Five years ago, I had the opportunity to hear a wonderful homily, preached by The Reverend Mother Lizette Larson-Miller on Feast of the Epiphany. Were you there? To me the mark of good preaching, is how well you remember the words, especially long afterward. Please take a few moments to remember her words today:
“Twelfth night! The last of the days of Christmas as a distinct season and the feast of the Epiphany, the manifestation of God! What is it exactly that we celebrate this day? What is revealed?
“One of the things that I miss about teaching undergrads is the very interesting statements that used to show up on theology term papers and exams. I taught a general introduction to theology for five years and I remember at one point getting quite weary of asking the same questions in the same way, and so decided to get creative. In the section on the gospels, instead of asking them in a wordy way to describe the difference between eisegesis – reading into the text, and exegesis – reading from the text, I decided to use the Christmas story in picture as an example. I assembled some clip art – such as we often have on our liturgical bulletins – put a manger with a baby in the middle, the three wise men bringing gifts on one side, and, running out of room, a solitary sheep on the other side to represent the collective shepherds and sheep part of the nativity. I simply asked 'what’s wrong with this picture' hoping for an explanation about how the shepherds and the sheep (and the angels) are from Luke’s gospel account of the nativity, while the magi were from Matthew’s account, and how we have a tendency to read into scripture stories a gospel harmony, with an eye to how much more people actually use the Christmas pageant as their text, rather than the gospel proper. Most of the students got the basic idea – and then there was one very bright pre-med student who obviously thought way too much about the question. There were several responses begun and crossed out on the exam, at which point it appeared that he’d run out of time and wrote as a afterthought – 'Mary would never have left her son alone with three men and a sheep'!
“Although his was a particularly unusual interpretation, it is almost startling to read and hear the difference between Luke’s account of the nativity – which we heard and reflected on 12 days ago, and Matthew’s account we hear tonight. The story in Matthew seems more about Herod and his fears, and secondarily about the magi and their dedication in following the star, than it does about Jesus. To arrive at the common interpretation of the story for this great feast day, we really do need the reading from Isaiah as an interpretive tool: 'Arise, shine, the light has come…nations shall come to your light,' as well as the reading of the Apostle Paul to the Ephesians, 'For the sake of you gentiles…this mystery has been revealed. You are now fellow heirs, members of the same body.' Here is the lens put over the story of these magi that makes of them representatives of the gentile world and symbols of the universal inclusion of all people into the saving actions of God.
“But the history of the Christian celebration of Epiphany is not first and foremost about three wise men and their gifts. For much of the early church, January 6th (or its calendrical equivalent) was Christmas – it was the day on which the Nativity of Christ was celebrated. In some places that epiphany – that theophany of the word made flesh – was observed in association with the first miracle of the wedding feast at Cana as a further sign of God’s appearing. In other geographical areas the emphasis was on the nativity and the baptism of Jesus – both births into new life, and in still other places the theophany of God was associated with the giving of the gospels, marked by Epiphany being the beginning of the liturgical year and the return to the beginning of the gospel for a year-long course reading. It was only as the Western Christian observance of December 25th moved East and the Eastern Christian observance of January 6th moved West that the magi appear as an emphasis on this day. First in Northern Italy where January 6th celebrated the appearing of God in the Magi, the baptism of Jesus and the transfiguration, and then in Gaul, where the Magi, the baptism and the wedding at Cana were celebrated as the tria miracula, the three miracles of Epiphany.
“It was there in Gaul, what we might call France and parts of neighboring countries today, that a fascination with the magi developed. In the 8th century they became definitively three and received names – Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar – and associations with ethnic dress that had them represent a wide variety of exotic lands to the East. If December 25th represented the Nativity of Christ for these Gallican Christians, the Magi celebrated on January 6th represented their inclusion in the Christmas story – they were also foreigners – they were not Jewish, they were not Greek, they were not from the Middle East, not from Rome. They did not live in a land of early Christian martyrs, they could not claim apostolic foundation. But the magi symbolized for them that even the most foreign outsiders had been there – had seen with their own eyes the miracle of the birth of the Messiah. If the magi could be part of the story, so could the Gallican Christians.
“The story from Matthew’s gospel through the many generations of Christians observing this day has expanded and contracted through this reality of both reading out of the story and reading into the story the experiences and hopes of each community. What are we to read from and into the feast of the Epiphany?
“Long before there was an annual celebration of Christmas or Epiphany, Ignatius of Antioch, bishop and martyr of the early 2nd century wrote repeatedly of the silence of God as an attribute to be revered and imitated. The birth of Jesus was for him a type of stealth incarnation – who would ever have guessed the birth of God would take place in such a way?
“'Now Mary’s virginity and her giving birth escaped the notice of the prince of the world, as did the Lord’s death – those three secrets crying to be told, but wrought in God’s silence. How, then, were they revealed to the ages? A star shone in heaven brighter than all the stars. Its light was indescribable and its novelty caused amazement…as a result all magic lost its power and witchcraft ceased. Ignorance was done away with, and the ancient kingdom of evil was utterly destroyed, for God was revealing himself as human, to bring newness of eternal life. What God had prepared was now beginning…' (Ephesians 19)
“Perhaps from this very ancient perspective another lens for understanding this feast day emerges. Rather than looking back to December 25th and making of these separate accounts one complete (and finished) story, this feast points us forward from this day on, what was begun in silence is now to be shouted from palaces to shacks, not only has the Word become flesh but the Word become flesh is known. God has appeared, not just to us but to all to whom we allow God to be manifest. From birth to shepherds to magi to baptism to weddings to transfiguration to you. Let us go forth into the world as witnesses of God’s appearing for we too are a theophany of the Word made flesh, not just members of the same body, but bearers of the light outward to all the corners of the world.”
