"God in man made manifest": The Feast of the Epiphany

 

Arise, shine; for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

For darkness shall cover the earth,
and thick darkness the peoples;

but the Lord will arise upon you,
and his glory will appear over you.

-Isaiah 60: 1-2 (NRSV)

Today, if you mention January 6, most Americans will think of a mob storming the U.S. Capitol. It was an unhappy coincidence, for January 6 marks the solemn feast of the Epiphany, a day of hope and triumph for Christians: the story of wise men from the East who followed a star to the city of Bethlehem and honored the infant Jesus with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And of Herod, who attempted to trick the wise men into revealing this infant King to him, but was foiled by an angel of God.

Matthew calls the wise men Magi: plural of magus, from the Persian magush. And, of course, a cousin of the word magic. Matthew does not give the number of these magicians from the East, but because of the three gifts, tradition holds there were three. They were likely Persian Zoroastrians, early monotheists, who had a unique connection to the Jewish people.

Cyrus the Persian, the only Gentile to be recognized as a messiah by the Jews, conquered Babylon and set the captive Jewish people free. And it’s clearly no coincidence that Matthew uses the term “magi.” He was writing to a Jewish audience, who would have recognized the connection between these Persian visitors proclaiming the new Messiah and the liberator of the Babylonian Captivity. And that may be one reason the first reading, Isaiah 60: 1-6 begins by proclaiming “your light has come“ in a time of darkness and ends with “They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.”

Christopher Wordsworth (nephew of the poet William Wordsworth and Bishop of Lincoln) in his 1862 Epiphany hymn, “Songs of Thankfulness and Praise,” writes of the liberating effect of the revealed King:

Manifest in making whole

Palsied limbs and fainting soul;

Manifest in valiant fight,

Quelling all the devil’s might;

Manifest in gracious will,

Ever bringing good from ill;

Anthems be to thee addrest,

God in man made manifest.

 

Later on, the Magi received names: Caspar, Balthasar, and Melchior. They became kings: Caspar, of India; Balthasar, of Arabia or Ethiopia; and Melchior, of Persia. Yet for Matthew, they were Magi: members of the Zoroastrian priestly class, who came to do homage to a new Messiah who would bring light in a time of darkness.

Image: Pietro Perugino, Adoration of the Magi, c. 1496-1500.