The Epiphany: Symbolic Story, Narrative Truth

Isaiah 60.1-6

Psalm 72.1-7, 10-14

Ephesians 3.1-12

Matthew 2.1-12

Epiphany means to reveal, to manifest, to make known.  The earliest Christians, in seeking to find words to express their encounter with God in Jesus of Nazareth and to make him known, found the medium of story or narrative as a helpful way to tell the truth of Jesus.  Truths that are too fantastic or too hard to comprehend are often told in story.  Using symbolic language and events, stories help us to understand the deep mysteries of God, mysteries which are ultimately ineffable.  The earliest Christians used stories to reveal who Jesus was, to manifest his truth and his glory.  It is important therefore, that we pay close attention to the stories of the New Testament, and that we come to grips with what their writers are trying to reveal to us is true about Jesus of Nazareth.  Later tradition will build on the stories, but it is always important to return to the stories themselves, plumbing the depths of their meaning and hearing in them the proclamation of who Jesus is – for the earliest Christians and for us.

This morning three new figures have been added to our crib scene – the three wise men who, guided by the star, came from foreign lands to worship the new-born king and to offer gifts.  But if we look carefully at the record of events as told in the gospel of the Matthew, we find that no number is mentioned at all: “In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?  For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.’ ”(Matthew 2.1-2)  The writer of the gospel of Matthew is clear about the time, place and purposes surrounding the journey of these wise men.  The writer is clear about what they say upon arriving in Jerusalem; but about the exact number of travellers, the writer is vague: “wise men from the East”, an indeterminate number.  The tradition has supplied the number derived initially from the gifts which they brought to honor the king of the Jews whose birth the star had announced.  For the writer of the gospel of Matthew is clear in this respect: “On entering the house, [the wise men] 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.”  These foreigners, these Gentiles, come before Jesus acknowledging his kingship and his sovereignty, performing the traditional acts associated with the respect due a king: paying homage and offering gifts.  Nothing is random in this story and nothing is by accident.  The story is rich in symbolic meaning, and is in itself a deep theological statement about who Jesus is believed to be by the early Church community. 

In the first Book of Common Prayer the feast of the Epiphany is also given titled “the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles.”  The Gentiles are all those who are not Jews.  For this reason these wise men are foreigners, they are non-Jews who come from the East and to whom the Christ is made known, or manifested.  They represent the nations of the earth.  By their visit the writer of the Gospel of Matthew is not just telling a story, but making a theological point.  The writer is reminding us of the promise made by God through the prophets, that the peoples of the nations shall go up to the Jerusalem, there to worship in harmony the God of heaven and earth:  “In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it.  Many peoples shall come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’  For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” (Isaiah 2.2-3)  The Christian tradition quickly picked up this idea, and for this reason the wise men are depicted as they are in so many crib scenes: one white, one asian, and one black – one representative from each of what were believed to be the three races of the earth.  The writer draws on the prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures, but can also be seen as looking forward to a future time when “the kingdom of the world [will] become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah.” (Revelation 11.15)  The theological point is this: that God is not just the God of the Jewish people.  God is not just a local deity, but the God of all the world, the God of all peoples and of all nations, and that this God reveals the divine nature in a little baby.

The gifts themselves are almost a creative lesson on the nature of Jesus.  The first two mentioned – gold and frankincense – represent what you would expect for a messiah.  Gold is brought to represent to us that Jesus is a king.  Gold is, in all times and in all places, the symbol of money and power, of renown and prestige.  It is the gift appropriate to a king.  Frankincense is brought, to represent to us that this young child is God.  It is a symbol of dedication, worship and prayer – the dedication, worship and prayer due to God – and it was commonly used in the Temple at Jerusalem.  In bringing this gift of frankincense the wise men acknowledge Jesus as God.  Again, the writer of the Gospel of Matthew is drawing on the inherited tradition of the Jewish people to make a point; in the form of narrative the writer echoes the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn…All those from Sheba shall come.  They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.” (Isaiah 60.3, 6b)  But the wise men in the Gospel of Matthew also bring with them another gift, a gift not mentioned by Isaiah or by any of the Hebrew prophets.  They offer to the child myrrh.  Myrrh is not a gift for a king or for a god.  It is a gift for the dead.  Neither gold nor frankincense will appear again in the gospels, but myrrh will.  It is offered to Jesus in wine to alleviate his suffering on the cross (cf. Mark15.23), and it is brought by Nicodemus to wrap the body of Jesus before it is placed in the tomb, according to the  burial custom of the time. (cf. John 19.39-40)  If gold is to represent Jesus’ kingship and frankincense his divinity, then surely myrrh is to represent his humanity, and the suffering and the struggle which is so much a part of human life.  Like the old man Simeon who at the presentation of Jesus hints at Jesus’ suffering by telling Mary that a sword will pierce her soul, so too these kings in their gift of myrrh hint at Jesus’ eventual suffering.  But this is the risk that God takes, and the cost of being so intimately involved in human affairs.

The writer of the Gospel of Matthew is not clear about the number of wise men which visit the Christ child, neither is the writer clear about their names, for that matter.  Their names – Caspar, Balthasar and Melchior – and their number are supplied by later tradition.  But Matthew’s silence on these points make sense, because the object of the story of their visit in the Gospel of Matthew is not to tell us about them, but to tell us about Jesus.  Every aspect of the story has symbolic meaning pointing to the nature and person of Jesus.  The writer wants to tell us clearly who Jesus is, and relates this story of the wise men to do just that.  Using the device of story the writer makes theological points; and therefore, the story serves as almost a kind of creed or catechism, revealing belief statements about God and Jesus: the God of Israel is the God of the whole world; God’s promises are bring fulfilled;  Jesus is king;  Jesus is God; Jesus is a human being, and therefore subject to suffering.  While the stories of the nativity are marvelous stories in themselves, they were not meant to be read primarily as such.  They are a way of using narrative to express a truth too deep for words.  It is helpful to remember that when we approach them.  It is helpful to search out not only what they say, but what they are trying to say; to see the ineffable revelation they seek to manifest.