Epiphany

A cold coming we had of it,

Just the worst time of the year

For a journey, and such a long journey:

The ways deep and the weather sharp,

The very dead of winter.

Thus begins one of the most famous poems about the visit of the wise men to the infant Jesus by TS Elliot, and very appropriate too, considering the weather we've just had!

So just who were these people and why did they make this hard long journey, and what does this say to us today?

Well let's get rid of some myths and legends.

Firstly they weren't kings – they were probably Persian Zoroastrian priests – wealthy men yes, and wise and learned – hence the term Magi...but not kings

Secondly the only intimation about numbers is from the three gifts they presented – there's no indication in the bible at all that there were only three.

Thirdly Mark Luke and John don't mention them at all (in fact Mark doesn't tell us anything of the birth – he just starts right in with the ministry of John the Baptist) and Matthew has them visiting the house (presumably in Nazareth) rather than the stable in Bethlehem.

So why does Matthew consider the visit of the Wise men to be important?

Well, Matthew was writing for Jews, probably abroad in Greek or Roman communities, and because of this the main thrust of Matthew's Gospel is the Kingship of Jesus, hence the importance of the wise men's question when they arrived in Jerusalem - “Where can we find the child born King of the Jews”? And the subsequent fear of Herod that he is about to be deposed.

All through Matthew's Gospel there is this thread of Kingship – started off right at the beginning by the appearance of the Magi. The Magi represent, for Matthew and his intended audience, an acknowledgement by an authority other than within the Jewish community that here indeed was the long-foretold King, the Messiah who was to lead Israel out of their current state of captivity and enslavement under the hated Romans.

I don't know whether any of you saw the Top Gear Christmas special on Boxing day – an amusing but quite mad attempt to re-create the journey of the Magi from Persia (actually from modern day Iraq) to Bethlehem by the three loonies in two seater sports cars, which included quite a lot of tough travelling and tiredness and all the other stuff they get up to, including in this program, a hospitalisation.

I think that in this country we have certainly completely lost the sense of how hard travelling was in those days. Any of you who have been to third-world countries and who have ventured off the tarmac will at once remember how hard those desert/bush/jungle tracks are to progress along, even in today's sophisticated four-wheel drive vehicles.

Think how much harder it was for the Magi – unreliable maps (if they had them at all), no roads as we know them, and none at all if they weren't travelling on a recognised caravan route, bandits, having to navigate between water hole and water hole, a thousand miles of harsh desert, hunger, heat, thirst, freezing temperatures by night, personal danger and not knowing what sort of reception they would get from Herod and his hired thugs when they eventually arrived at their destination

And yet, they went.

They took a step out into the unknown, into something new and entirely outside their experiences.

They went because they believed that the event they had foretold, that they'd seen in their observances through astronomy, in mathematics, was so momentous, had such import for the future of all humankind that they suffered all that hardship to be there.

And they weren't of the Jewish faith at all, they weren't even local, they'd travelled from a far country, out of their normal circles, away from their homes and families and friends.

They considered this to be such an important event that they HAD to be there.

The birth of Jesus, a bridge from heaven to earth, and also a bridge from earth to heaven, IS the most momentous happening that has ever happened in the world – is of such importance to all people.

Without this birth, that took place in a small, ordinary town in a small poor unimportant province of the Roman Empire, there would have been no suffering and death, no crucifixion and most important of all, no Easter morning, and none of us would be here today, we would probably be dancing around in the woods, wreathed in oak leaf garlands!

We ourselves start on a journey, long and arduous, right from when we are born, right up to the moment of our transformation into heaven.

There can be many different hardships and joys on this journey, but whatever happens, whatever transpires, we need to keep the example of the Magi ever in our hearts and minds.

They never wavered from their quest, even though they were outsiders.

They kept their destination firmly in view, and believed that they would eventually arrive.

That is what we call faith, and our journey must indeed be a journey of faith, even as theirs was.

Faith is that state of mind where we KNOW something to be true even if there is no visible evidence. Faith is what moves mountains into the sea.

Faith is what sustains us even through the hardest of times.

Faith is what gives us hope that even in the darkest night, the morning will dawn.

The Magi had something guiding them – whether you like to imagine a bright star moving with them, or a very special astronomical conjunction, or a supernova, or whatever the astronomers and historians tell us it might have been – there was something guiding them - their faith showed it to them and they kept on seeing it through faith until they came to the place they were meant to.

We too have a guiding star, a special conjunction, a light in the sky.

Although unlike the Magi it's not guiding us TO the place of the infant Jesus' birth, but from it, a journey that comes along side ours, along our life's path, through hardship and joy, through doubt and despair, through the dark night into the dawn.

TS Elliot ended his poem on a dark and despairing note, one born of agnosticism at best and no hope at worst:

All this was a long time ago, I remember,

And I would do it again, but set down

This set down

This: were we led all that way for

Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,

We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,

But had thought they were different; this Birth was

Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,

But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,

With an alien people clutching their gods.

I should be glad of another death.

But our hope is beyond that, beyond the pain and death, in the dawn that is the true culmination, the true destiny of us and those Magi long ago – indeed of all humanity - the dawn that rises in triumph on Easter morning and our guide is not a star or conjunction or supernova, but that infant we worship at this time with those Magi – the person of God on earth, God with us, Emmanuel, grown into full stature of both God and Man, whose destiny was to die, yes, to die, but to rise again for us.

Jesus Christ.