Author: CCW

“They departed into their own country another way”

Epiphany marks the completion of the mystery of Christmas with the coming of the Magi-Kings to Bethlehem. They are the proverbial Johnny-come-latelies as well as the come-from-aways. They add a certain exotic quality to the humble scene at Bethlehem. Suddenly we realise that Christmas is omni populo, for all people, for rich and poor, for humble shepherds and wise kings, for men and women.

The coming of the Magi-Kings elevates the vision of paradise that Bethlehem represents into something more. It becomes a polis, a city-state, as it were. The social and the political aspects of our humanity are added to the simpler, more agrarian and humble features of our humanity. God’s great little one is not just for the little ones of our society and world but importantly for all. Little Bethlehem, “great among the cities of Judah,” is great not just because of the coming of the wise men but because their coming reveals something more than simply the harmonies of the created order; something more than paradise renewed. Suddenly, the paradise of Bethlehem becomes an image of the City of God!

The coming of the Magi-Kings also marks the beginning of the tradition of gift-giving. Yet, importantly, their gifts are more than the stuff they bring: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Their gifts reveal the greater gift of Christ, the gift of divine love incarnate in the child before whom they fall and worship. Their gifts honour the greatest gift of all, the gift of God’s love for us in the Child Christ. Their gifts reveal who he is both in himself and for us. No greater gift and no greater way for us to be gathered into the circle of eternal glory.

Their gifts of sacred meaning reveal Christ to us as King, and God, and Sacrifice. They at once complete the circle of Christmas love and set us upon another journey into a greater circle, one which is implicit already in everything that belongs to the celebration of Christmas in the cycle of holy days that belong to the Christ Child’s crown of glory. The transition from paradise restored to an image of the heavenly city deepens the mystery of Christmas; nostalgia for a lost past changes into a prophetic present. Bethlehem is complete; everything has been gathered around the Word made flesh.

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“But while he thought on these things, behold”

Christmas really is all about what we are given to behold. To be sure, there is rather a lot to behold in the richness of Christmas, itself a twelve day wonder that not even twelve days can exhaust. After St, Luke’s story of the nativity and St. John’s theological tour de force, we have St. Matthew’s account. It sounds a more human and a more personal note. It is not by accident that the symbol for St. Matthew’s Gospel is a winged man. His account of the nativity shows us the perplexity of Joseph finding himself in the strange predicament of being betrothed to Mary who is found to be with child. Matthew quickly adds “of the Holy Ghost” but Joseph has yet to learn that. His initial response is to make private arrangements. “But while he thought on these things, behold…”

To behold is to pay attention. It requires something of us. What it requires is exactly what we see in Joseph. There is the equally outstanding measure of Mary, who is really in the background here, the figure of Joseph’s musings and perplexity. “How can this be,” it might seem he is asking, even though that is, quite literally, Mary’s question at the Annunciation. Matthew, of course, does not provide us with the account of the Annunciation to Mary; only Luke does. Here in Matthew’s account, however, is a kind of angelic annunciation to Joseph. In his quiet musings, “being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example,” he “was minded to put her away privily.” An angel of the Lord appears to him in a dream to direct him otherwise but only because he was thinking on these things, things which have all his attention.

Matthew’s account unfolds the story of Christ’s nativity through the quiet, humble eyes of Joseph to whom the angel speaks. His words to Joseph are like the angel’s words to the shepherds, “fear not.” What we are given to behold is something wonderful, something for all. Notice how Matthew, quite marvelously really and with great economy of words, unfolds all of the significant points. Mary is your wife. What is conceived in her is “of the Holy Ghost” – though what exactly he is meant to make of that remains unclear! “She shall bring forth a Son,” and, here is something else quite wonderful, “And thou shalt call his name Jesus.” The explanation is precise, “for he shall save his people from their sins.”

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“His name was called Jesus”

What’s in a name? Mere words signifying whatever we choose? Or something more signifying the truth and the reality of what is signified? How do we name things? Are the terms of our naming merely conventions which could be otherwise? Are there not many different names for the same things and are there not different meanings and shades of meaning belonging to words themselves? Such is the wonder and the mystery of words and names.

Something of the wonder and the mystery of words and names are concentrated for us in Bethlehem. What are we to make of the strong words and names proclaimed in the Scriptures on this Octave Day of Christmas? Bethlehem, it seems, is the place of words and names that speak beyond the confines of a stable and a manger. Bethlehem is the place where the Word made flesh is named and signified as Jesus. Such is the wonder and the mystery of this day.

The idea of the Word made flesh, it seems to me, challenges the all-too-easy nominalism and relativism of our culture, as if names were merely of our choosing and at our convenience and as if names and words convey no real meaning beyond what meaning we choose to give to them; in short, that words and names signify no reality. We are really only talking to ourselves.

But Bethlehem shows us something more. It makes visible the astounding wonder of the unity of creation with the Creator and the unity of the whole of our humanity considered in and through the objective differences of its constituent parts. Bethlehem speaks to the deep desires of human hearts and to the form of those desires in their contemporary complexity. What are our environmental concerns about except a yearning and a longing for some sort of connection with the world of which we are a constituent part but from which we have alienated ourselves by our technocratic exuberance and arrogance? What are our social and political concerns about except a yearning and a longing for peace and harmony, for true unity and respect for all the peoples of the world?

Does not Bethlehem speak to such hopes and aspirations? Does not the spectacle of the Word made flesh in the lowliness and humility of Bethlehem speak to our desires? “Rich and poor, high and low, one with another”, shepherds and the Magi-Kings, the poor of the earth and the angels of heaven, humans and animals, men and women, and, especially, God and man, are all one in the wonder and worship of the child of Bethlehem. Here words and names begin to find their meaning.

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