Sermon for the Epiphany
“They departed into their own country another way”
Unlike Caesar who famously said, “veni, vidi, vici” – “I came, I saw, I conquered” – the Magi-Kings of Anatolia, “viderant, venerunt, et adoraverunt” – “they saw, they came and they adored”. It makes all the difference. Instead of conquest, there is adoration. They saw a star which they followed. They came on a long journey, it seems, to Bethlehem. They worshipped – adored – the child Christ and “they presented unto him gifts; gold, frankincense, and myrrh”.
It is all part of the Christmas pageant, part of the rich tableau of images that confronts us and amazes us at Christmas. For some, Christmas is too much: too much fuss and bother, too much stress and worry. Some are only too glad that it is over and gone. For others there is never too much Christmas, even Christmas in July! But the real spiritual wonder of Christmas is that it lasts for more than a day, more than a week. There are the proverbial twelve days of Christmas! There are even the festivities in parts of the western world of “twelfth night” – not to mention Shakespeare’s play by that name. For the vast world of Eastern Christian Orthodoxy – for Russian, Greek, and Coptic churches, for example – Christmas really only begins with the coming of the Magi-Kings, the Wise Men to Bethlehem. Why? Because with the coming of the Magi-Kings from Anatolia (from the East), Christmas is omni populo, for all people. There is a rich fullness to the Christmas mystery and to the forms of its imaginary. So much is clustered into that simple scene in Bethlehem. A rich fullness in the midst of human poverty.
Only Matthew tells us about the coming of the Magi and yet his simple story has inspired a wealth of other things belonging to the work of holy imagination. The Magi, quite literally, have captured the imaginations of artists and poets from the carol “We Three Kings of Orient Are” to the Huron Carol, from simple crèche scenes to elaborate Baroque-style crèche displays. The Magi-Kings are a major part of the Christmas story. And yet we really know precious little about them. We don’t really know how many. Were there three? The tradition of three is based simply upon the three gifts. But holy imagination builds wonderfully and significantly upon the sparse details of Matthew’s account to provide them even with names – Casper, Balthazar, and Melchior, for example – and addresses in terms of different cultures and races from exotic places. No doubt they would be nowadays equipped in our imaginaries with GPS and cell-phones (in the hopes that they might get there on time, perhaps!).
