Second Sunday after Christmas
1/5/2025
This week we are celebrating the second Sunday after Christmas, which this year happens to be the 12th day after Christmas. That means tomorrow is “The Epiphany of Our Lord”. If you come from a background, like mine, that did not really mention Epiphany let me start by giving a high level overview. The Epiphany of our Lord is a feast day set aside to celebrate the incarnation of Jesus the Christ into the world. It focuses on three events in Jesus’ life, the visit of the Magi, Jesus’ baptism, and the miracle at the wedding in Cana.The link to this week's full reading can be found at the bottom of the page. I will be focusing on the gospel passage Matthew 2:1-12 as I discuss the visit of the Magi, what it meant to ancient Israel, and what it means for us today.
Before we dig into this week’s Gospel passage I want to spend a few more minutes discussing Epiphany. Epiphany of Our Lord is a feast day. In my personal background religious feast days were not something that were celebrated, or even mentioned. Christmas and Easter were basically the only celebrations on my version of the religious calendar. As we move through the year we will be celebrating many feasts and I will try to speak a little on the tradition behind them. Tomorrow is Epiphany, a feast that celebrates the revelation of Jesus. While the celebration focuses primarily on today’s Gospel reading and the arrival of the Magi it also remembers and celebrates two other significant events in Jesus’ life. The First is his baptism in the Jordan river by John. The other event is the wedding in Cana, where Jesus performed a miracle. These three moments in time were events that showed Jesus to be more than a man. They were indicators of his divine nature, the long awaited Christ.
Matthew chapter two tells us about the arrival of the “wise men from the east” in Jerusalem. They came declaring that they had seen the start of the King of the Jews and they had come to worship him. Who were these wise men, or Magi, as they are often called. The text in Matthew does not give us many details. Far fewer details actually then each of us probably “know” about the Magi. For example we “know” that 3 men visited. But we do not know that from the passage. The passage just says wise men, it does however list 3 gifts, so we have assumed 3 gift givers. We “know” that they were kings, but again not from the passage. However Old Testament prophecies about the birth of Christ talk about Kings coming to worship before him, so we have called these wise men kings. Finding out that some of the things we “know” about the story of the Magi are not so definitely spelled out does not make our experience of the nativity invalid. It just points out that over time there has been speculation about details that we have accepted that are not clearly spelled out here in the only passage in the New Testament about their visit.
But do not be discouraged. I am not here today to tell you how the “Christmas Story” is full of speculation and conjecture. I only mention those things to remind us that what the words say and what they mean or point to, or can be assumed to mean and point to, can be a very large swath of knowing. That is OK, because today we are going to read that same passage and not only talk about what it meant to those who read it first just 50 or 60 years after Christ walked the earth, but what it means to us today. The writer, I am sure, did the best he could to capture the events of the time, but he probably gave little thought to how people 2000 years later would be reading the same message. But we read it, and all these years later we receive fresh inspiration from God by doing so.
Now back to the narrative and what the wise men did. They asked the question “Where is the one who has been born King of the Jews?” That seems like a pretty bold question when you think about where they went to ask it. They knew that the center of the Jewish culture was Jerusalem. They also knew that even though Jerusalem was controlled by the Roman Empire that they still had a local King. But knowing this they walked into the City of the current “King of the Jews”, King Herod, and asked for directions to the newly born King. This did not please Harod, it frightened him for a lot of reasons. What if Rome heard this talk about a “King of the Jews” other than himself. What if the people heard this and decided these men spoke about their long awaited and prophesied about Messiah, and what if they took action?
This brings us to the first thing we want to consider. How did these wise men from the east know about Jesus’ birth and why did they “know” or at least believe that it was significant. All we know about these men is that they are called wise, they came from distant lands, and they had a knowledge of astrology, because we know that they watched the stars. Using that knowledge they saw something so significant that they travelled a long way to arrive in the kingdom of Harod, and asked about the birth of a King. They were not discouraged by the power of Rome, or the despotic nature of Herod. They had “seen” something they knew was significant and they sought after it.
These men were not Jews living in a foreign land who were educated in Old Testament prophecy. These men may have been from Pursia or Egypt or Babylon or even further away. Wherever they came from they had their own culture. They have grown up with their own religious beliefs and their own prophecies. But at the time of Jesus’ birth they came to know about it. With that knowledge also came the knowledge of its significance. We have no idea how they knew Jesus had been born. We have no idea what compelled them to leave their own land with their religion and their God and travel to Jerusalem. But we know they came. I believe that something divine inspired them through the shining of a new star. We know that it compelled them to travel. We know that they were fortified to ride into Roman territory and before the local King declared that they had seen the sign of the Real King.
After his initial shock, Harod pulled together his best and brightest scholars and figured out where this star may be pointing. He pulled the Magi into a private audience and told them about Bethlehem and he sent them to find the child. He also instructed them to return to him with details so that he too could go worship the child.
The Magi locate the child. They came before him with expensive gifts and then they worship him as he lays in his mothers arms. These men do not come from a culture that has been waiting generations for the birth of a Jewish baby that will save them. In fact the Jewish people themselves had not been waiting for a Messiah that would save anyone outside of their own people. But these men had been shown something. They knew that this child, born in this village, was significant not just to the Jews but to them and to all the world.
It is because of this that they came. They had never travelled to Jerusalem to visit Herod as King. They were not there because of some future earthly kingship. They had been given knowledge of the Divine Kingdom that was to be Jesus’. That kingdom on earth that Jesus referred to so often as the kingdom of God.
The Magi came to Jesus because they had somehow see a future that would find both Jews and gentiles invited into fellowship with the true King. The King that would not just rule over a people but that would reconcile and deliver all people back to their creator.
So what is this story to do with us? We have poked some holes into what we “know” about the story. Did that make it less significant? Absolutely not. The core of the story is what we are called to look at and remember. What inspired these men to travel? We don't know, but we do know that there is something that can speak to and inspire us. We can recall how boldly they rode into Jerulalam and asked about Jesus. We can recall how Mary and Joseph welcomed them in and accepted their gifts and their worship on behalf of Jesus. We can see that no place and no people is outside of the love and message of God. We can look at this story and see ourselves in many roles. At times we are the wise person, we have heard something that we don’t understand and we are invited to pursue it. Will we? At other times we are Herod, we sit in a place of power and we know what we think is supposed to happen, but we are challenged by something new. What will we do? We can be the parent of Jesus experiencing this approach from outside of what we know. How will we respond?
The Magi worshiped Christ and then, because of a dream, they returned to their own country without returning to Herod. Does God speak to us in such mysterious wasy and if so do we listen? These men returned to their countries and lived their lives. They did not relocate and eventually become disciples of Jesus, at least not that we are told. Do you think that means their link to him was lost. I would hardly think so. If they had the “wisdom” to see a star, travel to a foreign land, challenge a King, and then worship an infant child, I am sure they had the wisdom to continue on in a life glorifying Jesus even while they lived in their own country. This is our mission too. How have we responded to the wisdom and experience we have of Christ in our own life? What grand trip have we undertaken, but also, what simple daily tasks do we carry out in keeping with what we know about Jesus.
Thanks for reading.
David
Want to know why I am writing these articles? Look here.
You can find all of the readings for today at this link.
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