Epiphany 4/1/09

Revealing Jesus as King

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a really good Christmas and New Year celebrations. As you may or may not know today is the day where we traditionally celebrate Epiphany. We are already two Sunday's away from Christmas, and I'm not wishing the year away just yet. Epiphany helps us to remember the arrival of the Wise Men, or the Magi, to the house where Joseph, Mary and Jesus now live.

Matthew doesn't tell us where the family were staying, but we know that they were well settled in a little house and that the star had followed them there. Mary and Joseph probably had a few friendly neighbours who had helped them out and Jesus was growing up like any normal child. Theologians and historians believe that Jesus could have been about two by the time the wise men arrived at Joseph's house. I wonder what kind of two year old Jesus might have been? Just a thought...

More and more we are throwing out the idea of the nativity scene where all the figures arrive on or just after Christmas night, in favour of a more accurate representation of the story. However we need to remember the significance of the different characters in the story.

If you were here on Christmas Eve for the Crib service you would have heard the story from the shepherds point of view. Those poor lowly shepherds, who spent their lives in the fields, with only each other, sheep, goats and wolves for company. Joseph was eventually noble, but his first thought was one of splitting up with Mary so there would be no disgrace for either of them. And Mary herself, just a girl. Nothing special about her, but God look at the heart and He saw Mary to be beautiful. Each character plays a significant part in the story, and each character reveals a different aspect of who Jesus is to the people of the world.

So what was the significance of the Wise Men in this story? If you have a quick flick through the first four books of the New Testament you'll notice that the Wise Men only appear in Matthew's version. Mark and John are full on action, and Luke is writing to an audience which could well have been made up of people who thought Jesus would never go anywhere near them, hence the Shepherds in his account.

Matthew was writing to the Jewish people from a Jewish perspective. And he certainly has a grasp on Jewish history. Do you know anyone who can recite Jesus' family tree from beginning to end? Matthew can, all 42 generations, that's 1680 years give or take a few. And in Jesus family tree there are plenty of kings and other people of note which the Jewish people would have been able to reminisce about. Some pretty impressive stories too! Matthew is almost certainly trying to convince the Jewish people that Jesus isn't just some guy to listen too, he is, in fact, the King they have been looking for, the one which has be prophesied about for years. If you had read the openers for the other gospels you'd have plenty of ideas of who Jesus is, but the King aspect comes across most clearly in this one I think.

The Wise Men were no doubt important people. They probably had a large entourage following them across the countries and entering the cities. It's unclear why they started their journey, and where “the East” really is. But they are wise, they knew what they were doing. They had read the prophecies and seen the star, everything was falling into place, so they went.

On the way they met Herod and though he was a king, there is no record of the wise men bowing to him. Herod tried to trick them, but they are wise... they didn't fall for Herod's thin veiled attempts to wipe his competition off the face of the earth. When they eventually made their way back home they completely avoided Herod's palace, and once Herod had caught on to this fact Joseph and Mary were well on their way to Egypt and the toddler Jesus was safe from harm.

As I said before Jesus is clearly revealed as king through this passage. The wise men had travelled miles and miles to see a baby whom they treated as a king first and foremost, bringing him the finest gifts they could muster. I wonder how we treat Jesus. Do we bow to him and show him the respect He deserves? We have been talking about God's glory all Christmas and will continue to talk about over the next few weeks. But will we recognise God's glory in the things which we do. Even the wise men recognised God's glory and they only met him in his infant years.

So as we start 2009, have you made any resolutions? Or maybe you don't believe in resolutions... so what about receiving a revelation, as the wise men did.