Introduction
Well Christmas feels like it's over doesn't it? We have eaten too much, possibly drunk a little more than normal, seen (or avoided) friends and family, done all the New Year stuff - even made a few New Year's resolutions and if we haven't yet gone back to work then we have that particular joy tomorrow! Christmas seems to be over, but it isn't, not until Wednesday at least which is Twelfth Night this year. We have twelve days of Christmas and the last day marks the festival of Epiphany which this year falls on Wednesday and which we mark today. Epiphany finishes off the Christmas story and reminds us of some deeper symbolism to Jesus' birth.
Epiphany
So, now some time for some congregational involvement.
- Which bit of the story do we remember at Epiphany?
- How many wise men were there?
- Where did they come from?
- Anyone know their names?
- When did they come to visit Jesus?
- Where did they go to visit?
We think we know lots about the story but most of what we know comes from tradition and guess work rather than the Biblical text in St Matthew. We think of the wise men as three kings, yet Matthew simply calls them Magi. Magi is a Latinised form of a word meaning the Persian priestly caste. These folks lived in what we now call Iran and both studied the stars and divined meaning from their movements. In those days astrology was seen as a science not a superstition. We think of them as kings due to references in the Old Testament about kings coming to bow down before the Messiah - an allusion taken up in our first and last hymns today.
We don't know how many of them came to visit Jesus - just that they brought three gifts so we assume there were three of them! We don't know their names but tradition has given them the names of Balthazar, Casper and Melchior. Tradition also portrays one as African and sometimes one as Chinese. We only know that they came "from the East" and the clue in their name of Magi which would indicate Persia. Incidentally their bones are held to be in a marvellous jewelled box which has pride of place in Cologne Cathedral! Indian Christians believe that one of the Kings was baptised by St Thomas the missionary to India. The gifts don't help too much - gold could be found anywhere as could Frankincense and Myrrh - even though the latter two are made from bushes found in the Arabian peninsular.
We think of the magi visiting just after the shepherds but there are some clues in Matthew's gospel which indicate that it may have been some time afterwards. They come to the "house" where the child was and Herod has all the boys under the age of 2 killed which might mean some time had elapsed.
All this means that the story of the magi has captured the imagination of people over the ages in an amazing way. Various cultures want to have one of the magi as their own so that they can be part of the story too. This, in part, is what the story is all about in any case.
Who were the Magi?
So what do we know about the Magi? Apart from the gospel of St Matthew very little. The word magi was used in Greek sources since the 6th Century BC and referred to followers of the Persian religion of Zoroaster. Or at least it referred to people who the Greeks thought were followers of this religion. In the main they were people who we would call astrologers - they studied the stars and found meaning in their movements. They were into what we would now call the occult. In Iranian sources a magi was one born into the same priestly caste as Zoraster, in Western sources the word came to be the source word for magic and magician. Some early church sources translated the word in Matthew's gospel as "wizard". So we don't know much more than when we started - we know the magi were mysterious figures from the East - possibly the area we now call Iran - who studied and found meaning in the stars. Their study led them to believe that a new king was to be born in Bethlehem of all places and to this place they took gifts full of meaning to the child.
The Gifts
We are perhaps on stronger ground when we think of the three gifts that the magi brought to them. Each gift had meaning.
- Gold was brought as a gift which speaks of royalty and kingship. Gold recognised the fact that Jesus is a king.
- Frankincense is made from the gum of a bush found in Arabia. When it is heated it gives off a sweet smelling smoke and has been used in worship for millennia. Many churches now use to represent prayers rising to heaven. Frankincense recognised the fact that Jesus is a priest and a god.
- Myrrh is the most troubling gift. It is also a gum made from a bush found in Arabia but instead of giving of a sweet smell, the odour of myrrh is bitter. Our first song noted this with the line "myrrh I bring, its bitter perfume, breaths a breath of gathering gloom". Myrrh was used to scent the oils used to anoint the bodies of the dead. Myrrh speaks of death and sacrifice and recognised Jesus had to die as a sacrifice for others.
The gifts recognised Jesus' threefold role as king and god and sacrifice. They were odd gifts to give to a newborn and no doubt Mary and Joseph pondered the meaning of these gifts as they fled Bethlehem for the sanctuary of Egypt having been warned in a dream of Herod's evil intent towards them.
What do the Magi mean - gentiles - us
In the gospels of Luke and Matthew there is some powerful symbolism around the birth of Jesus. St Luke is concerned to show the involvement of women - Mary, Elizabeth, and the prophetess Anna as well as the poor and the old - Zechariah, Simeon and the shepherds. Matthew, writing for a Jewish audience, stresses in his narrative the evilness of the king, Herod, contrasted with the holy foreigners. The magi, as we have seen, weren't Jewish, didn't know the Jewish religion or scriptures, did dodgy things like study the stars and find meaning from them yet they recognised the long-promised Messiah. The outsiders are amongst the first to recognise and worship Jesus as the Christ - the anointed one of God. The gospel isn't just for the Jewish people, the holy, the ones who know it all, but for all, the outsider, the dodgy ones, the one's whom we might be a bit uncomfortable with. The magi are representative of the "rest of us". This is why different cultures have wanted one of their own amongst the Magi; the Chinese, the Arabs, the Africans have all portrayed at least one of the magi as a member of their own race. It's special for us, knowing and loving people from Iran, to realise that they were probably from that part of the world. But the Magi represent the rest of us in our imperfections, with our faltering wisdom, as we search for, find, recognise and worship Jesus as lord of all.
What gifts do we bring to Jesus?
So if the Magi are representative of the "rest of us" what part do we play. What gifts do we bring to Jesus this Christmas time? What gifts will we give him at the start, and throughout, this new year. I suggest four things we can give Jesus:
Firstly, ourselves. Next week we renew our commitment to God as we hold our Covenant service. In the prayer at the heart of that service we say "I am no longer my own but yours". This is our gift to Jesus, we live no longer for ourselves but for him. We offer ourselves to him and seek to live by his values, showing his love to those around us and seeking to make his will dominant in our lives. This is our most precious gift that we can offer.
This giving of ourselves involves three other things. It involves the giving of our time. In our world we are always busy, we can be reached by email, texts, calls and even facebook messages on our phones we carry around with us. We have demanding jobs, complex social lives, and demands are made on us all the time. In the busyness of our world we need to give some of our time to God - time each day to pray and reflect, time each week to worship with others so that our faith may be renewed. Corporate worship is good for us and helps us live our Christian lives more effectively.
The giving of ourselves involves not just our time but our talents. We use the gifts and skills we have to glorify God. I am always amazed at how we do that in this church. As we worship here this evening Mary comes near the end of a difficult month long drive to Gaza with others to take medical supplies there. Jenny-Anne and Elen use so much of their time to love and support others coming out as trans people. Sarah in her new job is giving up her days off to go and work, without pay, as she loves it so much. Philip and Ian help run a new lgbt group in Tameside, Anne is housing destitute asylum seekers, Margaret, Gwen and Andy open their homes week after week to host church groups. I could go on and on about how we use our talents to glorify God, to make a difference in the world - whether that's singing in the choir to helping with the washing up, housing a destitute asylum seeker or lending an ear to a person in need - our talents are used by God to make the world a better place and to enrich our church congregation here.
The giving of ourselves also involves the giving of our money. As the Christmas season has shown, we live in a world of rampant consumerism. No sooner had we finished our Christmas shopping than we were bombarded with adverts about the sales! We are tempted to spend more and more of our money and to feel good about doing it! In the west we live in a consumer society which is bad for us, and it is through the responsible use of our money that we grow as Christians. Money is poisonous - and it's only through giving some of it away that we find the antidote to that poison - which is why as a church we give some of our money away each year.
Conclusion
Giving of ourselves invoves our heart as well as our time, our talent and our treasure. Just as the Magi travelled for a long time to give themselves and their gifts to the baby Jesus, so we have a life long journey of giving to Christ in our journey as Christians. Last week we sang the carol "In the Bleak Mid Winter" which ends with the lines "what can I give him, poor as I am, if I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb, if I were a wise man, I would do my part, yet what I can I give him, give my heart". This is our gift to Jesus, for now and always. Amen.