Epiphany 2014: Christ for all people
When wise men come from the east to Jerusalem, they bring gifts. The
bringing of gold and frankincense echoes the time, envisioned by Isaiah,
when “nations shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of
your dawn”, for from Sheba “they shall bring gold and frankincense and
shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.” Gold, naturally, has always
signified kingship, and indicates the worth and value to be placed on the
child, “who has been born” according to the wise men, “king of the
Jews”. This infant is to be treasured as fine gold.... The frankincense
points us towards the domain of prayer and worship. This child is not
only to be admired and respected, or indeed to be feared, but also to be
worshipped – they “knelt down and paid him homage”. The principle
New Testament reference to the use of incense in worship comes in
Luke Ch 1, when Zechariah the priest is chosen by lot to offer incense in
the sanctuary of the Lord, in the temple. In my bible, the cross reference
is to Leviticus Ch 16, where the ceremonies of the Day of Atonement
are described, when the priest makes atonement for himself, his
household and all the assembly of the people. Thus, at the same time
as frankincense signifies worship of the child, it also points us towards
his sacrificial living and dying, that will become so central to our
understanding of his redemptive, servant kingship. This connects us
also to the gift of myrrh, that indicates the destiny of the infant who will
bring salvation through the cross, whose body will be anointed for a
burial – a burial that prefigures his rising again to bequeath new life to
all who call upon his name.... Thus, through these simple gifts, we
receive symbolic messages about the holy child that stir our hearts to
join in the adoration of the magi, and awaken in us a longing to hear
more of the wondrous story of salvation.
And the story is already, of course, taking a new turn. Whereas Luke
tells us of the good news of great joy coming to shepherds, thus within
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the community of Jewish faith and life, here new ground is being
broken. For the Epiphany is about the manifestation of Christ to the
Gentiles! Conventionally and rightly, this speaks to us of the expansion
of the reach of salvation through Christ into new worlds. Yet there is
more to the Epiphany. And as a way to get there, we can consider the
tension to be found in our verses from Matthew Ch 2.
When the wise men bring news
of one born to be king of the Jews, Herod and all Jerusalem with him
are ‘afraid’. This is both understandable, but also puzzling. It is
understandable in so far as Herod is king, and there appears to be a
rival emerging, who Herod is so threatened by that he attempts to
eliminate him. It is also puzzling, however, for the chief priests and
scribes in Ch 2 v.4 quote to Herod the prophecy of Micah, that from
Bethlehem “shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel”.
The obvious sequitor, is that they might be at the very least curious or
interested! Judea was the homeland of Jewish faith and piety, here was
a suggestion from the wise men of a rising star signifying a sacred
happening, and here was a prophecy from scripture that they
themselves were quoting – surely this was worth their attention and
scrutiny as much as Herod’s?! And yet they are recorded as having
nothing further to say!... Perhaps we have to put this down to the
characterisation of the chief priests and scribes by Matthew in the
gospel as a whole, which is far from complementary. That they should
show any significant interest would run counter to almost everything
else said of them or by them. And yet it remains, arguably, puzzling –
wouldn’t they have been intrigued, even excited?... Or is it so puzzling?
For one of the things at issue here is, of course, the inter-religious
dimension. The scribes and chief priests are representatives of one
faith, the wise men of another, and may be more than one other faith!
And if we think honestly, for a moment, of how things can be between
faith traditions when issues of significance arise, we know that our
responses can be distinctly lukewarm – if not vaguely suspicious and
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marginally hostile. And the question arises as to what sort of dynamics
may have been at issue in this instance.
We know very well that from the perspective of Jewish faith and practice
under the Roman occupation, it could be problematic for the
conventional religious leadership when radical Jewish figures came
forward, and this is a subtext to a great deal of the story of Jesus and
his followers. And the telling of the birth of one born to be ‘king of the
Jews’ is possibly the very first instance of this happening with reference
to Jesus. It is conceivable that the Jewish religious leadership in
Matthew Ch 2 was silently as happy as Herod to see the child be
marginalised. It is also conceivable that it was an additionally
unwelcome feature to be hearing about the birth from a group of Persian
‘wise men’ of a quite different religious tradition. What do they know
about the messiah, and what business is it of theirs? Paradoxically,
even though the chief priests and scribes may have been nervous or
even hostile to the news of the birth, may they not have wanted to keep
the problem to themselves?
But they are not able to do so, for the
story presses forward and breaks the new ground. The revelation that
may once have been considered to belong in one context, was now
being received and welcomed by others from a quite different context?
From an inter-religious perspective, the question then poses itself, “in
what way was Christ received by these wise men”? He was made
manifest we know, but how was he received? We learn from the text
that the wise men are guided to the messiah by a star, that they fall
down and worship and that they are changed by the encounter, for they
return by another way – but in what way do they receive him? As we
have noted already, the Epiphany is connected theologically to the
matter that comes back at the end of Matthew’s gospel, that the good
news will be heard across the world. In Jesus’ final commission – “go
and make disciples of all the nations”, we understand our faith to be one
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that will reach across any and every nationality, language group and
location. At the same time, however, there is the separate question of
how Jesus was or is received by those outside his own religious
domain. The wise men are the first example of this in the gospels. They
are the first of many in the New Testament, in fact: we might think, for
example, of the Syro-Phoenician woman, the Roman centurion or the
Ethiopian eunuch. What is intriguing is that whilst the wise men were
undoubtedly changed by their encounter with Jesus, we know nothing of
how that impact showed itself in their lives, especially in their lives of
faith. And this, in my view, should intrigue and excite us, because it
opens up the question about how we should appraise the revelation of
Christ to anyone else outside the community of faith! We count
ourselves among those who have heeded the call to ‘come and follow
me’, and so we are willing and eager to go and share the good news
and make disciples of all nations, as Matthew’s gospel invites. Yet the
impact of Jesus goes far beyond the community of those who call upon
his name. And the sacred occasion of the Epiphany points, I think,
towards that other, wider sphere of influence among very many people
who have both other religious allegiances, or no religious allegiance.
For surely, Jesus belongs to them, and reaches out to them, just as he
does to us?! Several Christmases ago I was given, strangely, a Jesus
action figure – a bit like action man! On the packaging it said that his
name means ‘God saves’ and that ‘he was an extraordinary healer, a
remarkable man and that he announced the time of God’s purpose
being accomplished on earth’ – all good accurate information. It also
stated that, and I quote, ‘For Muslims and some Jews, Jesus was a
prophet. Bhuddists say he was enlightened. Hindus call him an avatar.’
And I remember thinking at the time, “yes, Jesus belongs not only to
Christians”. And perhaps today we might want to be thoughtful about
this reality, especially just after Christmas when we are conscious that
we’ve played host at church across the season to a significant number
of people who are neither regular churchgoers nor committed Christians
and who are from a wide range of religious backgrounds. For is there
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not a risk, that as Christian believers we can colonise Jesus, and want
to keep him for ourselves alone – (just as maybe the chief priests and
scribes wanted to keep Jesus to themselves)?... It is possible that we
may fail, first of all to appreciate the profound impact he has had, and
does have, beyond the Christian community, and always will; and that
we may fail to notice the many bridges that this creates between us and
non-Christians, and people of other faiths, that actually invite us to enter
a wider and deeper conversation about the one we worship and adore.
When the wise men give their gifts, we in the community of Christian
faith interpret the gifts in the way we do, reading into them the wonderful
messages of what is to come: of a servant king we will worship and who
will die to set us free. And we rejoice in these messages of salvation.
Self-evidently, on the other hand, we do not know how the wise men
themselves might have articulated the meaning of their own gifts; or
how they were indeed changed by their encounter in the stable. One of
the things the Epiphany invites us to do, therefore, is to enter into a
genuine dialogue with them. For there is much, surely, that they – and
perhaps more to the point, their successors – might be able to tell us
about the one whose reach extends further than we can grasp.
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Reverend Julian Francis
January 4th 2015
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