As a child I associated the Feast of the Epiphany with the end of Christmas holidays and the reopening of school. The coming of the “wise men from the East” was, in my mind, always accompanied by the priest at Sunday Mass reading out the notice, “…The Christian Brothers’ School will reopen for all pupils on Monday ? January at nine o’clock.” Even though I knew it was coming, hearing it read out so publicly sent a shiver down my spine. As a result, going to look at the crib after Mass to see that the three Kings had arrived was not as happy an occasion as it should have been. It’s not that I hated school or had a negative experience there, but it was still the era of corporal punishment (at least in primary schools) and education was not as much ‘fun’ as it is today. Ironic, I suppose, that I went on to spend my entire working life still associating this week’s feast with the ‘reopening of school’ and, even though I was now a teacher or principal it still sent a shiver, or maybe several shivers, down my spine!

The entire Christmas story (as Matthew and Luke tell it) is wonderfully dramatic and romantic. The starry night setting, the silence of the crib, the shepherds with their sheep, the angels singing from Heaven, the peaceful figures of Joseph, Mary and Jesus, are crowned today with the arrival of three Kings from the East, bearing expensive gifts and worshipping him.

Add to that the plotting of the evil King Herod and the story takes on a darker twist which, in fact, prepares us for the conflicts Jesus will have to face in his adult life.

The ‘wise men from the East’ are only found in Matthew’s Gospel, which does, of course, raise questions about the strict historicity of the account. Nor does Matthew mention how many ‘wise men’ came to worship Jesus. The number ‘three’ was an invention of later artists who liked the linkage of ‘gold, frankincense and myrrh’ with only three Kings.

Be that as it may, the arrival of the wise men, their recognition of Jesus as ‘King of the Jews’, plus Herod’s fear of the birth and determination to kill Jesus, are all hugely significant events for Matthew.

Bear in mind that Matthew was writing his Gospel probably fifty years after the Death and Resurrection of Jesus when, through reflection and prayer, it was increasingly clear to the early Christian communities that Jesus was the Divine Word (Son) of God, sent to usher-in God’s Kingdom. Also bear in mind that Matthew’s audience was primarily Jewish, and he needed to speak in language and images they would understand.

In this week’s Gospel, for instance, we notice that Matthew is keen to link Bethlehem (where Jesus was born) with the prophecy of Micah, “…for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel”.

In the same way, Matthew’s readers would immediately recognise the significance of the three gifts brought by the Kings: Gold, recognising Jesus as a King (King of the Jews); frankincense recognising that Jesus was God (frankincense was burned in the Temple as an offering to God); myrrh, recognising the death of Jesus for us. (Myrrh was an embalming resin used as part of Jewish burial rites).

Through the arrival of the ‘wise men’, therefore, Matthew states very clearly that from the very moment of Jesus’ birth he was ‘King of the Jews’, Divine, and that he would die for us.

Even more important, the coming of ‘wise men from the East’ represents, for Matthew, the reality that the ‘Kingdom of God’ isn’t for all people, not just Jews.

A central difficulty the Jewish authorities had with Jesus was that the Kingdom he preached was utterly different to their vision of the Kingdom of God and the person of the Messiah. They expected the Messiah to be a military leader who would free Israel from the tyranny of Rome; Jesus proclaimed a Kingdom of peace and forgiveness. They expected the Kingdom of God to vindicate them as God’s ‘chosen people’ and punish their enemies; Jesus proclaimed a Kingdom open to all peoples equally.

It is not an accident that, for Matthew, the first people to recognise Jesus as King of the Jews were the ‘poor’ represented by the shepherds, and the Gentiles (non-Jews), represented by the ‘wise men’.

Jewish Christians reading this Gospel were being called to accept, as a core part of their faith, that Jesus came into the world to save all peoples and to bring the Kingdom of God to all.

Twenty or more years before Matthew wrote his Gospel, St Paul was struggling to persuade the Apostles that non-Jews should be welcomed into the Church without first becoming Jews (being circumcised, adhering to food laws, etc).

Now, twenty years later, Matthew is making it clear that that struggle is over; the coming of Jesus into the world was for all peoples. The wise men, Matthew tells us, “saw the child…and fell down and worshipped him.” It is faith in the person of Jesus, and baptism that makes us heirs to God’s Kingdom. This is a wonderful truth for us and our world.

Lying under the surface of the Gospels, hidden in plain sight, one hugely important issue was playing itself out. It was an issue that to a great extent shaped the ministry of Jesus, and it was the issue that, in the end, led to his death.

Put simply, from the moment Jesus said that “the Kingdom of God is near.” he was walking a very dangerous tightrope, balancing the promised coming of God’s Kingdom with the crime of treason, declaring a King other than Caesar and a Kingdom other than Rome. One wrong move, one careless statement overheard by an enemy, and he would have been immediately executed.

This is not being over dramatic or exaggerating in any way. The Roman Senate declared Augustus Caesar to be a God during the lifetime of Jesus. The Emperor who followed, Tiberius Caesar, also allowed himself to be worshipped as a ‘Son of a God’.

Rome, well practised in the art of Empire building, allowed the Jews a certain amount of autonomy and independence, but always under strict surveillance and scrutiny. King Herod was himself a Jew, appointed by Rome as a puppet King, tasked with ensuring that there would be no hint of rebellion among the people. He was detested by the Jewish people and never trusted. The Pharisees, as arbiters of the Law of Moses, and the Sadducees, the wealthy priests who served the Jerusalem Temple, were also expected to serve their Roman masters.

All of them knew that the slightest hint of rebellion, or any threat to Caesar as a God and Rome as the only Kingdom on Earth, and the feared Roman legions of well-trained and battle-hardened soldiers would brutally and without mercy destroy them. Right through the life of Jesus small uprisings against Rome happened and were put down. Those found guilty of treason were executed in the most horrible ways imaginable, often left hanging on crosses until the wild dogs and birds ate their bodies. Without doubt Jesus would have heard about, and probably seen, examples of Rome’s terror.

It is also clear in the Gospels that Jesus was well aware of the tightrope he walked and the dangers that surrounded him. The fact that he avoided the larger towns and cities and preached in small towns and villages may well have been a way of avoiding too much contact with Roman and Jewish authorities, who we know followed him, seeking to undermine and trap him. The constant antagonism of the Pharisees and Sadducees shows their fear of Jesus’ Kingdom-talk and references to the coming Messiah.

The truth is that Jesus, from the beginning was on a collision course with both the Jewish authorities and Rome.

The Kingdom he preached was not the Kingdom the Jewish people expected or liked. The promised Messiah that Jesus talked about was not the military leader they expected. A clash was inevitable.

As far as Rome was concerned, the truth was that Jesus was preaching a Kingdom other than Rome and a King greater than Caesar. Over the three years of his ministry, he slowly and carefully gathered followers, teaching them about the Kingdom he had come to reveal. For the most part, during this time, he stayed out of the limelight and avoided confrontation.

But sooner or later, the Kingdom he preached had to come into the light, standing openly before the people of Israel and the Roman authorities. When Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and allowed himself to be compared to the Messiah, he must have known that both Jewish and Roman authorities would take note.

By going into the very Temple itself, and claiming an authority directly from God, he was almost signing his own death warrant. It is as if he had finally realised that he was himself both the Messiah and the Kingdom, and that the Kingdom of God was now ready to stand in the light and be revealed. Jesus himself, as ‘Messiah’ to his people, was prepared to die for them, believing that his death would bring about the final coming of the Kingdom into the world. As he hung on the cross, battered and broken, he could not have foreseen the glory of Easter Sunday morning, but, it seems to me, he was finally at peace within himself, sure that the Kingdom was coming with and through his death. His final words, “It is accomplished” or “It is finished” is his declaration that the Kingdom he came intro the world to reveal was here.

In this week’s Gospel, Matthew is foreshadowing all that would transpire later in Jesus’ life. The subterfuge and plotting of King Herod and his determination to kill the new-born ‘King of the Jews’ tell us that even at his birth the Kingdom of God was beginning, and the Messiah, the King of the Jews, the Lord who would rise from the dead, was already among us.

We can so easily tie ourselves in knots arguing as to whether there actually were three wise men or a star or a stable. The truth of the Gospels is that none of these details matter. The truth Matthew is sharing with us is so much more amazing than that. In this short Gospel, Matthew, and through him God, reveals to us, that the Christmas story and the Easter story are one and the same. At his birth, just as at his death and resurrection Jesus was King of the Jews and Messiah.

He was the Son of God and divine.

It was through the seeming tragedy of his death that the Kingdom of God was finally revealed.

The Kingdom of God is for all peoples of the world.

Faith in the person of Jesus is all we need to enter the Kingdom of God.

It is a true, powerful, exciting and hope-filled message for our world and all who live in it. It is, in a word, the ‘Joy of the Gospel’.

Many thanks,

Brian.

The visit of the Magi

Follow us on Instagram