Ephipany
January 9 – Rev Neil Millar
‘We three Kings of orient are; bearing gifts we traverse afar – field and fountain, moor and mountain, following yonder star. O star of wonder, star of light, star with royal beauty bright, westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect light.’
This Epiphany hymn dates back to 1857, just a few years before people from local farms first gathered for worship on this site. It was composed by John Henry Hopkins, (rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Williamsport, Pennsylvania) for a pageant in New York City. It’s well-known to many of us and has surely been sung in our communities in the intervening years.
Interestingly, in the biblical account of events it describes, there’s no mention of these oriental travellers being kings, or of there being three of them. According to Matthew, the only biblical version of the story, they were ‘wise men from the East’; in Greek, Magi – i.e., Zoroastrian priests not kings; dream interpreting astrologer-astronomers from Persia or Mesopotamia.
From what I’ve read, it wasn’t until the thirteenth century that these Magi were portrayed as kings, a development motivated (one suspects) by the psalm we read a few moments ago – Psalm 72.
May the kings of Tarshish and of the isles render him tribute,
may the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts. May all kings fall down before him, all
nations give him service.
There’s a strong emphasis on kings paying tribute here and since the late middle-ages these verses have frequently been interpreted as a foretelling of the Adoration of the Magi.
So, that’s how we come to think of them as kings, but what about the number mentioned in Hopkin’s hymn (and portrayed visually on numerous Christmas cards)? From what I could ascertain, the idea of three wise men traces back to the third century Church father Origen who derived it from the reference that three gifts (gold, frankincense and myrrh) were offered when they found the child king, Jesus. That fits, though I have to tell you that this figure is not universally affirmed. While Origen was contemplating three Magi in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, away to the east, in Syria, a story was composed called The Revelation of the Magi. This story, in Syriac, was carefully stored away in the Vatican Library and wasn’t published in English until 2010. It recounts the story of twelve Magi journeying from a remote kingdom that seems to have been located in what we today call China.
Now folks, notice the place names mentioned so far – China, Persia, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Syria, Tarshish, Sheba, Pennsylvania, New York, Rome, and Lyneham! It’s a veritable smorgasbord of international names. ‘Globalism is inevitable where the Adoration of the Magi story is concerned’, says biblical scholar Mary Joan Winn Leith, for ‘from the beginning, Matthew’s story about travellers following the trail of a mysterious star was all about including “foreigners”.’ This is a story about Gentiles — non-Jews, worshippers of so-called pagan gods — acknowledging Jesus as king. And this is the fundamental idea behind Epiphany, one of the oldest Christian feasts. ‘Epiphany’, from the Greek word for ‘appearance’ (and especially of gods and kings), recognizes Jesus’s appearance to the world – the whole world!
The international dimension of the Adoration of the Magi comes through vividly in artistic depictions of this story. Early Adoration scenes depict the Magi as Persians, one of Rome’s standard “foreigner” stereotypes. This is apparent in their attire – for example, in the style of their hats that flop down from a slight peak, and their wearing of trousers! Camels are another exotic element. Again, not mentioned in Matthew’s account but drawn from the OT reading set for today, from Isaiah (60.6):
A multitude of camels shall cover you, the young camels of Midian and Ephah; all those from Sheba shall come. They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the LORD.
In Christian circles this text has been interpreted as another foretelling of the Adoration and it’s not hard to see why!
Where Matthew treats the Magi almost heroically, as intrepid travellers who worship Jesus and refuse to abet Herod’s malicious schemes, it’s also worth noting that Persia was Rome’s continuous enemy for some seven hundred years. Early Christians in Rome would likely have viewed images of the reverent Persians bearing gifts to Jesus as a sign that the coming of Christ promised peace. As Pope Leo the Great wrote in a mid-fifth-century sermon for Epiphany: In the three Magi, let all people worship the author of the universe: and let God be known not in Judea alone, but in all the world.
In the Middle Ages, European Christian writers gave names to the magi: (Caspar, Melchior, Balthazar), and by the late fifteenth century Balthazar was often depicted as a young Black African ruler. There’s an example of this in the piece by Italian artist Andrea Mantegna in your service sheet. A number of factors were seemingly playing into these depictions, among them the tradition that the Magi represented the three known continents of Europe, Africa, and Asia. It’s also thought that instances of the Black Magus in art coincided with the beginning of the slave trade in Europe.
What seems remarkable in this, is that while this slave trade relied on and spawned the toxic racism that still blights many ‘Western’ cultures, the presence of the black Magus worshipping Christ subverts racist stereotypes.
The Adoration of the Magi, Andrea Mantegna, c.1460; Uffizi Museum, Florence
In Mantegna’s vision, he comes across as a dignified, and noble character. And does not the ‘remarkably multiracial retinue in the background enlighten viewers to the rich range of humanity and even the possibility of peaceful co-existence?’
This is, I hope what we will see and continue to live into, for this is surely the key message of Epiphany, that Christ shines a light of healing, hope and peace to all the nations, all the earth … and to reflect on this theme just a little more, let me hand over to my trusty assistant.
*****
As Neil has said, part of what we celebrate at Epiphany is the early Christian understanding that, with the birth of Christ, a new light has been given to the world. Just as lighting a lamp, turning on the light in a darkened room enables you to see more fully what’s there and navigate your way more clearly, so the church proclaims that seeing in the light of Christ enables a truer, clearer apprehension of life and its meaning.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines an ‘epiphany’ as a moment when you suddenly feel that you understand or become conscious of something that really matters. Like an ‘aha’ moment. Christianity proclaims that Jesus is the world’s ‘aha’ moment – oh, that’s what it’s all about; oh – he’s what God means; oh – this is the true shape of human being and sociality. He is, says Ephesians, ‘the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things’. The Christian vocation is to make known this mystery, so that everyone has the opportunity to ‘walk in the light’.
There’s a way of talking about this that can sound distinctly patronising and colonising. As if ‘we’ have or possess the light, while others don’t; as if the wisdom and understanding of other traditions counts for little, or is even completely discounted (as in rhetoric of 19th century Christian missions about ‘benighted natives’). This makes the inherently evangelising and globalising impulse of our tradition potentially two-edged.
On the one hand, as Neil drew out, the idea that all people will be drawn to share what we experience as light and enlightening involves taking them seriously. It reflects a profound sense of the oneness of the human family – and a generous hope that all will come to know and share in God’s blessing. Earlier in Ephesians, Paul speaks of Christ as the world’s peace: he ‘has broken down the dividing wall, that is the hostility between us’. He has created one new humanity, all equally members of the household of God. On the other hand, this gospel has all too often been offered solely on ‘our’ terms – as if we are the haves, and they are the have-nots. As if the price of entry means them coming to think and live just as we do.
So how can we disentangle our proclamation of the universality of the gospel, Christ as a ‘light to all the nations’, from damaging pretentions to Christian cultural superiority or domination?
It seems to me that if Christ is one of the world’s ‘aha’ moments, a light that helps us make sense of being human so as to enable the life of earth, then faith must proclaim he can do this for anyone, anywhere. He is offered as a gift to the whole world – because he communicates something essential about life’s meaning and purpose, about the fullness of human being. At the same time, each culture, each time and place, and each one of us must discover how this is so … how his presence, his forgiveness, his Spirit transforms the particular limits of different lives and different cultures, and helps us to see ourselves and others more truly. Paul writes of bringing to the Gentiles ‘news of the boundless riches of Christ’ and of his calling ‘to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God …; so that the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places’. This is universality, without uniformity.
And what is this plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God? What is the wisdom of God revealed in Christ that enlightens all humanity? The mystery is that we are loved. That all things ‘are rooted and grounded in love’. That love is the meaning and truth of it all. The light Christ shines is the presence and action of boundless love in human form. Our calling is to see everything and everyone in the light of this love, to be transformed by it, to share it, so that all peoples and all places may be at peace. Or, as Paul puts it: ‘that we may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God’. Amen