Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-january-6-2025
Matthew 12:14-21
14But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.
15When Jesus became aware of this, he departed. Many crowds followed him, and he cured all of them, 16and he ordered them not to make him known. 17This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah:
18 “Here is my servant, whom I have chosen,
my beloved, with whom my soul is well pleased.
I will put my Spirit upon him,
and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.
19 He will not wrangle or cry aloud,
nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets.
20 He will not break a bruised reed
or quench a smoldering wick
until he brings justice to victory.
21 And in his name the Gentiles will hope.”
Today, January 6, is the day set aside for celebrating the Epiphany of the Lord on the calendar of the church. It’s a day on which the followers of Jesus typically read the story of the coming of the Magi, and think about the meaning of their coming. But today, the lectionary gospel reading is from another part of Matthew, a part in which Jesus is said to fulfill a passage from the book of the prophet Isaiah. That passage was already close to six centuries old when Jesus walked the earth, but it points to the theme of the Epiphany observance.
The word epiphany is derived from a Greek term that means something like, “to appear openly.” So the most prominent theme of the occasion is that in the Christ child, God revealed himself to the world.
The church historians tell us that for centuries before Christmas became a major festival, Epiphany was widely celebrated throughout the Christian world. Some scholars say we should probably say that the birth of Jesus was celebrated as a part of the Epiphany story before Christians started observing Christmas as a separate occasion.
Most Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox congregations hold services celebrating the Epiphany, but we Protestants typically don’t give it that much attention. We usually have three kings in our nativity sets, and we dress up kids as kings for our Christmas pageants, but that’s about as deep into the story as most Protestants go. The only Epiphany hymn most of us know is “We Three Kings,” but that hymn has a kind of shaky connection to the theology of the occasion – the story in the Bible doesn’t say that there were three Magi or that any of them were kings.
But in the minds of many of our fellow followers of Jesus, the Epiphany has just as much theological meaning as Christmas. We thought about the meaning of the occasion in worship yesterday, but for the sake of those who weren’t with us, we’ll devote a day’s Reflection.
The historians don’t agree on exactly who the Magi were, what they believed or where they came from. It seems to me that the best guess is that they were from the area we call the Caucasus region, which includes northern Iran, parts of Turkey and Armenia. What the historians do agree about is that the Magi were astrologers who studied the stars watching for signs. And one of the signs they were looking for was a bright star that had been foretold as the sign of the birth of a great leader to the west. So when a bright star appeared at the birth of Jesus, the Magi followed it westward and eventually wound up in Jerusalem.
The calling of the Magi was a sign that in Jesus, God was revealing himself to the gentile world as well as to Israel. God’s Epiphany in the form of Jesus was revealed to this group of mysterious foreign priests through the star they saw. And in coming to find him, they were the first of a river of foreigners who would be drawn out of the world to worship the Christ.
It’s always struck me as significant that these Magi were astrologers and also sorcerers. In the laws of Moses, both astrology and sorcery were crimes punishable by death. So the Magi are a sign of the way God’s grace was being extended to outsiders, as well as to religious Jews.
But I think we’re supposed to notice that the Magi were only able to find the Christ child with the help of Hebrew scholars who knew the scriptures well enough to give them directions. God had been speaking into the world for centuries before he was born in the flesh as Jesus. So even though they were astrologers and sorcerers, the Magi were open to being guided by the scholars of the Hebrew scriptures – what we call the Old Testament. There’s probably a message there for us as spiritual descendants of the Magi – as gentiles hoping to find and worship Jesus. We need to be open to learning from the Old Testament, too, as well as from scholars who have studied it in depth.
In our reading for today, Jesus fulfills a prophesy that says in his coming, the Messiah would be a source of justice and hope for the gentiles. That seems to say that his appearance in the world was always linked in God’s mind with the calling of the world beyond Israel.
It seems to me that the Holy Spirit means to remind us of all these things through the story of the Epiphany. And since most followers of Jesus are from gentile ancestry, that helps to explain why so much of the Christian world regards it as such an important occasion.
Let’s pray together: Lord, on this day when we remember the way you appeared in this world in the form of the Christ child, and called the world to yourself, we invite you to call us closer to yourself once again. Move us to join the Magi in seeking you in Jesus this day and every day, and in following him and giving him our praise. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
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