On the church calendar, the Day of Epiphany is tomorrow, Jan. 6. It is the day the Church celebrates the arrival of the magi, of wise men as they are often called, to Bethlehem, where they visited the holy family. En route, they stopped at King Herod's palace in Jerusalem, who told the magi to report to him where this apparent pretender to his throne lived. Herod intended to kill him, as he had already done to some of his own sons for the same offense, leading Caesar to observe that it was better to be Herod's dog than his son.
“Epiphany” simply means manifestation and has been used by the Church for centuries to refer to the manifestation of the Son of God, Jesus, to the Gentiles, for whom the magi, or wise men, were the first Gentiles to behold him.
Now, here’s a little quiz about this story for us – true or false:
1. We know that there were three magi who visited Jesus.
2. The magis’ names were Melchior, Balthazar and Caspar.
3. The magi visited the baby Jesus while Jesus was lying in the manger.
All three statements are false. We do not know how many magi went to Bethlehem; that there were three rests on nothing more than they brought three named gifts. The names of the magi are found nowhere in the Bible and in fact are never mentioned in any text until several hundred years after Jesus’ birth. And Matthew says that Jesus and parents were living in a house when they arrived.
So let’s take a look at the Gospel and try to discern what Matthew is trying to tell us. Here is the passage:
Matthew 2:1-12
In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, Magi from the East came to Jerusalem, 2asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star in the east, and have come to pay him homage.” 3When King Herod heard this, he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him; 4and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. 5They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:
6 ‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who is to shepherd my people Israel.’ ”
7Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. 8Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” 9When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. 11On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.
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My name is Melchior. I was one of the magi who visited Jesus in Bethlehem several months after he was born. I was only thirty at the time. Late in life I learned that Matthew wrote we had seen Jesus’ star in the east, but we knew it was not an ordinary star. Stars remain fixed as they pass from east to west in the night sky, but this star, like a few others, moved back and forth over months of viewing. So we called those stars wanderers, or in Greek, planets.
This planet was called Rex, or King, by the Romans, later called Jupiter. It entered retrograde motion while in front of the constellation Leo. We knew Leo symbolized the tribe of Judah, which was King David’s tribe. What could that mean but a newly-born king of the Jews?
We knew “what” but not precisely “where.” So, we set out for the palace of the present king of the Jews, Herod, to inquire where the new king was born. That turned out to be a pretty stupid thing to do. Herod had already killed several of his own sons for pretending to his throne. We were boneheads that day, for sure.
Herod’s priests quoted a prophecy from Micah that said the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, only a few miles away. Herod urged us to confirm it so he could pay homage to the child, too.
Seen from Jerusalem, the planet Rex was motionless directly over Bethlehem as it entered a retrograde. We were delighted that God’s revelation in nature and in Scripture both confirmed his work in the world. We found the child in his house and gave him gold, frankincense, and myrrh, three expensive gifts suitable for a king.
The next morning, all three of us agreed that God wanted us to stay away from Herod. I said that if we were going home by another route, we’d best get going right away so we could get out of Herod’s jurisdiction before he missed us. So that’s what we did. We did not learn until much later that after Herod didn’t hear from us, he sent soldiers to Bethlehem and killed all the boys under two. It was the way of the world, we knew, but we could not escape the conviction that such a way could never be the way of God’s Messiah.
A star brought us to Jesus, a dream made us leave. In the beginning, God. In the end, God. God’s presence was with us throughout, but never overwhelmed. After all, Herod and his court saw the heavens just as well as we did but went on with life as before. They knew but did not do. Our dream not to report back to Herod was not known to others. God’s presence and God’s activities are usually subtle. We must be alert and attentive to see God’s working in the world, and act accordingly.
We encountered two kings of the Jews in our travel, Jesus and Herod. Jesus was defenseless and powerless. He was a king with no apparent kingdom. As an old man I learned Jesus did have a kingdom, but a kingdom not like those of the world. It is still here, a kingdom where the ordinary rules of power and politics and the social order don’t apply. It is a kingdom of reversal, where the first shall be last and the last first, where the greatest shall be least and the least the greatest. The kingdom of Jesus Christ is not a place, but a community of persons submitting to God’s grace, a community which transcends both place and time.
King Herod’s kingdom was as firmly of this world as it could be. It was a kingdom which he ruled with Machiavellian skill and power. His kingdom was shot through with political intrigue. It was ruthlessly class ridden. The greatest did everything they could to stay that way, and those who had the most did everything they could to keep it. Herod’s Golden Rule was simple: whomever has the gold makes the rules.
These were the two kingdoms into which we magi went to ask where is born the king of the Jews. The conflict between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdoms of this world is what made Herod disturbed when he heard our words, and all Jerusalem with him.
They were not disturbed as in a sleepless night of worry with a furrowed brow. You can bet Herod was not the slightest bit worried about handling some infant claimant to his throne. Nor did Jerusalem’s disturbance result from a potential threat to Herod’s rule. The Jews by and large couldn’t stand Herod and had long wanted a legitimate king of David’s line to rule over them.
Their disturbance was the resistance of this world and all its corrupt, fallen systems to the advent of the kingdom of heaven which Jesus was bringing. Jerusalem’s resistance to Jesus would peak in his death on the cross there – where the Roman procurator crucified him with a sign naming him king of the Jews – but it was apparent at Jesus’ birth. The world Jesus would proclaim was already in collision with the world as it was. They still are today.
In later years I reflected why I went on the trip to Bethlehem. I came to know it was by God’s grace. It is God’s grace that leads people to seek the Christ. The yearnings even of those who do not know fully what they seek are met in the act of God at Bethlehem. “The hopes and fears of all the years are met” in Jesus. I was on a quest for ultimate meaning, a desire that runs deep in us mortals. I thought I could find it in my work. Others think they can find it in recreation, or family, or possessions, or politics – the list is endless. But Bethlehem was clarity for me. For I am a witness to the Christ, the Son of God.
So I am glad to tell my story. We magi didn’t come to a Christmas of wrappings and pretty trees and carols. Long before we arrived, the angels and shepherds had gone away, and Jesus and his family had vacated the manger for a house. We had to live with the fact that our visit brought two worlds into bloody collision. Herod thought he could slaughter his way to supremacy. Jesus knew he could only die to it.
I continued to celebrate Jesus’ birth long after the rest of society had moved on. To continue to proclaim Emmanuel, God with us, is counter-cultural. To worship God born of woman is a form of civil disobedience. So I urge you to linger a little longer at the little town of Bethlehem with the holy family, and to anchor yourselves to Christ, who leads us to be citizens of the kingdom of heaven.
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What did the term "magi" mean back in their day?
... many scholars believe that the magi came from the area of ancient Babylon and Persia (under Parthian control when Christ was born), which would satisfy the biblical criteria that they came “from the east” (Mt 2:1). Perhaps those from the tribe of Magi were the first to become the caste of Persian priests that were so highly valued by the king. Given their fixation on the star, some attempt to make a connection between the magi and earlier groups of astrologers or astronomers or astrologers from Babylon.
