The Voyage of the Wise Men
Texts: Matthew 2:1-12; Isaiah 60:1-6
If you’re wondering why the Christmas decorations are still up, it’s my fault. No, the people on the decorating team weren’t being lazy, it’s that I specifically asked them to leave all of the banners, lights, and decorations up for this Sunday. When I preached on the 27th, I remarked at how we’re all too ready to stuff our Christmas Decorations back into a box, rather than let the bells of the season continue to echo.
So I’m trying to stretch it out a bit more.
I think I’ve remarked before that we often try to do too much on Christmas Eve. We try to stuff the whole occasion into a single night, without trying to draw out the various themes and messages of the Season. We have Shepherds and Angels bumping into Wise Men and their entourage… it’s a wonder that Joseph, Mary and the Christ Child might have gotten any sleep whatsoever.
The reality is, the stories that Luke tells and the stories that Matthew tells around the birth of Jesus were never meant to be mashed together. Luke places this emphasis on the Christ Child being born into exceedingly poor circumstance, who is revealed to the unwanted and outcast.
Matthew works with a different group of people and a completely different timeline. He makes a completely different point by highlighting a story that would have taken place some two years after that first holy night.
Matthew brings in these characters from the east… mysterious figures… outsiders, but not outcasts like the shepherds… these are truly mysterious outsiders. The Greek word for them is Magi… It’s where we get the words “Magician” from. They are truly mysterious outsiders from a far-away land. Astrologers who look for signs in the stars.
They embark on a long journey, coming from the East searching for someone… something wonderful… something new. For them, they had an epiphany, a moment of realization... and their world and their lives were changed.
For many of us these moments of realization may not be as dramatic, but they can be just as profound. They are moments where we begin to see something in a new way. These moments of Epiphany, of seeing things in a new way, is so appropriate for this time of year.
After all, it is January 10th, and normally by now all the Christmas decorations are down and have been stowed away for next year. The trees are gone or out on the sidewalk, the lights have either come down, or at very least they’ve been shut off for the season, awaiting their actually removal come spring. By now the Christmas decorations in the malls have given way to preparations for Valentine’s Day, with Hallmark™ leading the charge. Anything Christmas-like seems far too “early” in this Second Sunday in the New Year. Yet if we were part of Eastern Orthodox Christian traditions, the Christmas celebrations would just be getting off the ground.
In the western church, today is the first Sunday in the Season of Epiphany, drawing that link between Christmas and the rest of the church year. In the church that I served in Cornwall, on Christmas Eve, the senior minister always set up the Nativity Set with all of the actors in the stable, except three: the wise men… the Magi. They were present in the Sanctuary on Christmas Eve, but they stood in the frame of a stained glass window some thirty feet distant. The Sunday after Christmas they would move closer, on top of the Piano; the Sunday before Epiphany they would finally arrive at the stable. It was a way to visually remind people that not all of the stories that we tell at Christmas happened at the same time.
The visit of the Magi is celebrated on January 6th, the twelfth day after Christmas. The visit of these travellers from the east is symbolic of the revealing of Christ to the world. It didn’t happen right away, but would take some time before the wise men would knock on the door bearing their gifts. These travellers would come from far lands, revealing something powerful and pervasive about this new child to the entire world. Suddenly people would see this child born in a manger in a wonderful new way.
The story is familiar to us… but we tend to blend the stories from Matthew and Luke together, adding and embellishing with our own details. The visit of the Magi is worth taking on its own. We have no other details about who they were and where they came from. We don’t even know how many of them there were… Matthew’s telling of it simply says that wise men or Magi from the East show up on King Herod’s doorstep asking for the child who has been born King of the Jews. They say something cryptic about observing his rising star.
In the story, Herod is predictably alarmed, but plays along… and along with his advisors helps to discern that these astrologers should be making their way to Bethlehem. The Magi continue on their journey, seeing both the star and finding the child. It’s interesting that they find the child in a house, and not in a stable as Luke describes… some time has passed since the night of the child’s birth. They enter the house and offer their gifts… Gold… Frankincense… Myrrh.
The story is so familiar that we miss the really subtle strokes that Matthew is trying to make. Beyond the more obvious quoting of the prophet Micah, locating Bethlehem as the birthplace, Matthew echoes the words of Isaiah 60 throughout the early part of this story.
See if some of these verses sounds familiar:
1Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.... 3Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn... the wealth of the nations shall come to you.
6A multitude of camels shall cover you, the young camels of Midian and Ephah; all those from Sheba shall come. They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.
For Matthew, the visit of the Magi is indeed an Epiphany. This link to Isaiah is especially important… No longer is the Christ child revealed to a select few, shepherds, and innkeepers. The very nations come and gather to see the child, the courts of the rich and powerful are brought to their knees. The glory of the Lord is revealed for all to see. Things will never be the same again. Epiphany… we see things in a new way… and our lives will never be the same.
Seeing things in a new way is what Epiphany is about. For the next eight weeks, all of the stories and scripture that we will be hearing are all about those moments of seeing God in our midst where we have not seen before. More often than not, it’s a discovery that God has in fact been there all along, and we have simply not seen. These moments of epiphany happen not only in the Bible, but are constantly happening in our own lives. By definition, an epiphany is a sudden intuitive leap of understanding, especially through an ordinary but striking occurrence.
Our challenge is to allow ourselves to be open to them… to be able to see those things, those moments in our lives where all those things we have taken for granted suddenly look and feel different. This can be in a spectacular way, but more often than not it may be from something more mundane. It can be anything from seeing the wonders of the natural world… to playing along with my daughter's imaginary friends. Ultimately, seeing something in a new light changes the way we act and behave, these moments of Epiphany can have life-changing results.
Arise, shine, for your light has come!
Happy Epiphany!
If you’re wondering why the Christmas decorations are still up, it’s my fault. No, the people on the decorating team weren’t being lazy, it’s that I specifically asked them to leave all of the banners, lights, and decorations up for this Sunday. When I preached on the 27th, I remarked at how we’re all too ready to stuff our Christmas Decorations back into a box, rather than let the bells of the season continue to echo.
So I’m trying to stretch it out a bit more.
I think I’ve remarked before that we often try to do too much on Christmas Eve. We try to stuff the whole occasion into a single night, without trying to draw out the various themes and messages of the Season. We have Shepherds and Angels bumping into Wise Men and their entourage… it’s a wonder that Joseph, Mary and the Christ Child might have gotten any sleep whatsoever.
The reality is, the stories that Luke tells and the stories that Matthew tells around the birth of Jesus were never meant to be mashed together. Luke places this emphasis on the Christ Child being born into exceedingly poor circumstance, who is revealed to the unwanted and outcast.
Matthew works with a different group of people and a completely different timeline. He makes a completely different point by highlighting a story that would have taken place some two years after that first holy night.
Matthew brings in these characters from the east… mysterious figures… outsiders, but not outcasts like the shepherds… these are truly mysterious outsiders. The Greek word for them is Magi… It’s where we get the words “Magician” from. They are truly mysterious outsiders from a far-away land. Astrologers who look for signs in the stars.
They embark on a long journey, coming from the East searching for someone… something wonderful… something new. For them, they had an epiphany, a moment of realization... and their world and their lives were changed.
For many of us these moments of realization may not be as dramatic, but they can be just as profound. They are moments where we begin to see something in a new way. These moments of Epiphany, of seeing things in a new way, is so appropriate for this time of year.
After all, it is January 10th, and normally by now all the Christmas decorations are down and have been stowed away for next year. The trees are gone or out on the sidewalk, the lights have either come down, or at very least they’ve been shut off for the season, awaiting their actually removal come spring. By now the Christmas decorations in the malls have given way to preparations for Valentine’s Day, with Hallmark™ leading the charge. Anything Christmas-like seems far too “early” in this Second Sunday in the New Year. Yet if we were part of Eastern Orthodox Christian traditions, the Christmas celebrations would just be getting off the ground.
In the western church, today is the first Sunday in the Season of Epiphany, drawing that link between Christmas and the rest of the church year. In the church that I served in Cornwall, on Christmas Eve, the senior minister always set up the Nativity Set with all of the actors in the stable, except three: the wise men… the Magi. They were present in the Sanctuary on Christmas Eve, but they stood in the frame of a stained glass window some thirty feet distant. The Sunday after Christmas they would move closer, on top of the Piano; the Sunday before Epiphany they would finally arrive at the stable. It was a way to visually remind people that not all of the stories that we tell at Christmas happened at the same time.
The visit of the Magi is celebrated on January 6th, the twelfth day after Christmas. The visit of these travellers from the east is symbolic of the revealing of Christ to the world. It didn’t happen right away, but would take some time before the wise men would knock on the door bearing their gifts. These travellers would come from far lands, revealing something powerful and pervasive about this new child to the entire world. Suddenly people would see this child born in a manger in a wonderful new way.
The story is familiar to us… but we tend to blend the stories from Matthew and Luke together, adding and embellishing with our own details. The visit of the Magi is worth taking on its own. We have no other details about who they were and where they came from. We don’t even know how many of them there were… Matthew’s telling of it simply says that wise men or Magi from the East show up on King Herod’s doorstep asking for the child who has been born King of the Jews. They say something cryptic about observing his rising star.
In the story, Herod is predictably alarmed, but plays along… and along with his advisors helps to discern that these astrologers should be making their way to Bethlehem. The Magi continue on their journey, seeing both the star and finding the child. It’s interesting that they find the child in a house, and not in a stable as Luke describes… some time has passed since the night of the child’s birth. They enter the house and offer their gifts… Gold… Frankincense… Myrrh.
The story is so familiar that we miss the really subtle strokes that Matthew is trying to make. Beyond the more obvious quoting of the prophet Micah, locating Bethlehem as the birthplace, Matthew echoes the words of Isaiah 60 throughout the early part of this story.
See if some of these verses sounds familiar:
1Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.... 3Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn... the wealth of the nations shall come to you.
6A multitude of camels shall cover you, the young camels of Midian and Ephah; all those from Sheba shall come. They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.
For Matthew, the visit of the Magi is indeed an Epiphany. This link to Isaiah is especially important… No longer is the Christ child revealed to a select few, shepherds, and innkeepers. The very nations come and gather to see the child, the courts of the rich and powerful are brought to their knees. The glory of the Lord is revealed for all to see. Things will never be the same again. Epiphany… we see things in a new way… and our lives will never be the same.
Seeing things in a new way is what Epiphany is about. For the next eight weeks, all of the stories and scripture that we will be hearing are all about those moments of seeing God in our midst where we have not seen before. More often than not, it’s a discovery that God has in fact been there all along, and we have simply not seen. These moments of epiphany happen not only in the Bible, but are constantly happening in our own lives. By definition, an epiphany is a sudden intuitive leap of understanding, especially through an ordinary but striking occurrence.
Our challenge is to allow ourselves to be open to them… to be able to see those things, those moments in our lives where all those things we have taken for granted suddenly look and feel different. This can be in a spectacular way, but more often than not it may be from something more mundane. It can be anything from seeing the wonders of the natural world… to playing along with my daughter's imaginary friends. Ultimately, seeing something in a new light changes the way we act and behave, these moments of Epiphany can have life-changing results.
Arise, shine, for your light has come!
Happy Epiphany!
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