Epiphany 2021 (observed)
There is no one Holiday in the Church that is big enough to celebrate our Lord Jesus entirely. The two biggest feast days, Christmas and Easter, in a way celebrate the beginning and the end of Jesus’ earthly work. But there’s so much more depth to the Gospel than we can possibly celebrate on those two days.
One of the most neglected feast days in the Church is what we’re celebrating today, Epiphany. Christmas celebrated that the savior was born, that the son of God has become also the son of man. Ok, so what? What does this mean?
That’s what Epiphany helps to answer. Christmas is only a beginning. What does it mean that Jesus has been born? An Epiphany is a revealing moment, a realization. The Epiphany of Our Lord, and the season that follows, celebrates how God went about revealing who this boy Jesus really was.
Matthew’s Gospel goes about this revealing of who Jesus is right away after Christmas. Matthew doesn’t mention the Shepherds coming to visit Jesus like we hear in the Gospel of Luke. Rather, the first people that Matthew mentions visiting Jesus are these wisemen, the magi, from the east.
Jesus was born to be King of the Jews, but who does Matthew tell us about visiting him first but gentiles,, non-Jews. What foreigner goes out of their way to welcome someone who is not a king of their own people?
Why were these foreigners the ones to inform Herod and all the religious leaders of Jerusalem that the new king was born?
Well clearly God was at work guiding these wisemen, if nothing else we see it clearly when he guides them through a dream not to go back to Herod. But why were they looking for the Jewish King in the place? We’re not told explicitly.
It could be God had led them to look for Jesus in a similar way through dreams or revelation. But there’s a simpler answer. God doesn’t typically speak to us today through dreams or revelation, I won’t say it never happens, but we come to know about Jesus through the recorded Word of God. We learn how Jesus fulfills a multitude of prophecies about himself from the Old Testament.
Perhaps these magi had done the same. They didn’t have Gideon Bibles in their hotel rooms, but perhaps these men of wisdom had had the opportunity to study the wisdom of the Old Testament Scrolls. Again, we know next to nothing about these wisemen, other than they are from the East.
But we know God’s people had also spent some time in the east, during the Babylonian Captivity, some 500 years or so before the time of Christ. It was a time of physical and spiritual exile, but a faithful remnant remained even as they were in a foreign land. The Book of Daniel informs us about such faithful ones, how Daniel, as well as the three Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, rose up in the courts of Babylon because of their wisdom. This wisdom came from God, both in dreams, like the wisemen with Jesus had, but also in literature and writings. Likely Daniel or other faithful ones had brought God’s Word from the Old Testament scrolls with them, so that even as they lived among foreigners with strange Gods, they could remain faithful to the LORD God, and even teach others about him.
God worked great wonders to preserve his faithful during this time. Daniel was thrown to the Lions for his faith, but we know he ended up fine. Likewise, the 3: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, were thrown into the fiery furnace, but were kept from harm by God.
These miracles of God to his faithful, as well as their faith and the scriptures they believed in, no doubt would have spread and been handed down in Babylon to the east. Perhaps these magi were students of God’s wisdom handed down through Daniel.
Regarding knowing about this Star in Bethlehem, there is a verse in the Book of Numbers 24: 17
I see him, but not now;
I behold him, but not near:
a star shall come out of Jacob,
and a scepter shall rise out of Israel;
It’s not the most memorable verse, it’s not surprising that seemingly all of the Jews missed it, but likely God revealed it by the Holy Spirit to these wisemen who studied his Word.
It’s not the chief priests, the pharisees, sadducees, scribes, or rabbis who were among the first to come see the boy Jesus after the shepherds. No, it was foreigners, those who likely did not look the part of being a Jew. They were not members of God’s earthly Kingdom of Israel. Yet by hearing God’s Word, and by receiving faith from the Holy Spirit and responding accordingly with their journey to mee the one true King, these gentiles revealed themselves to be true members of God’s people. They were true descendents of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by faith, and inheritors of the covenant of salvation God swore to them.
On Christmas, Jesus was born to be King of the Jews. So what? The jews have had kings before. What makes this one different? Well, besides the fact that he is the son of God and of God himself, it is immediately shown with his birth that he is the king, not just over the Jews of Israel or Judea, but that he will draw faithful people to himself from all over the world, shown first with these magi from the East.
This would be a struggle for the Jews, even after witnessing Jesus as an adult preach, minister, and serve Gentiles who responded to him in faith. St. Paul acknowledged this struggle in his letter to the Ephesians, as we heard earlier, mentioning the mystery revealed by Jesus Christ, and saying: This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
Christmas will always be a bigger holiday. But to celebrate the Epiphany of Christ is to celebrate how he would reveal his purpose to various people in various ways, a chief example being the wisemen after his birth. We’ll hear more about Jesus revealing himself next week as we celebrate his baptism.
As sinners, we naturally form divisions. Divisions by nation, race, religion, politics. God had his Old Testament people divide from the world to help them remain faithful, and to set up the stage for the coming of Jesus. And even today, as Christians we are called to divide ourselves in a sense, not to hide or look down upon others, but through faith we are called to live separately or differently in our works of love.
But through the Epiphany, the revealing of our LORD, our God makes it clear that he would call any and all people to himself through faith, through a trust that Jesus is Lord of All, and that his death covers any and even the worst of our sins.
Let us all imitate the faith of the wisemen, receiving God’s wisdom through his word, and responding in faith. Though we may not witness the birth of our Lord at Christmas, we may all in faith kneel before Jesus as our King as these magi did, as we celebrate the Epiphany of our Lord.
In Jesus’ Name, Amen.