Among the many memorable pictures offered by the recent production of The Mystery Plays in this Church was that of the Three Wise Men with their attendants, representing all humanity, and offering gold, a smoking censer, and a vessel of Palestinian glass, containing myrrh. The story is that they had come far from the East on this great errand, and ?a cold coming they had of it?. But, despite their wisdom, they made the same mistake at the beginning of the life of Jesus as other rulers made at its end. Whatever Pilate may have written on the Cross, Jesus was not merely, and had never sought to be, King of the Jews. According to John [18: 36] he had told Pilate ?My kingdom is not of this world?. Christ the King is Ruler, not of one people but of all Creation.
That is the principal message which the First Gospel gives us at Epiphany-tide: that Jesus is to be worshipped by all the world, and is not the private property of the Jews. It is a message worth stressing when we are often persuaded by other passages in this Gospel, such as the emphasis on Old Testament prophecy, that Matthew was a Jew and strictly Jewish in his outlook. The Christian community for which he was writing must in fact have been a mixed bag of Jews and Gentiles, no different from the majority of first-century Christian communities. Some commentators believe that Matthew was asserting that the Jews, represented here by Herod, had forfeited their inheritance by their rejection of Jesus and that the Church will be the Israel of the last days. This certainly was the general opinion of Christians up to the Holocaust. Nowadays, however, this view is no longer regarded as politically correct, and the divine promises to the Jewish people are affirmed by the principal Christian churches to be as valid as the promises to Christians
The other aspect of the story of the Wise Men which strikes us is, as I have already suggested, the gifts. For once, our Lectionary is helpful today, and we can all observe that Matthew got the gold and incense from Isaiah 60:6 in our First Lesson, though that says it came from Sheba, present-day Yemen, which is more South than East of Bethlehem. Isaiah says the gifts are for the house of Israel. It does not mention myrrh, but Psalm 45 [v8] speaks of a king whose ?robes are all fragrant with myrrh?. As early as the second century, the significance of each of these gifts was identified as being for the separate aspects of Christ?s mission: gold for a king, incense for the Son of God, and myrrh for the Messiah prepared to die to save us.
We are less interested in the clash between old Herod and the baby of Bethlehem, which is presented in terms recalling the story of the infancy of Moses, as told in the first chapters of Exodus. The most striking feature is the least historically credible, namely, the alleged attempts by Pharaoh, on the one hand, and Herod, on the other, to kill little boys indiscriminately. But there are sufficient other parallels to show that Jewish Christians, perhaps before Matthew started his Gospel, drew comparisons between Jesus and Moses as rescuers of their people.
The main purpose of the first chapters of Matthew, as of the other gospels, is to demonstrate who Jesus was and what was his calling, as an introduction to the account of what he said and did and what happened to him. But because Matthew chose a masculine and political setting for his account we are made particularly aware of the impact of Jesus on the history, both of the world and of the Jews, and of his vocation as a sovereign. This is not the way that we are usually inclined to think of Jesus, mainly because today religion is generally regarded as a private and personal matter. But it is worthwhile to remind ourselves that Christianity nevertheless proclaims truths which can be described as political: the universal rule of the Father, the redemption of Creation by the Son, the indwelling inspiration of humanity by the Holy Spirit. Christ Jesus may not be an earthly king; he is no rival to Queen Elizabeth II; but he is a sovereign all the same. As his followers, we need to take his teaching and practice into account in our political judgements. This is particularly the case at the beginning of what we all expect to be an election year in this country, when we are called to give practical expression to the political dimension of our faith. I accept that we are called to be in this world but not necessarily of this world. That does not mean that we should not seek to pursue the will of God in the world by political activity, in which the primary obligation is to cast our vote in the light of careful consideration, though of course we may pursue more intensive political activities as well.
But I feel I must not end without saying a word about the recent natural disaster in the Indian Ocean. You do not need me to remind you of the obligation on our society to help those in need, but you may want me to suggest why our Creator could so arrange things that large numbers of human beings have died and are dying. The first thing I want to say is that I do not believe that God sees death as a disaster. He died at an early age when he was a human being; why shouldn?t we? If we really believe that this life is just an episode in our eternal existence, why should we worry? Of course, it is perhaps easier for a 78-year old to take this attitude than a younger person! Be that as it may, I do not find death a problem, it is suffering that dismays me. Here, I can only say that I believe that the more we learn about the world, the more we realize that the Father created a very delicate balance, easily disturbed, and that no disturbance can be put right without cost to the natural order, including human beings. Avoiding this kind of problem might have led to other, and more distressing, problems. I believe that God made it all and that God knows best. Amen
Alan Goodison