Epiphany

1/5/2025

This week we celebrate Epiphany in the church.  Today is actually technically Epiphany Eve or Twelfth Night the last of the Twelve days of Christmas.  Tomorrow, June 6 is Epiphany but we since Epiphany only falls on a Sunday usually only once about every 7 years and we missed it last year because of the leap year, I just couldn’t resist the opportunity to celebrate this often overlooked and underappreciated holiday.  Because it wasn’t always like this.  Twelfth night and Epiphany have been important to the church for just as long as Christmas Eve and Day.  And in some times and places have far surpassed December 24 & 25th in grandeur and importance.  Until fairly recently, gifts were given not at celebrations on Christmas but for Epiphany, commemorating the gifts the Magi gave to the baby Jesus.  Yet in this day and age, it seems like the Christmas season now begins in mid to late November and ends squarely on December 25^th, with the celebration of Epiphany relegated to an occasional nod or honorable mention amidst the post-holiday slump.

But this is indeed a special day, a day where we can hear the story of the birth of Christ again and maybe for the first time.  For while most of us know the Christmas story from Luke so well be can almost tell it by heart, far fewer of us ever turn to the book of Matthew to hear what he has to say about the coming of the Lord, which is why so many of us are so confused when we do take a look.  It’s not so much what is there as what is not there that catches us off guard.  There are no angels, no shepherds, no stable or manger.  Most of the story takes place away from Bethlehem between Herod and the magi, with Mary and Jesus making only a short appearance near the end.    Years of nativity scenes and Christmas pageants have taught us what to expect.  If we are to believe the pageants there are magi, kings wearing crowns and fine robes, always 3 of them, who arrive at the stable in Bethlehem where Jesus is born to greet him alongside the shepherds and angels that arrived just earlier. 

But when we turn to the book of Matthew, we find that almost none of this is there.  For this story is not a nativity story in the truest sense of the word.  It takes place at some unknown time “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem” in a house apparently some time after they leave their lodging in the stable.  International travel in the ancient world was slow and arduous and required extensive preparation, so the wise men likely arrived weeks, months or even years after Jesus was born.  Matthew also never calls them kings, an idea that likely comes from the Isaiah passage we read earlier, they are just magi. And perhaps most shockingly of all, he never tells us there are 3 of them.  Jesus receives 3 gifts, but he could have just as easily received those gifts from 2 or 4 or even 12 visitors. 

Yet despite all the shocking departures from what we might expect, this story in Matthew shows remarkable continuity with our Christmas traditions.  This story, just like the more familiar narrative in Luke, lays the groundwork for all that we come to know about Jesus, it reveals the Christ-child to us and gives us a glimpse of what is to come.

For yet again this Jesus clearly has all the credentials of a king.  His birth is announced by the coming of a star so clear that it sets people off on a journey across the world to see him.  Yet once again, this great announcement comes to those we would least expect.  While King Herod, the religious leaders and everyone else in Judea completely overlook it, a group of astrologers in a foreign country pick up on his birth.  And they are about the least likely people possible to be the first to know about the birth of the Jewish Messiah, they are in Greek they are called magoi, we say wise men, but also magicians, astrologers, Babylonian priests, trained in the arts of magic and divination.  Heretics whose craft is specifically banned by the Hebrew scriptures, outsiders in every way, yet they pick up on what everyone else misses.

This Jesus is the Messiah the one the scripture foretold.  He is undoubtedly a king, but not the king that anyone expects.  For this same Jesus who appears in a stable to greet shepherds, appears in a star to greet astrologers.  This is a Jesus that crawls up into our lives and meets us in the most humble of places where we most need to find him.

And though Herod does not recognize him, these outsiders, these heretic astrologers proclaim more than perhaps they even know with their gifts to Jesus.    And through the gifts that he receives, we learn much about who this child truly is.  They give him Gold – the sign of earthly wealth and power, the mark of a king.  And Frankincense – special incense burned in the temple, whose very scent signified the presence of God.  And myrrh – a costly perfume used to embalm the dead for burial.  Gifts to Jesus the messiah, king of creation, the Son of god, the divine presence on earth, who will die a painful death to take away the sin of the world.

So there is much that is revealed to us in this epiphany of the king revealed in humility to outsiders.  About the one who comes to us in the midst of everyday things.  This Jesus who comes to us in the ways we need him most, in stables to shepherds and stars to astrologers, in children to teachers and sunsets to hikers, in friends and families, strangers and coincidences and chance happenings.

Jesus is revealing himself to us in our lives and our world all the time.  There is nowhere that Jesus won’t go, no one he won’t seek to find to invite into the presence of the Lord.  So as we enter this post Christmas season I invite you to look for the Epiphanies in your own life.  And I don’t just mean those great ‘aahhaa” moments where we have some huge realization out of the blue, but anywhere where Christ reveals himself to us.

But finding Jesus in our lives takes practice.  I used to be a youth pastor before I was a mom, and during Vacation Bible School with our little kids each year we would do this thing where we tell the kids to watch for God sightings and at the end of each day we’d ask them where they have seen God that day.  And those little kids were always great at it.  They saw God everywhere.  In their friends, in their families, in nature, in activities.  And we would do the same thing with middle and high schoolers on youth trips and by then it gets a little harder, their standards for a God moment were a little higher but they could usually find one.  But now I work with adults, and by the time I ask this question to folks like you all, especially older professional adults so many are downright stumped.  We are so quick to assign another explanation, to explain away experiences, to want to take all the credit ourselves or to doubt God’s activity in our lives.

But God is working.  Jesus is always present, is always trying to reveal himself to you, in exactly the way you need.  In a kind word, in a moment of peace, in an opportunity to give or receive love.  We just have to open ourselves up to seeing God working in those unexpected places. Because, no one is too small or unimportant.  No one is too strange or heretical or pushed outside.  No one is too far gone.  This same Christ who reveals himself to those who need to see him most is still revealing himself to us every day in the ways we need to see him.

So Welcome Holy Child,

May we be courageous enough to follow you across the world,

May we be bold enough to proclaim your birth in the halls of power,

And may we be wise enough to recognize you wherever you appear.  Amen