Who Says There Were Three Kings?

Year A + Vigil of the Epiphany
January 5, 2011

Today we celebrate the Vigil of the Epiphany. That simply means that the Feast of the Epiphany is tomorrow, and we are anticipating that celebration today, since we do not have a service tomorrow. Technically, the Vigil begins this evening at sundown, which is about five hours from now.

The Epiphany celebrates an event that is only recounted in the Gospel of Matthew. Some time after the birth of Jesus, “wise men from the east” came to Jerusalem, looking for “the child who has been born king of the Jews.” [Matthew 2:1-2]

Because of the reference to the birth of Jesus, we tend to connect this event with the Christmas story in Luke’s Gospel, but there is in fact no real connection. The only timeframe that Matthew gives is that it occurred “in the time of King Herod.” Herod the Great lived from 73 or 74 BC until the year 4 BC (you knew that our reckoning of the date of the birth of Jesus was wrong by several years, didn’t you?). The event described by Matthew must have taken place near the end of Herod’s life. By the way, the Herod who participated in the death of Jesus was this Herod’s son – Herod Antipas. He was not a king, but rather the tetrarch of Galilee – a Roman governor. Rome often demoted local kings and princes, making them government officials of some sort (if they didn’t just kill them!).

Given the fact that Herod later ordered the killing of all children two years old and under [Matthew 2:16], it is most likely that the wise men arrived years after the birth of Jesus.

The gospel does not say that the wise men were kings (the Christmas carol written by Episcopalian and Deacon John Henry Hopkins in 1857 notwithstanding), and Matthew does not actually tell us how many of them there were. Because Matthew mentions three gifts (gold, frankincense, and myrrh), we often assume that there were three givers, but the Gospel does not say that.

So, who were these wise men? In the Greek and Aramaic versions of Matthew’s Gospel, the word used is magi. This is the same word that gives us our English words “magic” and “magician.” In short, they were most likely followers of the Zoroastrian religion of Persia (present-day Iran), and we would probably call them astrologers. Magi looked at the stars and tried to interpret the meanings of astronomical events, such as the sudden appearance of a new star.

You noticed that our translation today said, “we observed his star at its rising,” whereas the King James Version – with which many of us grew up – said “we have seen his star in the east.” That was always a bit confusing. East of Persia are India and China, and that’s the wrong direction from Bethlehem! The sun, moon, planets, and stars all appear in the east because of the direction of the rotation of the earth. The star was not "in the east," but it did appear to rise there.

We call this feast Epiphany. That word is Greek in origin (ἐπιφάνεια), and it means “appearance” or “manifestation.” It refers, of course, to the appearance of the Messiah, and the manifestation of God’s will for the whole world. When a person has an epiphany, he or she is said to have suddenly come to understand something – an “aha!” moment.

The choice of the word Epiphany refers to the fact that Jewish followers of Jesus realized that the Messiah had come not only for Jews, but for the Gentile world as well. The arrival of people from a Gentile country, representing a non-Jewish religion, emphasizes that Jesus is the savior of the entire world, of all peoples and all times.

We celebrate the Epiphany on January 6, which is thirteen days after Christmas. That gives rise to the observation of the Twelve Days of Christmas, which is December 25 through January 5. Eastern Orthodox Christians celebrate the Epiphany on Christmas. That is, they do not have two different celebrations. Since at least the year 361, Christians have commemorated all of the events between the birth of Jesus and his appearance as an adult, asking to be baptized by John, in the short period immediately after December 25 that we now call the Epiphany Season. Some early Christians did not celebrate December 25 at all, others observed different days for Christmas, the wise men, the presentation in the Temple, the finding of the boy Jesus teaching in the Temple, and the miracle at the wedding in Cana. It seems that the earliest Christians were primarily interested in the adult Jesus, and that the events preceding the beginning of his ministry were not well understood or recognized as important. As I said in my Christmas message, it's important that we not get so distracted by the "ornaments" that we don't see the tree.

Well, that’s a lot of history and other information! But what does the Epiphany mean to us today, and why should we celebrate it as something special?

We, too, are primarily interested in the ministry of the adult Jesus. We will turn our attention to that ministry this Sunday, when we celebrate his baptism. From then until Lent, we will follow him through his teaching, preaching, miracles, and efforts to proclaim the Kingdom of God. Whether we know much about Jesus’ childhood or early life is not particularly important to the core of our faith.

However, the fact that Jesus was the Savior of the entire world, not just the Messiah of the Jews, is very important. Understandably, the first Christians, most of whom began as Jews, were focused on the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies and on Jesus as a Jewish man living in Israel (or Judea, Samaria, and Galilee, as it was known in Roman times). As Christianity spread, and especially as the Romans put down a Jewish rebellion by destroying the Temple and much of Jerusalem, and as the majority of Christians began to be living outside the place where Jesus lived, it became important to know that Jesus came for all of them, too.

The fact is that Jesus came into this world for you and me. He came to save us from the just consequences of our sins. He taught so that we would understand how to live as children of God and citizens of God’s heavenly kingdom. He preached that we needed to be ready at any time for our own judgment and redemption. His miracles showed us that God is compassionate and cares about each one of us.

That’s what we celebrate on this Epiphany. Not three kings or wise men, not mysterious, meaningful gifts, but the proof that God cares about you and me. While the story may have gotten clouded a bit, the core message is all about salvation for everyone.

Unlike the magi, you and I cannot fall on our knees in the physical presence of the Son of God. We cannot gaze on his beauty and bask in his glory, “the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” [John 1:14] but we can still know and love him. As we prayed in our Collect, “Lead us, who know you now by faith, to your presence, where we may see your glory face to face.”

Quite appropriately, the season of Epiphany begins today and concludes in several weeks with the second manifestation of Jesus’ glory – his transfiguration on the mountaintop in the presence of Peter, James, and John. May we, like them, enjoy the bright vision of eternal life that God reveals to us in Jesus!