The Epiphany

Today is the feast of the Epiphany. As we often do, we’ve transferred the feast, which occurs each year on January 6, to the following Sunday. So, when we gather for worship this Sunday, we’ll celebrate the Epiphany together.

The gospel reading for the Epiphany is Matthew 2:1-12, which is the story of the Magi who visit Jesus in Bethlehem. Traditionally we’ve translated the Greek word “magi” as “wise men” (but not, as the song suggests, kings), and, because they brought gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, we’ve assumed that there were three.

Most scholars believe that these magi were astrologers from Persia who regularly searched the sky for messages from God. While the practice of astrology is denounced in the Old Testament (see Isaiah 47), and should certainly not be practiced today by Christians, we can understand the magi as spiritual seekers, individuals who desired to know the truth, but simply didn’t know where to look. Importantly, God met the magi exactly where they were looking, and led them to Jesus, who is, according to John’s gospel, “The Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6).

The gospel of Matthew, in the opinion of the majority of scholars, was written for a Greek-speaking, Jewish Christian community that was struggling to understand how to integrate Gentile Christians into their life of worship, discipleship, and mission. It makes sense, then, that Matthew would choose to include Gentiles (Ruth and Rahab) in the genealogy of Jesus, and to include this story of Gentiles, the magi, who seek the Truth and are led to Jesus.

The beginning of Matthew – with the genealogy and the visit of the magi – prepares the reader for the end, which is commonly called the Great Commission. After the risen Jesus announces that God has given him all authority in heaven and on earth, he commands his disciples to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). The word “nations” is a translation of the Greek word “ethne,” which is the word commonly used to describe Gentiles. So Matthew’s gospel begins with Gentiles coming to Jesus, and ends with a commission for Jesus’ Jewish disciples to make disciples of Gentiles, whom they likely both feared and despised.

We see that the God of Israel, the Father of Jesus Christ, delights to meet people in their honest search for truth, always leading them to Jesus. We also see that the intention of the God of Israel is to make, in Paul’s words, “one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace” (Ephesians 2:15). The hostility between Jew and Gentile is broken down by the cross of Jesus, and the mission of the church is to bear witness to the “new humanity” that God is building – enmity between racial, ethnic, religious, and national groups begins to fade away as we embrace, or, more properly, are embraced by, Jesus, the Jewish Messiah whose vocation is to reconcile Jew and Gentile alike to the One God.

As we celebrate the Epiphany, then, let us become the kind of people that meet honest seekers of truth and bring them to Jesus, and let us also become the kind of people that reflect the beautiful, yet complicated and messy, one new humanity that God is bringing into being. The radical yet challenging implications of Paul’s words to the Galatians – “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28) – have never been more important. May God manifest his presence in our midst in such a way that we would have a deeper love for Jesus, and a broad, expansive vision of his body, the church.

Peace,

Chris