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. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed for their country by another way. (Matthew 2.8-12)
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany, one of the three major feasts in the early church, alongside Easter and Pentecost. Contrary to our inclination to believe otherwise, Christmas was late on the Christian calendar, coming sometime in the fourth century, probably during the reign of the Emperor Constantine. As a result, we may want to allow the Feast of the Epiphany the prominence that it rightly deserves, looking closely at the reasons why it should share somewhat the same status as Easter and Pentecost.
Although there are several good reasons for its prominence, the principal justification is the fact that it heralds the movement of God’s salvific plan from a strict focus on the Jews to a much broader sweep, his concern now with all of his creation far and wide, great and small. The Magi in the story we have today serve as stand-ins for this inclusion of all peoples as recipients of the good news of a loving God who wants to bring all of creation into his embrace.
This idea is certainly a cornerstone of Matthew’s gospel, the only gospel that tells of the visit of the Magi to the child Jesus and his parents in Bethlehem. Over the centuries, we have become so accustomed to the Christmas story, anchored as it is in the scene presented by the creche, that we fail to see that it is a combination of two distinct stories, one told by Matthew and the other told by Luke.
In an attempt to wed the two stories into one, we have lost sight that they are distinct in many ways. While Matthew has Magi visiting the baby Jesus, Luke has shepherds. While Matthew has Jesus born in a house, Luke has him born in a stable. And while Matthew has the parents of Jesus living in Bethlehem at the time of his birth and only later moving to Nazareth after their escape to Egypt, Luke has them traveling from their home in Nazareth to Bethlehem to comply with a census by Caesar. And while Matthew has divine communication done by way of dreams, Luke has angels serve as messengers of the Divine One.
These are just a few of the differences, others of a finer nature existing, reminding us to respect each gospel as a separate story rather than melding them into one homogenous story as we have tended to do with the Christmas story, our crib scene and our Christmas songs masterfully disguising the many differences that actually permeate the story as told by two different writers, Matthew and Luke.
We easily get caught up in the popular version, enticed by its symmetry, wanting a wrinkle-free storyline the same as we do with our Sunday shirts. If we were more careful, we would see that Matthew never refers to the visitors from the East as anything but Magi, a word most often used when speaking of members of the priestly caste in ancient Persia. Nowhere does he call them kings. Nor does he tell us that there were only three of these visitors. We’ve decided it was three only because there are three gifts that are offered–gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
The more important question is why Matthew has these visitors from the East in his gospel. For him and his purposes, the Magi play a pivotal role. Otherwise, he would not have presented them in the forefront of his gospel. In effect, they serve as one bookend of his gospel, the other bookend found at the very end of his gospel when the Risen Lord meets his disciples in Galilee before he ascends to the high heavens to reclaim his place at the right hand of his Heavenly Father.
We’re told that when the disciples see the Risen Lord, they “worshiped,” the same word that is used to describe the Magi’s reaction when they saw the baby with his mother Mary in Bethlehem, although our translation chooses to use the words “paid him homage.” No matter. It is the same word, both rooted in the obeisance that ordinary people would do to someone greater than themselves, such as a king.
And what does the Risen Lord say to his disciples as they kneel before him? He says, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations.” All nations. With those few words, Matthew has brought his gospel full circle, the Magi from the East representing all nations at the start as they worship the newborn king of the Jews (the very title that Pilate later puts atop the cross of the Crucified Jesus, also not a coincidence in the gospel) and the Risen Lord’s words confirming at the end the sweep of salvation in their directive to go to all the nations.
In effect, then, the Feast of Epiphany is a celebration of the breaking down of the walls that divide the peoples of the world. With God’s salvific plans clearly including all the nations, then it is clear that no barriers should exist between the peoples of the earth, regardless of the differences in skin tone, geographical origins, or socio-economic status. All are one in the eyes of the Most High God and all are to be treated with the same fundamental human respect. The death of Jesus brought salvation to all, not just to some.
For me, one of the most beautiful lines in the story of the Magi, if not the most beautiful, is the final one. As we heard, it reads, “Being warned in a dream that they shouldn’t return to Herod, they went back to their own country another way.” And why, you might ask, is that line so special. The answer is found in the meaning buried in that small word “way.” They went back to their own country another way.
It is the identical word that Rabbi Jesus will use later when he speaks of “the narrow way” (7.13) and “the way of righteousness” (21.32). In other words, his way. Or as he says to Thomas in the Gospel of John, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (14.6) when the confused disciple says to him, “But we do not know the way.”
Already here at the start, Matthew is pointing us to the way of Jesus, telling us that the Magi chose to travel by another way, not the expected way, not the old way, but another way. Of course, that is the same thing that Jesus will say again and again, reminding his listeners that his way is not the way of the world and that those who go his way will need to take the narrow way, not the wide-open way. His followers, then, are people who travel another way.
And what specifically is that other way when seen through the lens of the Feast of the Epiphany? It is the way of inclusion, not the way of exclusion. Whereas the world is quick to divide people on the basis of tribe, united because of some superficial similarity, each tribe building around itself walls to keep non-tribal members away and out of sight, the other way is to refuse to divide people in any way, tearing down any walls that would have people see each other as different, as apart from, as inferior to others.
Paul, writing earlier than Matthew or any of the evangelists, made the same point in his Letter to the Ephesians when he told them, “Now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have become near through the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, he who made both one and broke down the dividing wall of enmity through his flesh, abolishing the law with its commandments and legal claims, that he might create in himself one new person in place of the two, thus establishing peace” (2.13-16). In other words, there are no longer insiders and outsiders, only brothers and sisters. We are all one family.
Fully aware of the way of Jesus, Matthew constructs his story in such a way to bring home the point that these foreigners traveled a great distance to find the King of Jews so that they might worship him, while Herod, the chief priests, and scribes are blind to the fact that the Savior of the world has been born less than six miles away. Rightly, the Magi can be called wise men while the holders of power in Jerusalem are blind men.
For that same reason, Matthew pointedly says that the Magi, having honored the King of the Jews, do not return to Herod and his minions, people committed to exclusion and exclusiveness, but depart by another way, the way that now has been made clear and certain by the birth of the Messiah, one sent by God to save one and all, not only the favored and the few.
That theme of another way continues throughout Matthew’s text. He tells of the centurion who beseeches Jesus to cure his servant and to whom Jesus pays the highest compliment, saying to the crowds, “I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith. I say to you, many will come from the east and the west and will recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the banquet in the kingdom of heaven” (8.10-11).
Or, later, as Jesus travels outside Galilee and enters the Gentile territory of Tyre and Sidon, he is met by a Canaanite woman who begs Jesus to have mercy on her daughter who is tormented by a demon. He answers her plea with these words, “O woman, great is your faith. Let it be done for you as you wish” (15.28). His actions continually show his openness to other people, regardless of color, creed, or class.
All of which leads us back to the central message of Epiphany, a message that is intended to inform and to form our own lives, leading us to do as the Magi did, namely to travel another way, the way of love and compassion for all others, welcoming everyone inside our tent, instead of taking the way of the world, pushing away any and everybody who is different from us in some manner or form, turning a deaf ear to their cries and to their needs, excluding from our inner circle those whom we don’t like or who don’t think like we do.
Sadly, the central message of Epiphany often is lost, traded for a focus on their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, failing to see that the true gift of Epiphany is the one that the Child Jesus gives to the world, the gift of living another way than the way that the world preaches and practices, offering us the option to live together rather than apart, to see one another as friends rather than foes, to tear down any wall that would have us separated from others.
If we are to make this Feast of Epiphany truly meaningful, then we do it by doing as the wise men from the East did. We take another way than the way of the world, choosing to live as Jesus lived, his concern, compassion, and company available to one and all, not only to a certain few who happen to have the same zip code or the same skin color.
When we choose to go this other way, we give to the Child Jesus the only gift that he desires from us, a commitment to love as he did, to embrace friend and foreigner alike, and to see all others as children of God. On the other hand, should we choose to go the same old way, the way of divisiveness and dividing lines, of disdain and discord, of differences and differentiation, then we have nothing to celebrate on this day. It’s just business as usual.
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 