The Feast of the Epiphany 2010

"In this child something great lay hidden, of which these
Wise Men, the first fruits of the Gentiles, had learned, not
from earthly rumors, but from heavenly revelation. Hence
they say, we have seen His Star in the East. They announce,
yet they ask; they believe, and yet they seek to know and
to find: as though prefiguring those who walk by faith, yet
still desire to see."

Today we celebrate the great Feast of the Epiphany. Epiphany means "manifestation" or "shining forth" and in this season we contemplate the various ways in which the love, wisdom and power of God the Father, flow to us through the life of Jesus Christ, his only-begotten Son made flesh. In the Eastern Church, Epiphany is really a celebration more important than the Nativity, for on this day is celebrated the commencement of a salvation history that would include not just the Jews, but the Gentiles also. The implications of God's intention to save all men is fully expressed when the Magi or Wise Men visit the infant Jesus after his Nativity or birth. What is also remarkable about this Feast is that the infant Jesus will draw those who knew nothing about him, whose history did not foretell of his coming, whose cultures had no acquaintance with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is astounding then that these sages or wise men, who represent the cultures that had lived in ignorance of Emmanuel's coming, should be drawn by his power to Bethlehem. In a way it made sense that the shepherds should come to the manger. It is far more unusual that the non-Jewish students of science and wisdom should find "this mighty thing that had come to pass."

But remember that these "Magi" were sages or wise men. They studied nature and the stars. They sought, through scientific expertise and skill, to understand the creation and preservation of the earth in relation to the heavens. In other words, they probably had a deep sense that the heavens had much to do with the operations of this planet, or that something higher and more powerful guided and governed the courses of creation and all creatures. And so they looked up and beyond themselves in order to find the mover or movers, the governors or governor that made sense of life and explained reality as they knew it. In addition, if tradition is right in suggesting that they came from Persia, they would have been completely dissatisfied with earthly rulers and arbitrary authoritarianism that characterized the world in which they lived. They were restless, and so they sought answers in the heavens; they were unsatisfied with what the rulers and orders of their countries offered to them as answers, and so they moved out of their habitations and followed the course of the stars. But for some time their quest and wonder remained unsatisfied. And so they could return to the comforts of their homes and domiciles and find at least some limited satisfaction and temporal pleasure. 

Then, of course, as we might well imagine, on one night, something in the heavens shifted. One star appeared brighter than the others; one ball of fire drew their attention and arrested their minds. It moved them with deeper wonder. It almost called out to them "follow me." It was probably strange, and they might have had their doubts, but something spoke to them, telling them that they must move and follow this star. They were called upon to make a journey; it would not be easy, far less easy than sitting in the comforts of their observation stations gazing at the stars. This star called them to journey, to make a pilgrimage, to pack up the camels and call the servants, to gather provisions and to encourage and bolster the attendants. "Tonight," they might have said, "we travel to see what this star means and on what new reality it shines." "Tonight we seek to discover the nature of this star that communicates something entirely new and that issues the command "follow me." Stars are silent; but this star speaks. Stars are non-communicative; but this star expresses and manifests something new.

So these Magi or Wise men began their long journey after the Star that they saw in the skies. Not long after his conversion to Christianity, T. S. Eliot revised a poem written by Bishop Lancelot Andrewes about the Magis' recollections of their journey. The poem captures the difficulties faced by these sages as they pursued this strange vision.

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.

The journey of the Magi is difficult. They set out on it with nature and society cold to their determination. The hardened hearts of men will oppose their every move. Eliot offers his poem as a parable of conversion: a parable of his own and every man's pilgrimage to Christ.  It's a journey through a wintry desert, with refractory camels and unreliable camel-men, through hostile towns and cities, and "with the voices singing in our ears, saying that this was all folly".  For him, and for all, it is a cold and hazardous journey through the wasteland to a new and different world. (Crouse) But the Magi are a model for all true pilgrims, and so they press on, and follow that star so wondrous and bright.

As Eliot imagines it, the Magi leave behind one kind of obstinately oppositional hell found in the cities and towns that they passed through on their journey only to come into a strange and confusing place. They emerge out of lands whose histories neither respected their spiritual questing nor cared to reveal any pretensions to civilized or humane behavior. They come into the promised land of God. Probably they knew little about it; but they experienced a different sensation and climate in this place. It was temperate and warmer. It was "wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;/ With a running stream and water mill beating the darkness, / And three trees on the low sky…" It was wet and fertile, a place where new life could be born. Yet there were three trees standing together in a low place; three trees probably destined to be used in some strange way perhaps, or perhaps not. There were men gambling for pieces of silver, who could not tell the strangers anything about the star and its meaning. In this new place there were symbols of transformation and new life and on the other hand "betrayal, futility and death." This world that the Wise Men enter contains fragments or pieces of goodness and evil, hope and despair, tiny pieces of disconnected reality that reveal something deeper, but as yet what it is not known. "…And so we continued," say Eliot's Wise Men, “and arrived at evening, not a moment too soon/ Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.”

In one sense Eliot's Wise Men are confounded and surprised. Their own reason and its conclusions had led them wrongly to seek out the newborn king in the great city of King David. They have missed the mark. So they press on to Bethlehem. Jerusalem can be no place for the birth of this king, its own king is full of envy, jealously and fear. The little newborn king will not be welcome there.  They arrive after the birth of a child and the place in which he is born does not seem to reveal the glorious brilliance that the Star seemed to promise. And yet they will bow down before this babe, and will offer gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Still, as yet, they are moved, perhaps beyond comprehension but by an inward spiritual sense to offer these gifts. A Star has led them to this birth of a child in a 'satisfactory' or less than spectacular space. And yet they give gifts of gold, symbolizing the birth of a king; of frankincense, a sign of priesthood and holiness; and myrrh, a funerary ointment used to embalm the dead. They bring their gifts, and are moved to respond to this birth with signs and symbols of their own. The Star spoke and they responded; the circumstances made little difference; a spiritual communication had been issued to their minds and they offered in kind. Then they leave, return to their lands, and, through Eliot's imagination, remember what they experienced.

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.

They were moved by the Star to witness a birth. They witnessed a birth and offered gifts that defied the customs and norms of what the situation might otherwise have demanded. But what they saw was both birth and death. They saw Christ's birth and their death. They saw Christ's death and their birth. Epiphany is a manifestation of the life and death of Christ. Their own response to his birth admitted as much. They offered gifts fit for a king and a priest, and yet for one who would die. For a glorious ruler and holy man, and yet for one whose life would mean their deaths, and whose death would generate new life in them. The Star called them to behold this new birth; in it was revealed a love that would give to the point of death; a life that through death would call men into new life. The Magi experienced agony; perhaps they were frightened. Nevertheless, as Eliot has them admit, "they would do it again." Something transforming happened to these sages; men full of wisdom found a new kind of truth. Men full of truth found a new kind of love. "Ye are dead," St. Paul would say long after the Magi departed and probably died, "and your life is hid with Christ in God." (Colossians 3:3)

Eliot's Wasteland was all about the vanity of human desires and the futility of earthly ambitions. This poem, The Journey of the Magi is about the transformation and remaking of that despair and diffidence into the hope and good confidence which is the object of Christ's Epiphany and Manifestation. The poem concludes like this:

We returned to our places, these kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

Something remarkably spiritual had taken place. Something remarkably spiritual is meant to take place in the lives of all who have the courage to follow the Star to Bethlehem and to there find birth and death. The Wise Men were no longer "conformed to this world." They were no longer moved and defined by the comforts and even good blessings that their lives had afforded to them. They had been "transformed by the renewing of their minds," for they had discovered something of the good will and benevolence of God in a revelation of birth and coming death, of life and giving sacrifice.  They had been changed through adoration; they came to love and desire the vision of God that was before them in this newborn baby child.

Epiphany is all about the Manifestation and Shining Forth of God's active glory. His glory is revealed through the life of Jesus as love, wisdom and power. That threefold nature, which is born to die, and dies to plant new life in others is the cause of our celebration, the object of God's moving love that draws us away from ourselves and into his life. Having seen what the Wise Men saw, having adored the love that would draw us through poverty into God's riches, through weakness into strength, through the simple and common into the extraordinary and unique, you and I return from this vision changed. We are no longer at ease in our old haunts and hangouts. We are no longer satisfied with a world that clutches a multiplicity of narcissistic gods. We are not satisfied with the world's preoccupation with the death of the body, in ignorance of the soul. We are changed, and desire to die to all of this, that the dying-babe might be born in our souls. Like the Wise Men, as an old professor of mine used to say, "we must not return to Herod, but must depart into our own countries another way." We depart by the way of Christ, having been forever changed by a vision of love and an offering of ourselves. Amen.

© W.J. Martin†