Epiphany 2011

The feast of the Epiphany is one of my very favourite times in the church year. Partly that’s because the story of these travellers has been such an inspiration to poets and artists and hymn-writers alike. And partly that’s because the Epiphany takes the simple statement of Christmas and develops it, gives it depth and meaning, transforms the birth from being good news for Bethlehem to being good news for every place and every age and every generation.

The Epiphany is the moment when Jesus is made visible, manifest, to the whole world. These Travellers represent all of us, all of the world, and they see God. They travel to Bethlehem and kneel before him and worship.

Before we get too far into the story we need to clear the ground a little. Does anyone watch Stephen Fry on QI? The gimmick for the show is that if anyone gives an obvious answer, which is actually untrue, then a big hooter sounds and the lights flash and they lose 20 points. So, with that in mind, what were the names of the three kings? Well, there are three reasons why that question would warrant Fry saying “Oh, dear, dear, dear”.

Matthew is the only source we have and he does not call them Kings or name them or tell us how many there were. We always assume that there were three of them because there were three gifts, and we call them kings, and we name them, because that brings out the idea of all of creation coming together to kneel at the foot of God incarnate, with a king coming from each of the three known continents.

Matthew actually uses the Greek word Magi to describe them, which is often translated as wise men. Magi suggests that they were educated astronomers from Persia, hundreds of miles away. They pursued the star they saw rising in the east, certain that it must mean something very special.

We don’t know their names or how many there were: but what we do know is that the Magi or wise men brought three gifts, gold, frankincense and myrrh. And these gifts point us towards the wonder of this feast. Over the years, different theologians have interpreted the gifts in different ways. Bernard of Clairvaux in the 12^th century thought that the incense was to make the stable smell less like a farmyard, that the myrrh was to purge the Baby’s stomach and to get rid of any disease and that the gold would be vital once they went into exile in Egypt.

A more common version is that each of these gifts tells us about who Jesus is and what his future holds- gold for a child born to be king, frankincense because here is our high priest, and myrrh, the ointment needed for burial, because this kingly priest will die for us.

The definition of Epiphany is manifestation, showing, revelation. We normally think of it as the showing of Jesus to the world, and it definitely is that. But what strikes me today is that the world is revealed to Jesus as well, because the gifts the Magi bring, and the fact that they’re experienced in politics and power, point darkly to the future, to Easter. Just as they kneel and adore our God made flesh, just as they draw our eyes to the newborn, fragile infant, somehow, strangely, discreetly, their presence points forwards to the person the child will grow up to be.

This child is not born just to be worshipped. He is born to do a job, to save the world. The Magi bring with them the whisper of the world outside the  stable in a way the other visitors have not. The angels are literally heaven-sent. The shepherds are local men interested in little beyond their fields. But these Travellers have walked on marble staircases. They have eaten and talked with King Herod. They tell him of a new king, a rival, and thus, innocently, they lead armed soldiers to slaughter the children of Bethlehem. In the conversations they’ve had on their circuitous road to Bethlehem, and in the gifts they carry, they bring with them the spectre of Herod and of Pilate.

Jesus receives gold. He will need it when his family have to flee their home in panic because Herod’s men are coming to slay the children. His kingship will reach its climax when he is nailed to a cross on a rubbish dump outside Jerusalem, and above his head is written “The King of the Jews.”

Jesus receives incense. It might well make the stable smell a little sweeter, because the world Jesus has come to is dirty and unjust. But it means too that he is a priest- and ultimately the sacrifice he offers will be himself.

Jesus receives myrrh. It might well purge his stomach of disease and infection. But myrrh also points us to a woman breaking open a jar of ointment and pouring it over his feet, and to the burial of the crucified Christ, in a borrowed tomb, alone. He lies swaddled now, smelling the myrrh and wondering what the future will bring: after he is executed, he will lie swaddled in cloth once more, covered in the perfume of myrrh which his senses, being dead, will not sense.

This baby is born to die. It’s not that he will die, because that would be unremarkable: he has come to love us and to die, for us, and for that reason alone. Already, days after his birth, he can sense on the Magi the fear and determination of tyrants to defend what they hold by might alone, not by loyalty, not by love. They carry with them the fearful desperation of a tyrant, a hint of what Jesus will face.  

The artist William Holman Hunt is perhaps most famous for painting the Light of the World in about 1860, one version of which hangs in the chapel where Becca and I were married. It’s the one with a door… Later on he also painted The Shadow of Death which has a similar theme to the very fine window on the right as you come into church. It shows Jesus as a young man in his father’s carpentry workshop. In the painting Jesus is standing up from his carpentry and stretching like this: and behind him on the wall falls the shadow of the cross. At his side Mary is kneeling, her face turned to the wall, to the shadow of death. And she is looking in a chest, inside which are the boxes the Magi brought, each of them, gold, incense, myrrh, pointing forwards prophetically to the death of Jesus.

Here is another Epiphany moment, a moment of clarity and understanding. Here is a hint of what must be.

Here is the future prefigured in gifts and shadow.  

Today we keep the feast of the Epiphany. An Epiphany is a showing, a moment of revelation. On one level it is all about the Son of God being shown to the whole world. But on another, as we watch these travellers come in and kneel and offer their gifts, we see another truth, another revelation, because they carry with them, in their gifts and in themselves, the starkest of warnings about what the future will hold for this baby. The secret is out, you see. The world’s dark powers, every ruler who thinks that slaughtering every male child in a town under the age of 2 is a reasonable way of doing business, will not rest until this threat is found and destroyed. The fairytale Christmas is over, my friends. The story of Jesus is about to be told. And in the end, it is not the Kingdom of God which will fall, but the Kingdom of Herod, and of every ruler who would be like him.   Amen.