Happy Epiphany!

January 03, 2011 Monday Message:

Happy New Year, and Happy Epiphany!

What’s Epiphany? The word means a revelation or new insight. That revelation is often a divine being, and for us it’s Jesus. In the Christian church-year calendar, Epiphany is January 6th, celebrating when the Magi from the east came to worship baby Jesus, the one born King of the Jews.

Only the Gospel of Matthew speaks of this. We sing, “We Three Kings of Orient Are…” but we don’t really know that there were three of them. The Bible doesn’t say how many men, but it does say that three gifts were presented. We don’t know that they were Kings. In fact, the visitors are often referred to as Magi, sorcerers, magicians, astronomers or astrologers. But while they probably practiced some of these things, we also know that these were educated men. They had studied enough astronomy to recognize a new star in the heavens. And they had studied enough world religion to know that a King would be born, that the star was a sign, and that they should follow. They were seekers. Our visitors are probably from Babylon, not the Orient. And they weren’t at the manger with the shepherds. Magi visited as much as two years later.

The real Kings in our story are Herod and Jesus. The visitors from the East first approached Herod, asking, “Where is the one who has been born King of the Jews?” Of course Herod didn’t have a clue, so they all visited the Pharisees and Scribes, who quoted from Micah 5, directing the Magi to Bethlehem.

What’s curious to me is that no Pharisees accompanied the entourage to Bethlehem. They were told that the holy King had been born, but chose not to go. But the Magi, not from Israel and probably Gentiles, showed up to worship the King sent from heaven. You see, everyone created in the image of God needs a redeemer. So God sent His Son for us all.

Norton Lawellin