Epiphany: The God Who Confronts (2)

The Magi

The child born at Christmas carries the story on into Epiphany though he has done nothing at all yet. Lower class blue collar workers (that’s the social status of shepherds in that time) were called to his manger by angels (Luke’s account). For Matthew, it’s a brilliant star that attracts foreign pagan idolaters to the child’s home. They bring him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. (BTW the three gifts do not mean there were only three magi as our nativity scenes assumes. Likely there were more for such a long and dangerous journey. Further, the magi do not arrive at the same time as the shepherds as our nativity scenes also assume. Likely, he a toddler at home, maybe around two years old).

The magi, though “Kings” in the Christmas carol, were something like astrologers known also for being interpreters of dreams. Sometimes called “wise” men, their wisdom consisted in these arcane abilities and not in moral wisdom or knowledge. Coming from Gentile lands these magi were almost certainly worshipped foreign gods and were, therefore, idolaters coming to worship the newborn Jewish king!

This strange array the gospels report coming to worship this child suggests at least that the lower classes (represented by the shepherds) and the Gentiles (represented by the Magi) will come to worship Jesus. And, of course, they do. But the rulers and well-placed in the world are notable by their absence at the manger and the young child’s home as they are in his ministry of later years, and especially his cross.

“For the great and powerful of this world, there are only two places in which their courage fails them, of which they are afraid deep down in their souls, from which they shy away. These are the manger and the cross of Jesus Christ. No powerful person dares to approach the manger, and this even includes King Herod. For this is where thrones shake, the mighty fall, the prominent perish, because God is with the lowly. Here the rich come to nothing, because God is with the poor and hungry, but the rich and satisfied he sends away empty. Before Mary, the maid, before the manger of Christ, before God in lowliness, the powerful come to naught; they have no right, no hope; they are judged. . . . Who among us will celebrate Christmas correctly? Whoever finally lays down all power, all honor, all reputation, all vanity, all arrogance, all individualism beside the manger; whoever remains lowly and lets God alone be high; whoever looks at the child in the manger and sees the glory of God precisely in his lowliness” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is In the Manger (Westminster John Knox Press), 26).

The politics of Epiphany becomes clear in this story in three ways:

-The Spirit is at work in the world beyond his people.

-The Christ child excites fear and anxiety in the political powers of his day. Positively, gifts fit for a king are indeed given to a king. But not King Herod. Negatively innocents are slaughtered. There is always collateral damage when the powers that be get agitated and usually the innocent bear the brunt of it.

-The Christ child and his family end up fleeing to Egypt as refugees. God resides among people caught up in all the turmoil of the kind often visited upon the poor, powerless, and vulnerable.

This third panel fills out the Christmas cycle.

-The people of God mired in the darkness in Advent.

-God comes into the darkness at Christmas.

-God’s people go into the darkness in Epiphany.

The beginning of the end has begun! The remainder of the season after Epiphany spells out the shape and character of that end leading up to its climax in Lent and Easter. This is the end, remember. God has no further or better plan to deal with sin and its aftermath. Jesus is God’s last and best answer to all that’s gone wrong with us and with his dream for his eternal home with us on this planet!