawn now—but it isn’t day yet, and Matthew, at least, has no illusion that it is. But the day is coming. We can see it coming. In Christ, God has promised that it’s coming. It just isn’t here…yet.
This might be unbearable, and not only for the mothers of Bethlehem. And we might ask, quite appropriately: well, is God there at all? In the dark? Or not? We know from the first epistle of John that God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. So then is God able to, or willing to, immerse himself in a land where it is most definitely night? Or does he, quite understandably, avoid—step back from—what is scary and unpleasant?
I don’t know if there’s any answer to that which is wholly satisfactory. But I heard a story once about a priest who went to visit his brother’s family over Christmas a few years ago. His niece, who had just turned two, greeted him at the door; she was so excited her uncle was there, and so eager to show off their new crèche. She grabbed his hand, and led him over to it: Mary, Joseph, the manger; gifts and wise men; and the tiny, tiny baby Jesus, sculpted in delicate glass, held by his young mother. They stood there in silence in front of that beautiful scene, soaking it up. It was a grace-filled moment, and the priest said softly to his niece, “Do you know what that is?” And she looked at him, and nodded, and said, “Mommy said that’s breakable.”
She was right. Because the birth of Christ is when God became breakable, subject to the whims of tyrants, the cruelties of empires, knit together of impressionable flesh and blood. And that’s what the Magi saw: they saw the face of God, willing to be broken. When the Magi took their leave, and the star faded, and the sun set, then was raised the hard wood of the cross. After making himself vulnerable on Christmas Day, this Christ was broken, on a hill outside Jerusalem, so that he is able—he is willing—to abide, with us, even in the dark. He keeps us company in the world’s night. Because it is this world—with its cries of rejoicing and its groans of lament—that Christ came to redeem; this world that he is reconciling to himself; this world where he reveals his glory. It is this world, and no other, for which he was born, and this world for which died.
At the altar today, the bread of the Eucharist will become for us, Gentiles, the body of Christ, and it will be broken for us. The god who became breakable, re-membered again, until that day when we’re able to see what the Magi saw: the breakable God, face to face.
