When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of King Herod, behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage.” When King Herod heard this, he was greatly troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. Assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea” . . . Then Herod called the magi secretly and ascertained from them the time of the star’s appearance. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search diligently for the child. When you have found him, bring me word that I too may go and do him homage.” After their audience with the king they set out. And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them until it came and stopped over the place where the child was. They were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother.” (Matthew 2.1-5, 7-11)
When looking at one of the gospels, we do well to approach it as we would a beautiful painting done on canvas, meaning we should step close for a while and, after a while, we should take a few steps back. In this way, we can come to see small details when we are close, and we can see large patterns when we are further away.
It is certainly true when we look at the Gospel of Matthew, a masterpiece in writing by its author equal to the strokes of the brush of a painter that result in a showpiece for the ages. Today we are given a small section of the gospel, that part that tells of the visit of the magi, travelers who have come a long distance in search of the newborn king of the Jews.
It is purposeful that we have the story told to us on this day that is called the Feast of the Epiphany, an ancient celebration on the calendar that goes back to the earliest centuries of the Christian church. The word “epiphany,” as we already know from common parlance, means a revelation. Its Greek root implies a showing or a manifestation of something previously unseen, in this way carrying an element of the unexpected.
When applied specifically to this celebration, it connotes the revealing of Jesus to those outside the Jewish faith, the magi representing the nations and peoples beyond Judea who also come to see Jesus, not only as the long-awaited messiah of the Jewish people, but also as the savior of the world at large. Planted in the earliest pages of the gospel of Matthew, a text written for a Jewish audience, this visit of the magi to the newborn child in Bethlehem presents an outreach to peoples far beyond the boundaries of Judea.
While the ministry of the Galilean rabbi called Jesus will be almost exclusively within the land of Judea, Matthew is alerting us here at the start that it does not end there. Putting these foreigners at the birth of the child Jesus at the beginning of the gospel, Matthew prepares us for the last command of the Risen Lord when he tells his gathered disciples at the tailend of the gospel, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations.”
This “breaking of the barriers” is a key theme that Matthew utilizes in his text, periodically reminding us of Rabbi Jesus’ outreach to foreigners, such as the Roman centurion or the Canaanite woman, both important beneficiaries of divine mercy in this text, proving that the love of the Most High God is not contained within walls and is not restricted to certain nationalities.
The text of the travels of the three magi to Bethlehem as they search for the newborn king of the Jews affords us multiple points of entry in our study of the story, this wide embrace of divine mercy simply one among many prominent points that the interested reader has available. Another that stands front and center, for example, is Matthew presenting the newborn as a Moses figure, a theme that he also carries forward in his gospel.
So, just as wicked Pharaoh in the Book of Exodus ordered that all Hebrew baby boys should be killed, so wicked King Herod does the same, both potentates plotting to eradicate a perceived threat to their power in this way. But, in both instances, the wicked wiles of desperate despots cannot divert the Divine initiative, the baby Moses and the baby Jesus rescued from the reach of these corrupt chieftains.
And, as the young man Moses fled from the land of Egypt when peril came his way a second time, but was instructed by the Lord God to return because “all those who were seeking your life are dead,” so the parents of Jesus are instructed by an angel to return to the land of Israel, “for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.”
Fast forward and the parallels between Moses and the Moses-figure called Jesus continue, the Sermon on the Mount by Rabbi Jesus another example, this inaugural address repeating the actions of Moses as he ascended Mount Sinai to receive the twin tablets of the Divine Law, shortly after addressing the Hebrew slaves on the expectations that the Lord God had for his chosen people. Here, the beatitudes of Rabbi Jesus become the new commandments that the people are to follow.
Still other themes are planted in these early pages by the evangelist like a gardener putting a seed into the soil, and the shoot will pop up as the subsequent story of Rabbi Jesus is told, the connective tissue held strong as the journey continues step-by-step. So, here at the start, we find the “chief priests and the scribes of the people” failing to recognize the Messiah in the birth of the child Jesus, and, in a short while, they again will fail to recognize the Messiah in the life of Jesus as he ministers to the people of Israel.
However, if pressed to propose my personal favorite, I suppose I would say that the theme of where the “King of the Jews” is to be found steals the spotlight for me. As we see, the question “where” is the glue that holds together this story of these magi, astrologers whose travels begin with a search initiated by the appearance of a shiny star in the night sky that summons these star-gazers to leave homeland and to cross into foreign territories, following the star as it leads them forward.
And the first words that we hear them speak come in the form of a question that they address to the people of Jerusalem upon their arrival there, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews?” The people have no answer to the whereabouts and word reaches King Herod that these travelers are asking where they can find this child.
Intrigued and intimidated by the gossip on the street, Herod turns to the chief priests and the scribes, asking them the same question, “Where is the Christ to be born?” Rushing to their dust-covered scrolls, searching through the texts of the ancient prophets that contained the promises handprinted on papyrus rolls, these leaders returned to Herod with the answer, “Bethlehem.”
That answer gives us the first clue that the king of the Jews is not going to be found in the most likely places. The expected place for a newborn king would be in Jerusalem, the capital city of Judea, not in Bethlehem, described by the prophet Micah as “one of the little clans of Judah.” Interestingly, Matthew changes the words to “in no way least among the princes of Judah,” an intentional flip flop that will be a feature of Rabbi Jesus’ ministry in the future, his words and ways always turning ordinary expectations on their heads.
So, Matthew alerts us at the start that we should not expect to find the Messiah in the places we might assume he will be found. In fact, he is found in a place about as far away from a palace as we can imagine, born in a hovel possibly hollowed out of the side of a hill, his bed nothing but straw strewn across the rough wood of a trough from which the sheep and goats ate, an Egyptian linen sheet with a thousand thread count nowhere in sight.
And, if we should think that the Most High God would place his beloved son among the powerful of the world, where every whim and wish are catered to by a coterie of cooks and coachmen, then we would be wrong again, this newborn king of the Jews without a maid or a wet nurse, his peasant mother using a piece of her clothing to wrap the child in an effort to keep him warm on that winter night.
This should be an eye-opener for us, literally and figuratively, an opening salvo that tells us to be on the lookout for the king of the Jews in the most unlikely of places, a point that Matthew presents continually in the pages ahead when Rabbi Jesus is dismissed and denigrated by the chief priests and scribes of the people as “a friend of tax-collectors and sinners,” his followers made up of unpolished fishermen and a few impulsive hotheads.
As a result, few find in the face of the Galilean teacher the visage of a king, his table not filled with fancy dishes, fine wines, or delicate finger foods, the seats around it not filled with the posteriors of the powerful, the pampered, or the privileged, but instead he breaks bread with the dregs, the despised, and the destitute, promising them that in his kingdom the last will be first and the first will be last.
Clearly, so far as meeting expectations in regard to a king of the Jews, Rabbi Jesus doesn’t fit the bill and he doesn’t fit in, at least not in the eyes of those who find worth in positions of power, in places of honor, or in the pretensions of royalty. From the start, he is outside the mainstream and away from the prissy politics of palaces.
When looking for him, he is found among the lepers, bandaging their wounds and embracing them with his arms. He is found consoling the widow whose only hope for the future is her son who now lies dead on a stretcher. He is found with the poor who have no food for their children, offering them the few fish and loaves that he happens to have.
And, in the end, he is found on a cross outside Jerusalem, a criminal on his left and on his right, a crowd jeering at his suffering and getting drunk on the butchery, his blood-stained clothes ripped from his beaten body and raffled off for a buck or two. And, as they have done from the start, the
chief priests and scribes of the people and the crowds of Jerusalem haven’t a clue that they have failed to find the one sent by the Most High God.
And while Pilate and his henchmen get a laugh or two off the sign they nailed to the top of his cross, the words “the King of the Jews” hastily scribbled on the plaque, unknown to them, blind as they are, he is, in fact, the king of the Jews, the same one first sought by the magi from distant lands and found by them in the unlikeliest of places, now found again in the unlikeliest of places, atop a cross, mocked as the king of the Jews by people too blind to see his majesty.
Among others, that may be one of the most important lessons of the celebration of Epiphany. If we want to find the King of the Jews, seriously seeking him like the magi of old did, then we should look for him, not among the powerful, but with the powerless; not among the polished, but with the unpolished; not among the privileged, but with the poor. And, we will know him, not because of a crown of gold atop his head, but because he wears a crown of thorns.
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 