Entering
our church today, you will have noticed an alteration in the nativity scene as
the shepherds have been joined by the magi. (In the actual account, of course,
the shepherds came and went on the same day and so were presumably long gone by
the time the magi arrived.)
In
the United States, sadly, Epiphany now seems almost an add-on or some sort of
vestigial postscript to Christmas. Historically, however, Epiphany is actually
the oldest festival of the Christmas season, older even than Christmas Day
itself, and it still ranks as one of the principal festivals of the Church’s
calendar. In the Eastern Christian Churches, Matthew’s story of the magi is
read on Christmas Day. Epiphany in the East is primarily a celebration of
Jesus’ baptism, the beginning of his mission as an adult. Here in the West, we
postpone the commemoration of Christ’s baptism until tomorrow, focusing today
almost exclusively on the story of the magi.
The
terms “magi” suggests that they were wise, learned men, maybe Zoroastrian
priests, probably from Persia, perhaps astrologers. Beyond that, however, we
really know next to nothing at all about the magi themselves – not their names
(although tradition has given them the familiar names Caspar, Melchior, and
Balthasar), nor their exact social status (though tradition, inspired in this
case by Psalm 72, has crowned them as kings), nor even their number (though
tradition, based on the gifts itemized in the Gospel, has counted them as
three, which in time came to represent the three then-known continents -
Africa, Asia, and Europe - and the three ages of human life – youth, maturity,
and old age).
Matthew’s
Gospel tells us none of these things, but it does tell us what it is important
for us to know about the magi. First of all, it tells us that they were
foreigners, Gentiles, pagans. As such, they represent the majority of the human
race – past and present – in a world in which (as we just heard from the
Prophet Isaiah) darkness covers the
earth, and thick clouds cover the peoples [Isaiah 60:2]. In other words, the magi had only
human, natural knowledge, and sought, as Saint Paul said in his famous speech
to a pagan audience in Athens, the God who
made the world and all that is in it and gives life and breath to everyone [Acts 17:24-25]. Pope Benedict XVI called the magi
“forerunners, preparers of the way, seekers after truth, such as we find in
every age.”
But
the story also tells us that, whatever varied the paths that different people
may start out on, our paths ought finally to converge in Jesus, the one and
only Savior of the world, and that the interpretive key to the story of Jesus
is God’s revelation of himself in the history of Israel. Thus, it was
Jerusalem, Israel’s holy city, to which the magi came to learn the full
significance of the star – a meaning revealed in the Jewish scriptures, which
translated the natural light of a star into the revelation of a person. As
Isaiah prophesied in today’s 1st reading: Nations shall walk by Jerusalem’s
light, and kings by her shining radiance [Isaiah 60:3].
By
way of warning, however, the story also illustrates how easily we may miss the
point. Perhaps the prejudices of their class caused the Magi to go directly to
the king’s palace. Or perhaps they just stopped on every street and asked
anyone who would listen. Either way, when Herod heard the Magi, he was greatly troubled and all Jerusalem
with him. They were troubled,
instead of being overjoyed like the
Magi! What troubled them? What made such good news seem to them like bad news?
The same Christmas star that filled the magi with hope somehow seemed like an
evil portent to those who somehow sensed the threatening challenge it posed to
their power and their priorities. They may have sensed it better than many of
us, who like Herod have become quite complacent in our way of life and quite
comfortable with our possessions.
And
then there were the scholars whom Herod consulted. They correctly quoted the
scripture, but they didn’t get it either. It was as if they had an abundant
academic knowledge of the subject, but lacked any real knowledge. So none of
them did the obvious thing – go to Bethlehem and do Jesus homage. Only the
pagan magi did!
Talk about missing the opportunity of a
lifetime!
The
magi, on the other hand, were overjoyed
- not troubled. The magi set out as
true pilgrims – and on entering the house
they saw the child with Mary his mother … prostrated themselves and did him
homage. In the old liturgy, when these words were read or sung in the Gospel
everyone was directed to genuflect. It was the liturgy’s way of physically
bringing the point of the story home, helping us to identify personally with
the pilgrim magi – instead of letting it become just another interesting story
with no real impact on our lives.
As
for the mag themselvesi, we never hear about them again. We know only that they departed for their country by another
way. Nativity scenes sometimes seem, so to speak, frozen in time. Everybody
stays stationary – at least until it’s time to put the figures all back in the
closet. But the real magi didn’t just stay put, any more than the shepherds
did. They went back to wherever they had lived before, but they departed for their country by another way. They went back to
whatever they had been doing before, but they would never be the same again.
And, thanks to Christ’s coming into our world, we too must be different now
from what we would otherwise have been.
Every
January, after the holidays, we return, as we inevitably must, to our ordinary
activities – at home, at work, whatever and wherever. Like the magi, however,
our challenge is to travel through our ordinary life by another way, because something so special has happened that
makes everything different from what it would otherwise have been.
Long
before there were calendar raffles or funeral homes to print parish calendars,
Epiphany became the annual occasion in the Roman Liturgy to announce the date
of Easter and other important dates in the coming year. Having rejoiced at the
revelation of Christ’s birth, the Church invites us to look ahead to the joy of
his resurrection and to recognize how all of time and all of human history have
been transformed by these events.
None
of us, of course, can even begin to foresee what this new year, the year of our
Lord 2018, will bring, whether for better or for worse. Yet, even as we
navigate our way through an uncertain and challenging present, the Christmas
star invites us to travel with the magi – to go on pilgrimage with them to
Bethlehem and back again – confident that, whatever else may be the case, the
Christmas star will precede us to illuminate every new day of this new year,
and so will guide us, first, to Christ, and, then, thanks to Christ, on that
new and other way, which, like the magi, we are, all of us together, being
invited to find and follow.
Homily for the Epiphany of the Lord, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, January 7, 2018.
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