“Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.”
“Epiphany” means manifestation—the unveiling of God’s hidden purposes. Today’s Gospel isn’t so much a tale of exotic visitors Theology as drama, a show: “Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.”
Let’s concentrate on the protagonists: Herod, the Magi, and their Gifts, and of course the Star, quite literally?
Like Luke, situates the Nativity in the reign of Caesar Augustus; Matthew “in the days of Herod the king…”
Herod, the mighty man standing on the borders of Rome and its rival, the Parthian empire – stands for a discredited regime.
Herod not merely a tyrant but a symbol of usurping powers that had corrupted Israel’s priesthood and Temple traditions in the first century. Observant Jews despised him as much as they feared him.
Matthew’s Gospel is suffused with Temple imagery: light, kingship, frankincense all evoke worship of the first Temple – memories of which had been eclipsed by reforms in the time of Josiah, Exile and then Herod. This extraordinary construction was breath-taking but also a vanity project.
Herod is not just a ruler threatened by a child; he is the corrupted temple confronting the rightful one.
Herod is “the shadow side of Epiphany.” Charles Causley’s poem Innocents’ Song spells both crackling evil and absurdity:
His fingers made of fuses
And his tongue of gingerbread?
“Go and search diligently for the young child”; yet he avoids the search, in fact a tactical as well as a spiritual error.
The Star of Bethlehem has fascinated every generation. Was it a real astronomical event: a conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn and Mars in 7–6 BC just as a supernova exploded in the distant heavens? We know these things coincided just then. Or was it something richer than mere astronomy: a sign, the light of the Shekinah – God’s glory, returning to the world, an echo of the glory that once filled Solomon’s Temple that Isaiah had seen and Ezekiel had seen depart?
For one commentator I admire greatly, the Star is light reserved for the Temple itself: the manifestation of divine wisdom, guiding seekers back to the place of true worship. Margaret Barker reminds us that in Hebrew tradition, stars are not mere bodies of light but symbols of angelic powers, heavenly messengers. The Magi see what others cannot: a cosmic sign of God’s restoration.
Pope Benedict’s book about the infancy narratives suggests the Star connects heaven and history: it shows that creation itself bears witness to Christ. The rejoices at His coming. The light of reason and the light of revelation are not enemies; in Christ they converge.
Thus, whether we interpret the Star as physical or metaphysical, it shines as a cosmic event and spiritual insight. Interestingly, the Star does not compel belief; it invites a journey.
Who were these wise men from the East, who made the journey?
Traditions are legion about them, material for many more sermons.
Dr Barker sees them as representatives of a wider world of Temple wisdom. Their journey the return of wisdom to its source.
For Benedict they are pilgrims of truth: men who have not yet received revelation but are open to it.
Surely their journey is our journey: from partial light to full revelation, from seeking to worship, from knowing to meeting.
Their offerings so familiar; in the symbolic world Matthew inhabits, each gift is a confession of faith.
- Gold for kingship: not earthly sovereignty but the rule of divine wisdom.
- Frankincense, used in the temple, signifies divinity, an offering to God alone.
- Myrrh, for anointing at burial points towards the mystery of suffering and redemption.
Dr Barker draws attention to the way these gifts echo the temple treasures: gold of the sanctuary, incense of priestly worship, and myrrh for consecration.
The child is, in her reading, the true Temple, the restoration of that lost glory Isaiah foresaw: “They shall bring gold and incense; and they shall shew forth the praises of the Lord.”
Pope Benedict sees the gifts as signs that foreshadow Good Friday and Easter. Even at his birth, Jesus is recognised as King, God, and Redeemer.
These gifts tell us who this child is, before he even speaks.
Epiphany, then, is not their journey only; it is ours. The Magi are prototypes of every soul seeking truth.
What does it mean for us to “come to Bethlehem”? It means to allow our searching to end in worship. To kneel before the Christ-child is to confess that truth is personal, not abstract.
The Magi, by their journey there by the light of a star, and home, by another way, and their gifts, teach us that knowledge finds its fulfilment not in mastery, but in adoration.
Now the virginity of Mary and her giving birth were hidden from the ruler of this age, as was also the death of the Lord – three mysteries to be loudly proclaimed, yet which were accomplished in the silence of God. How, then, were they revealed to the ages?
A star shone forth in heaven brighter than all the stars; its light was indescribable and its strangeness caused amazement. All the rest of the constellations, together with the sun and moon, formed a chorus around the star, yet the star itself far outshone them all, and there was perplexity about the origin of this strange phenomenon, which was so unlike the others.
Consequently all magic and every kind of spell were dissolved, the ignorance so characteristic of wickedness vanished, and the ancient kingdom was abolished when God appeared in human form to bring the newness of eternal life.