Epiphany 2021

There is a little known short story written at the end of the nineteenth century called “The story of the other wise man” by Revd Henry Van Dyke. It imagines the journey and search for the child born to be King by Artaban, a Persian Magi, who sells his home to buy three jewels as gifts for the child (a sapphire, a ruby and a pearl) and plans to join with the other wise men to travel to Jerusalem to search for the infant foretold by the Hebrew prophets and guided by a mysterious bright star.

On his journey he stops to tend to a sick man and so misses his intended companions. He arrives in Bethlehem just after the holy family have fled to Egypt but saves another child from being killed by soldiers. He spends thirty three years searching for the Christ but in this time grows in wisdom as he does what he can for his fellow human beings. At the end of his life we see him in Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion, giving away his remaining jewel, the pearl, to release a countrywoman from being taken into slavery for the debts of her father. He dies as the walls of the temple shake in the earthquake as Christ dies on the cross, given the knowledge by God that although he, Artaban, never managed to see Jesus, in his service to others he had indeed seen the face of God.

On this feast of Epiphany we remind ourselves of the journey of the Magi and the gifts that they gave to the child Jesus. Strange gifts for a child: Gold, the symbol of wealth and power; Frankincense, to create a prayerful and perfumed cloud offered by priests as they lead worship in the temple; Myrrh, so often used to anoint a body at death.

Strange gifts indeed given by men blessed with wealth and learning and to whom a small glimpse had been given of the mystery of God. Men who had been taught to search the night skies and the ancient manuscripts for the signs of God, who felt that the stars, the planets and the prophets had come together in a unique moment in the history of the world and felt compelled to go and see what mysteries might be shown them.

We forget just how shocking this episode in the birth of Christ was when it was first written down in the gospel of Matthew. The Magi are foreigners with a foreign (some might say pagan) worship of a God but here they are seeking the child Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us. Perhaps their story is the one foretold by the prophet Isaiah as the nations and kings coming to the light that is the glory of God bringing gifts and worshipping God.

The child whose title “King of the Jews” is the one spoken here at his birth and later written on a sign above his head as he dies on the cross. The child come to show us as he grows the mystery of a God who created all things, is in all things and whose very life and death gives us life.

St Paul in writing to the Ephesians echoes this mystery that is God in Christ come to all people, is for all people, who draws all people to himself in the mystery of the life and death of Christ.

When we think of the visit of the Magi to the infant Christ at the start of his earthly life we focus on the gifts and the image of these foreigners kneeling in wonder as they worship this king. The gold, frankincense and myrrh represent who Jesus is and will be but the story of the Magi does not end here.

God warns them in a dream not to go back and tell Herod where to find the child but to take a different route for their journey home. Their wisdom in heeding this message from God enables Joseph and Mary to take Jesus and escape from the massacre of all the young boys ordered by Herod in his fury of not only contemplating what might be a rival king (however young) but of being tricked by the Wise Men.

You might say that by using the wisdom they had been given they give the gift of life to the child, who in turn then gives his life so that we might have the gift of God’s eternal life. How extraordinary is this mystery!

Perhaps as we come to the beginning of this new year, we might take a moment to think about the gifts that God has given us. We are glad to put 2020 behind us and turn towards 2021.

Can we find it in our hearts to rejoice at being reminded of the gift of the child that is God with us – heavy as our hearts have been with the fear of illness or missing loved ones or some other grief that this past year has brought.

Can we find some way to relish this mystery of the gift of life that is God’s especial gift to us?

Can we resolve to live this gift of life wholeheartedly, seeing in others those who also have this gift?

Above all, can we kneel in wonder and offer to God all that we are and might be as we marvel at the miracle of God in Jesus and that lowly birth so many years ago.

Amen

“Adoration of the Magi” in the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception at Conception Abbey in Conception, Missouri, USA