The Fourth Gift

Matthew 2:1-12
Epiphany 

So today is, depending on how you count it, the twelfth day of Christmas.  A day my true love, I believe, should have given to me twelve drummers drumming.  As it is, over these past twelve days, she hasn’t given me anything, least of which a partridge in a pear tree.  And to be fair, I haven’t given her anything either.

That’s a weird song, can we agree on that?  Especially if you think too much about it—which of course I do.  I got a little obsessed this week and started scouring the internet to try to make some sense of that silly song.  The most reasonable thing I found was [quote], “The exact origins and the meaning of the song are unknown.”  Well, case closed.

I’m not entirely sure that there ever was a strong tradition of gift-giving during the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany.  Given the already over-commercialization of Christmas (starting sometime in October), I’m not sure there even should be such a tradition.  But then again, there can be something spiritual about a gift-giving season, right?  We begin on Christmas morning, remembering first the gift we’ve been given: Jesus, God-with-us; born in humility; born to restore our relationship with God and to save us from ourselves.  So it sort-of makes sense that we, following in that example, give gifts to those we care about.  Maybe not for twelve days, but there is something about gratitude in the practice.  And then on the twelfth day, we remember the gifts of the Magi—the gold, and the frankincense, and the myrrh—thus we draw to a close this gift-giving season.  But maybe we shouldn’t.  

Bear with me now, but do the gifts of God ever stop?  Does God ever stop surprising us with epiphany after epiphany, as it were?  Is there ever a morning in which God’s mercies are not renewed?  Would it not figure that we might be called to give as God gives?  Perhaps this gift-giving season is not meant to just end; maybe it is merely a reminder that we’re just getting started.

I remember realizing once, I believe during a shower, that the word “epiphany” had several different meanings.  Capitalized, it refers to today, January sixth, twelve days after Christmas: the day we remember the so-called Wise Men (or Magi), visiting the young Jesus.  Similarly, it can mean the manifestation of a divine being… like the young Jesus.  And it can also mean the sudden, a-ha, realization of a thing; that little lightbulb that turns on above your head.  

In other words: I once had an epiphany about the word “epiphany.”  Not the deepest of my shower thoughts, but there is something deeper there: that these little revelations in our lives don't often come to us where and when we might not otherwise expect.  I would expect these kinds of surprising truths to come to me while I'm doing something deeply spiritual: like having a holy conversation with someone, or reading the Bible, or being caught up in prayer, or even participating in worship, but no; they usually come to me in places like the shower.  

Now, in a religious sense, the word epiphany is taken from a Greek word that means “appearing or showing forth.”  So the day of Epiphany commemorates the power and presence of God being made known, in this case through these Magi and their star.  But I think that when we talk about the other kind of epiphany, of some truth dawning on us out of nowhere, there is also that notion that God is somehow making God's self known to us even through the revelations of our own out-of-nowhere thoughts.  

Which is exciting for me because there is a lot I don’t know about God; I’ve come to find the joy in that.  There is joy there because the Infinite God of the Universe, it turns out, is not hiding from us.  God wants to be known, God wants to be in an ever-deepening relationship with us; and because this God is, as I’ve said, the Infinite God of the Universe, there is always more to know.  And if nothing else, what I’ve learned of this Infinite God is: God loves surprises.  

The truth is, by our own sinfulness, our relationship with God has been broken; and God says, “Surprise! I will fix it.”  The distance between us and God is so great, we cannot ever find God on our own; and God says, “Surprise! I’ll come to you.”  Surprise! The Infinite God of the Universe dwells among you, born in humility.  And God’s not done with the surprises.  

Honestly, these so-called Wise Men (and, by the way, we don’t know that they were all men) might be my favorite surprise of this whole story.  They were absolutely the wrong people for this job: the text doesn’t say where exactly from the East they were from, but they were not locals.  They were not Hebrews and they were not even followers of the same religion.  They don't know about the promised Messiah or the prophecies about him like the one the priests looked up from Micah.  These were astrologers; they were shaman; they were New Agers before it was new. And these are the people who show up looking to pay their respects to the newborn king.  It's like some hippie from Durango showing up to wish you a merry Christmas, but you didn't realize that it was December 25th.  

Matthew tells us that Herod was “frightened and all Jerusalem with him,” and of course they were!  Those who should know don't know that their king has been born; yet a bunch of hippies do!  “Hey man, we were watching your king's star move into your constellation, man.  Congratulations, man! So dude, where's the baby?”

We imagine that there were three of them, and tradition has even named them, but Matthew is not so specific; only that there were three gifts.  Tradition has also read meaning into those gifts, but again, Matthew is not so specific.  In my opinion, there’s a bigger, more-obvious headline here: surprise, God has done it again!  It’s not the first nor the last time God will pull this kind of prank on us.  God is constantly asking the wrong people to proclaim Good News while right people are left looking silly, bewildered, and out of touch with God's plan.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, think of it this way: who does God ask to proclaim the Messiah's birth?  Shepherds and hippies.  How does God win victory over sin and death for us?  Through the humble sacrifice of Jesus, that we celebrate here at this Table.  Who does God send to proclaim hit rising from the tomb?  Women.   Who does God call to be his very body in this world and proclaim the message of salvation?  Us.  

Why do you suppose God keeps doing this?  Why does God keep asking the least obvious, the least respectable, and the least influential to speak the most important message ever given?  Well, I'm not God so I can't say for sure, but I have theories.  Maybe, God calls the least likely people because these are the kinds of people God cares the most about.  Maybe these are the people who need to hear this news the most.  

Maybe God calls these kinds of people as some kind of lesson to us.  Perhaps it's the same reason that God was shown forth into this world as a poor and helpless baby.  Maybe these unusual outsiders are called by God because our notions of importance, and power, wealth are not actually things that God values; and we need that reminder.  

And maybe there's even some other, simpler lesson here.  Maybe God calls and uses the unusual and unexpected of the world... because those are the sorts of people who go when they're called.  Maybe God lined up the stars just so, that a bunch of astrologers would notice and go to Jerusalem to sing Happy Birthday, because those God told about it in the first place didn't want to upset their own importance.  

God chooses these Wise Men, these Magi, because they have a lesson to teach us.  Matthew tells us they brought three gifts, but there is a fourth gift that means more to us: they gave the gift of obedience.  Like us, they are unlikely pilgrims, but they went.  They heard the call and gave the gift that we ought to give: they left the comfort of their homes and culture and they sought after the True Jesus.  

As we enter this new day and this New Year, let us follow their example; let us seek the Savior/King, who has come into this world to bring us back to God.  As we do, may those near us see the surprising love of God in us and come to seek him too.