That week between Christmas and New Year’s can be tricky, can’t it? Not always sure what day it is, what’s open, who’s working, then - BAM - it’s January and a new year. Christmas is done.
But it’s not. And not just in that “the message of Christmas is for every day” way. Christmas, the season of the Nativity, lasts until Epiphany, the season of Light.
For convenience and, to be far, fullness, we combine the two birth stories of Jesus into one Big Story, but the gospels of Luke and Matthew tell two different stories. Mary, Joseph and Jesus are there, of course, but the characters around them are different and they each deserve their time.
Except poor old Joseph, it seems. There’s lots of carols and hymns about the baby, Mary, angels, shepherds and magi, even the star, but try finding one about Joseph. Poor guy. Maybe that’s a story for another time. (Bet he hears that a lot.)
The shepherds always get their share thanks to the popularity of Luke’s account, but they’re not the visitors in Matthew’s story. It’s the magi, the “three kings,” who follow the star to find the promised one and that’s revealed to be Jesus. Revealed. That’s what Epiphany means, a revelation or a manifestation.
The birth had already been revealed to the shepherds who, Luke tells, came to the manger and found Jesus just as the angel had described. And, since Jesus came to the poor and the marginalized, it certainly makes sense that he would be shown to them.
But “shown” is the operative word: the birth was proclaimed to the nearby shepherds in detail and they were told what they were looking for and where to find it. They didn't have to look for him, they found exactly what the angel told them they would and the angel told them who it was they were finding.
The magi were not close by, they were “from the east." That's not a description you give of people from just the other end of town. And the sign they followed was a star, a celestial marker, that anyone should have seen from anywhere. And yet they were the only ones who truly "saw" what it meant. They followed a sign which they interpreted in order to find the fulfilment of a prophecy. They weren't really sure who or what they were looking for, though they knew it when they found it. They even had to stop and ask directions. This is a whole different thing from the shepherds.
The magi were not from the neighbourhood, or Judea for that matter, and likely weren't even jews. They were probably - gasp - foreigners. So God's arrival in Jesus isn't just for one small group, culture or tradition, but for anyone from anywhere.
And the magi were seekers. They came looking for something, following a sign, and found it in the baby of Bethlehem. Something that their faith, not an angel, revealed to them was what they were seeking. Something of such immense value that they tried to honour him with the most expensive gifts they could find. That, by the way, doesn't mean that they were particularly rich or even kings. Matthew's story doesn't say how much of any of these things they brought, nor how many of them brought them. The gifts are more symbolic than financially meaningful.
But that’s why both are important: the birth is proclaimed to the shepherds and revealed to the magi. Both have found, by their own way, the heart of the story: that God came to be with us in Jesus. Maybe that’s a good reason to put them together. Shepherd or magi, we come to that same truth in different ways, from different places, led by different desires. Both have had an epiphany. Will you?
