Epiphany
Good News:
Matthew 2:1-12 Common English Bible
2 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the territory of Judea during the rule of King Herod, magi came from the east to Jerusalem. 2 They asked, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We’ve seen his star in the east, and we’ve come to honor him.”
3 When King Herod heard this, he was troubled, and everyone in Jerusalem was troubled with him. 4 He gathered all the chief priests and the legal experts and asked them where the Christ was to be born. 5 They said, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for this is what the prophet wrote:
6 You, Bethlehem, land of Judah,
by no means are you least among the rulers of Judah,
because from you will come one who governs,
who will shepherd my people Israel.”[a]
7 Then Herod secretly called for the magi and found out from them the time when the star had first appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search carefully for the child. When you’ve found him, report to me so that I too may go and honor him.” 9 When they heard the king, they went; and look, the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stood over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were filled with joy. 11 They entered the house and saw the child with Mary his mother. Falling to their knees, they honored him. Then they opened their treasure chests and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12 Because they were warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they went back to their own country by another route.
Reflection: “Our Own Country by Another Road”
I’ve been reading high fantasy books for most of my life. As I child, I spent enchanted hours in the wonderful world of Narnia in the books by C.S. Lewis. In university, I read The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbitt by Tolkien, and when our children were young we shared the Harry Potter books.
High fantasy stories are always set in an alternate world like Narnia or Middle Earth or Hogwarts that works differently from the “real” world that we usually inhabit. The heroes are usually introduced as children or childlike, naïve characters like the hobbits, who find themselves pulled unexpectedly into this alternate reality. The subtitle of The Hobbit is “An Unexpected Journey”. Often, the heroes have a mysterious heritage and previously-unknown powers that they need to learn to use to fulfill their destiny. And their destiny is always to fight evil, usually personified as some sort of dark lord – the white witch of Narnia, Sauron in Middle Earth, Lord Voldemort.
It’s easy to understand the appeal of these archetypal stories. It’s easy to relate to the Pevensie children, or Frodo or Bilbo Baggins, or Harry Potter, because in their ordinariness they are just like us, but within them lies the potential for heroic action and sacrifice. It’s understandable that we might also long to live in a different world, a different story where we are heroes with a heritage of magical powers, where what we do matters.
This longing often elevates these books to the status of a cultural touchstone, especially the Harry Potter series whose influence continues despite the author’s controversial views on transgender identity. For many millennials raised on these stories, they have become a foundational source of spiritual comfort and inspiration in a difficult world, especially for young people who have experienced great loss like Harry’s loss of his parents.
Casper ter Kuile, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, explored this response by looking at Harry Potter through a religious lens in his podcast “Harry Potter and the Sacred Text”. He says that while fewer and fewer people relate to a single religious identity, “People are still hungry for meaning, searching for things that give them an experience of belonging. The Harry Potter universe is already fulfilling those things for a lot of people”.
There is something of that heart-deep longing for meaning in this morning’s story of the magi. I can imagine these scholars – they might have been priests or magicians or astrologers – fighting the growing feeling that in spite of all their knowledge their lives are dry and colourless, they are living in an emotional desert. They belong to a powerful and privileged class, they have all the advantages that wealth and education can give them, but they long for deeper understanding and a reason for their existence.
And then, something happens that nothing in their books or their rituals can explain, something that tells them that a king has been born who has changed everything and they must find him. And so their journey begins, away from their familiar world into a new world with drastically different rules.
And because they don’t yet realize that the rules have changed, they follow their old rules. Logically, they search for the king of the Jews among the rulers of Judah, naively they go to King Herod at his seat of power in Jerusalem and ask where the new king is. And Herod, understanding their search as a threat to his power, consults with his wise men who tell him the prophecy that the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem. He sends the magi on their way, asking them to return and tell him where they have found the baby king.
So the magi find the Christ child in the place where two worlds intersect – the all-too-real world of power and wealth, political intrigue, treachery and danger, and the world of Holy Mystery, signified by a shining miraculous star that leads them to Mary and her baby. They step from their old world into a new reality, where rich men prostrate themselves before a defenceless baby born into poverty in an occupied land. This humble house is their wardrobe, their ring of power, their platform 9 ¾. This is where they leave their old lives and world behind, and move into a world transformed.
It’s still a dangerous world, but in this world they know that their lives and their gifts matter, they know that good is alive in the world despite its bleakness and violence, and that good is alive in them and they have a part to play in defeating the forces of evil. At one and the same time, they are both less powerful and more powerful than they were before this defining encounter, this epiphany, this revelation that changes everything. They are less powerful in a world where relationships of power are completely reversed, more powerful in the newfound sense of purpose and meaning in their lives.
In most high fantasy, there comes a time when the heroes have to return to their original world. The Pevensie children stumble back through the wardrobe into their uncle’s strange old house, the hobbits return to the Shire, and Harry is back in the land of the muggles. We are told that the magi, too, return to their own country.
This transition back to a more mundane life can be difficult. It’s pretty hard to be a High King or Queen in Narnia, and suddenly find yourself back in the child’s body you left behind. It’s hard to save the world and go back to a comfortable, cozy life in your small village. It’s hard to find a place where you truly belong and where you are learning to wield your magical powers, only to find yourself once again an unwanted orphan.
Unlike those heroes, when the magi journey back to their own country they know deep down that they are still living in a new reality that is permanently changed by what they have experienced. They can no longer trust the powers of the world they once belonged to because their encounter with God’s transforming power has revealed those powers as evil. They must return to their own country, but they must return by another road.
From now on, they worship a new kind of king who travels with them on a journey of hardship and compassion and upside-down power. From now on, they live with incarnation, the worlds of human and divine inextricably entangled in the person of Jesus Christ, gift of God in Creation.
The heroes in the stories of high fantasy feast often and well. One of my favourite scenes in the The Hobbit is the riotous party that results when Gandalf and the dwarves invade Bilbo Baggins’s quiet little home and eat and drink everything in his well-stocked larder.
It’s an epic party, a party that celebrates life and abundance even as they prepare to leave all comfort behind and set out on their unexpected journey into the heart of evil. They feast to strengthen and encourage themselves and each other before their dangerous quest.
I hope you have also feasted often and well over the past weeks of celebration. Like the hobbits and dwarves, we feast to nourish ourselves and each other for whatever lies ahead. Like the magi, in the giving and receiving of gifts we re-discover the abundance in our lives and the joy of giving and sharing.
Our fantasy heroes also feast to cement relationships with their allies and friends, to commemorate lives sacrificed for the cause, and to celebrate their victories. Every milestone on the journey deserves a feast.
We also celebrate as the body of Christ for all these reasons: to be strengthened for the journey, to share God’s hospitality with all who travel with us, to commemorate God’s sacrifice in becoming human to share in the joys and challenges of our lives, and to rejoice in Christ’s victory over death.
We are on the road back to our own country, but everything has been transformed by God’s love. We are on the way back to our own country by another route, recognizing the dangers of worldly power and trying to find our place in the land of Holy Mystery. We are on the road back to our own country, sustained by love at the feast of God’s abundance. Like the magi, we are called to live in this world, but this world has been permanently illuminated and transformed by our encounter with the baby Jesus and the risen Christ. My friends, travel into this new year in hope and joy, knowing that God is by your side.
Let us pray: God of flaming skies, we set out on a journey to worship you. We know that along the way we will encounter you in the face of strangers and in the depths of despair. We know we will find you on the way. Meet us at the beginning, meet us at the end, and walk with us in between. Amen.
Reflection: Select a star word to guide you in 2023.
https://perchance.org/starwords2022
Blessing (From “Essential Celtic Prayers” by Thomas McPherson)
May the blessing of light be on you – light without and light within.
May the blessed sunlight shine upon you like a great peat fire,
so that stranger and friend may come and warm at it.
And may light shine out of the two eyes of you, like a candle set in the window of a house, bidding the wanderer come in out of the storm.
And may the blessing of the rain be on you, may it beat upon your spirit and wash it fair and clean, and leave there a shining pool where the blue of Heaven shines, and sometimes a star.
