Epiphany

Christmas is now almost over. By now we have just about finished up the Christmas turkey, have sent our thank-you letters, and have either taken down the decorations or are looking forward to doing so. Perhaps we are happy enough to put Christmas back in a box for next year.

But wait- there is one final act to the drama.

At epiphany, we commemorate Christ shown to the Gentiles. This should be important to us- after all, we are all of us Gentiles. So these strange looking magi are actually our representatives, journeying to a distant land, to find a new king.

Well, you may object, we have already found our king- have we not celebrated his nativity for these past ten days? What do they have to show us now?

Well, let me take you back to the beginning of our Christmas celebrations, to the carols by candlelight here at Rodney Stoke. At the beginning of the service, the church packed and candle-lit, Stanley invited us to forget about our world of worries- the credit crunch, international terrorism and global warming- and lose ourselves in this piece of heart-warming celebration. Now I did find the service to be both moving and relevant, but the idea stuck in my mind. Have we wrapped Christmas up in such a package of tradition and sentiment that it is no longer about the real world? Has God’s revelation of himself- “The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor” as WB Yeats put it, no longer the power to arrest us?

So perhaps we do, after all, have to try to journey back in time, to re-discover this revelation as the Gentiles we are. What did the magi seek, in the land of the Jews? And what did they find?

Matthew tells us that they came to find the King of the Jews. So they come to Jerusalem, the ancient capital of Judaism. There they find Herod the Great, installed by the Romans 40 years before, with the Roman title Rex Iudorum - king of the Jews. And of course they find him all too interested in their quest.

But the new king has not been born here, in the seat of power. There is another tradition of kingship in Judaism, strange to the wise men, but known- and feared- by the Jerusalem authorities. David the Shepherd King will return, and right all wrongs. Prophets speak of universal peace, in a world ruled by cosmic justice. This even extends to the natural world- the wolf will lie down with the lamb, and the lion eat straw like the ox. And perhaps most fearful for Herod, it involves social revolution. As we hear in the Magnificat- ‘he has brought down the mighty from their seat, and has exalted the humble and meek’.

So, guided by Jewish prophecy and divine illumination, the magi journey on to Bethlehem and find the place (a house in this gospel, not a stable). And there they have a revelation. They finally understand that divinity is not to be found in palaces, in alliance with or underpinning earthly power- or how would it be able to reverse our values, to revitalise our understanding? They are overwhelmed with joy, they do homage, they break out their riches. The wise men now know better than to go back to Herod. They have understood that this new variety of kingship will be in fundamental conflict with the old- and they go home another way.

This story then is not just a little bit of quaint tradition thrown in by Matthew, but introduces themes that are to be expanded in the rest of the gospel. What are these themes?

Firstly, it establishes the kingship of Jesus. When the wise men do find the infant, they present royal gifts. The gifts of gold and frankincense figure in this morning’s passage from Isaiah that we read. But this in turn harks back to the gifts of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon- gold, and a multitude of spices. We are being invited to compare Jesus with Solomon, the son of David.

The second theme is darker- conflict, between the authority of God in Jesus, and that of the present order. Herod with his Roman power tries but fails to kill the true King of the Jews- remember the slaughter of the innocents. Thirty years on, it is to be re-enacted, and this time Jesus is indeed executed with Roman power- with the inscription Rex Iudorum duly inscribed over him.

Finally, it takes us right to the end of the Gospel, where the resurrected Jesus says: “Go, and make disciples of all the nations”. This King of the Jews is for all the peoples of the world.

So what might we take back from our encounter with the babe of Bethlehem this Christmas?

Well let me recall another of my memorable experiences this Christmas- also from the Christmas Eve carol service here. We sang something new, called ‘God’s surprise’ (to the tune of ‘Scarlet Ribbons”). Do you remember the line “Who’d have thought that what was needed, was a child to lead the way”, and the refrain “God surprises earth with Heaven, coming here on Christmas Day”? Something I want to recall is the shock, the surprise, of what we call ‘incarnation’; God as vulnerable, at the mercy of humans; the ‘holy, helpless thing’ in the song.

But secondly, I think I need to acknowledge the theme of conflict. As Jesus says in another Gospel: “my Kingdom is not of this world”. This world – our world- offers something like Herod, and the Roman Empire- in every age. Peace and order are secured through force. In the Kingdom of Heaven, peace comes through love and justice, non-violently. These visions clashed two thousand years ago, and they clash today.

As I came out of my Christmas bubble and started listening to the news again, I heard of the Israeli air strikes on the Gaza strip, and this truth was brought brutally up to date. These are all too human means to ends, an attempt to bring peace through force. God’s peace comes through the apparently weak and powerless, and it is an act of superhuman faith sometimes to believe that these will prevail.

TS Elliot, in his poem “The Journey of the Magi”, imagined them returning to their own lands, but

“…no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, with an alien people clutching their gods”.

So, I pray that we may be no longer at ease with the gods of our world- money, power, knowledge, celebrity, success. The wise men remind us that we are all on a journey, to find the true king of this world, to offer our riches, and to adore.

I wish you all a very happy new year.