The lucky children downstairs in the crèche are being treated to the Spanish version of Epiphany, with, I hope, appearances from Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar representing the nations of the world come to worship the Christ child. Up here, I’m afraid you have just got me-creep out quietly please, if you have realised your mistake. The question I want to explore is where our traditional ideas about Epiphany come from.
Why, for example, do we have Three Kings? If you were listening at all carefully to Matthew’s Gospel, you will have noticed that he mentions no Kings and does not specify three wise men, or Magi, either. It was in our reading from the prophet Isaiah and in our Psalm that we heard about Kings, and approaching the dawn, and bringing abundant tribute and three kings of Tarshish, Seba and Sheba with gifts of Gold and Frankincense. So it looks as if the background to the fun downstairs is to be found in these prophetic traditions.
The curious thing is that Matthew is not usually shy about mentioning Old Testament prophecy; he frequently explains why things happened they did, as “in order to fulfil the prophecy…”So we heard the words of Micah foretelling that the Messiah should come from king David’s home town of Bethlehem; a little before we would have heard that the seemingly pretty commonplace an event- a girl having a baby- was as foretold by Isaiah again. That prophecy goes on to state the child would eat curds and honey when he knows to refuse the evil and chose the good. It’s not too facetious to imagine Matthew explaining the toddler Jesus’ preference for cornflakes as fulfilling this prophecy. So why doesn’t Matthew make more of the camels and exotic royalty and lavish merchandise, if the point is the recognition of Christ by the nations of the world? Well, to be fair Matthew does mention the rising of a new star rising in the East and gets the Gold and Frankincense in too, with the more mysterious Myrrh.
If Matthew isn’t apparently – or superficially – interested in this sort of recognition and worship, what is the point of his story?
I think it helps to see it as like a fairy tale. I don’t mean to suggest that it is too fantastical to take seriously, but I don’t think Matthew means us to take it wholly literally either; there must have been a solid basis for the massacre of the children (hardly an event that would be forgotten, even if overshadowed by massacres to come), but Matthew weaves round it a fairy story of the land ruled by a wicked king (compare wicked giants or stepmothers). This savage and sumptuous authority is contrasted and threatened by innocence and poverty. As in all fairy stories there are layers of irony, as we know, and the wise men begin to realise, that the baby for all its mundane simplicity, really is a king, more powerful than Herod. Contrasting the simplicity too, is the power of deceit (Little Red Riding Hood and the Fox perhaps); the deceit is overt and ineffectual in Herod, innocent – even naïve – but effective in the Wise Men. The sense of the exotic and strange breaking into a stable world is familiar too from Fairy Tales (Herod huff and puffs and destroys many households); the stable world in the case of Judea resting on deep insecurity and terror.
Matthew’s description of the fear and insecurity in Herod’s state is important background; it is the political environment into which Jesus is born. Matthew is setting the scene for the Gospel. He has started his work with a lengthy genealogy – family tree of Joseph (although not precisely Jesus) which explains how Jesus is descended from David a conventional royal lineage (although with a few little foreign surprises slipping between the sheets). We also reminded of Bethlehem as the origin of the line; here too we have a hint that the mundane and unconventional may matter more in God’s scheme. It was at Bethlehem that Samuel anointed Jesse’s youngest and most insignificant son brought back from shepherding duties to be recognised as future king. The humble baby in Mary’s arms is an equally unlikely candidate for kingship, yet the wise men do recognise him.
If these are the prophetic expectations of a Messiah; the picture Matthew paints of the physical and political circumstances of Jesus’ birth are very different; Herod, in his terrible way, is a reminder of what a righteous ruler might be like.
One of the characteristics of such a king is wisdom; the baby Jesus isn’t up to showing wisdom yet; but those outsiders, the wise men are, and a true king should, as they do, combine that wisdom with honest, even naïve innocence. On its face their quest is a strange one; why should wise men from the East be interested in the new king of an insignificant country like Judea? It’s perhaps not so strange when one remembers the Israelites’ exile in Babylon. If the stories of Daniel and Esther, for example, are to be believed, the exiled Israelites, and their religion, were as much respected as they were despised. Not so strange then that Wise Men should be interested in the politics of a small far away country.
But their quest remains strangely simple, inspired by astronomy (and a very strange sense of direction- Judea is west, not east of Mesopotamia or Persia). Finding what is behind the New Star has hints of searching for the end of a rainbow; these wise men are inspired idealists. Their innocent questions reveal the truth; and stranger and more wonderfully still, they can recognise that truth- it cannot have been obvious. Those questions also bring about disaster.
Perhaps it was not so strange; they were inspired by a star; a new sun to start a new creation; a new dawn as envisaged by Isaiah. It’s highly speculative, but not impossible that the wise men had read Isaiah (the later books – from which our reading today came- were written at the end of the Exile). Anyway inspired by Isaiah or not they are driven by a desire to see something new. And this, I believe is Matthew’s point; to recognise Christ we need the inquisitiveness of the wise men; we need their innocent enthusiasm and their desire for new knowledge, in faraway places and unlikely locations. We need to be able to see the point of tradition and prophecy, but not rely on that or the familiar alone, but look again at what we thought- and our predecessors thought they knew. Finally, we cannot rely on ourselves and our own learning and experience; we always need something strange and unusual to set us on the right course. This should be the lesson of the story; not so much the homage of the powers of the world before the Christ child, but the willingness in our own minds to see new things and bring about old dreams in a new way.
That would be a good point to end this sermon; but it’s not how Matthew ends his story. Instead he finishes with another prophecy fulfilled “Wailing and loud lamentation/Rachel weeping for her children; she refuses to be consoled/ because they were no more.” That was Rama or Bethlehem; it might be Peshawar, Northern Nigeria or any of the hate and fear filled countries of our world. The world into which Jesus is born is dangerous one; and in due course he will confront and eventually submit to its pain and death. Matthew with his stern binary view of the world does not pretend all is well; salvation, whether in the enlightenment of the wise men or in the garden on Easter morning is inextricably linked to suffering and death. Fairy Tales are not always comforting; nor is the mystery of the incarnation. Amen