The
Pope created a stir this year by pointing out the Gospels
don’t say anything about the traditional animals and angels
being at the stable
for Jesus’ birth.
Archbishop
of Canterbury Rowan Williams
sparked a similar controversy five
years ago
with some things he said about the 3
Wise Men.
The papers sounded
as if he were attacking the story.
But, like the Pope,
he was just distinguishing the parts of it
found
in Scripture from those that are not.
Anglicans base our
beliefs on three sources
–
Scripture, Tradition, and Reason.
We
spell all three with capital letters.
Some of
what we know about the Wise Men is in Matthew.
Other parts come
from sacred tradition
along with the Creeds, the saints,
six Stations
of the Cross, and most of our theology.
The Bible doesn’t
tell us how many Wise Men there were,
where they came from, or their names.
If we had nothing
more than Matthew,
it would be hard to interpret the
significance of this visit,
and we might not be
celebrating the Epiphany as a High Holy Day.
But Christian
Tradition is long, deep, wide, and rich.
Three of the
world’s greatest paintings
– one by Fra Angelico, one by Esteban
Murillo,
and one by Leonardo
DaVinci –
all portray The Adoration of the Magi.
Anyone who sees
these paintings knows they too are divinely inspired.
When we sing We
Three Kings, the symbolic meaning of each gift
set out in the verses goes back to a
Spanish poem
written
by Prudentius in the 4th Century.
That’s as old as
parts of the Nicene Creed.
Around 500 A.D., an
anonymous artist in Ravenna, Italy
crafted a beautiful mosaic of the wise
men’s journey,
and 1,400 years later, T. S. Eliot gave
that mosaic words
in his poem The
Journey of the Magi.
The Wise Men’s Epiphany visit is a lovely old
story.
We have been
telling it in sermons, songs, paintings, and poems
for centuries because it is true in the
deepest sense of truth.
We have cherished
this story
-- not because we are certain of the historical details
--
but because it teaches us the way to
peace and holiness.
Three Wise Men came
from the East.
Different traditions
give them different names
but we
know them as Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar.
We know they came a
great distance.
and that
they were astrologers.
One of them would
have been from Persia.
There is a
tradition that one came from Africa.
And there is
actually some evidence to support
the idea that one came from China.
Remember, these
pilgrims were not Christians.
They did not
subscribe to our Creed or our religious practices.
They were not Jews.
St. Matthew says
that they were astrologers.
And astrology was
strictly forbidden in Jewish law
and condemned by Jewish prophets.
The Persian was a
Zoroastrian worshiper of Ahura Mazda.
The one from China
lived by the analects of Confucius.
The African may
have followed a traditional African religion,
or perhaps one of the new mystery cults
like Mithraism.
But none of them were
Christians.
None of them were
Jews.
And they were not
the same religion as each other.
They would not have
agreed about much of anything.
They could not have
even agreed on the significance
of what
it was they were looking for.
But they were all
looking for something, all seeking something.
When the search
finally brought them to the humble stable,
they knew they had found it.
So Matthew tells
us, they fell down before the child Jesus
and they worshiped him.
The modern
translator has weakened the language
to say they “paid him homage.”
But “worshiped him”
is a perfectly good translation.
To fall down and do
prostrations or to kneel is an act of worship.
In the 5th
Century, St. John Chrysostom noted
that
the Wise Men did not give Jesus
the customary gifts for a
great man.
Their gifts were
traditional sacrifices offered to God.
The original Greek
text says they worshiped him.
Therein lies the
sacred beauty
of this
moment so loved by artists through the ages.
These wise men who
were so utterly and completely different
from each other – different in race,
religion, and nationality –
forgot their differences and knelt
together
in
awestruck reverence before a mystery
they could not
begin to understand.
Brothers and
sisters, the Epiphany, the Adoration of the Magi,
this Holy Day is not window dressing
on the faith.
It is not a quaint tale we can take or leave.
It is essential
because it teaches us what we are here to do.
We are here to
kneel in awestruck reverence
before the holiness of Christ.
The stable where
the wise men knelt
was not a debating hall
and neither is the church.
Like the Wise Men,
we have our differences.
Human beings are
entitled to their opinions.
The fact we have so
many of them is part
of what keeps life interesting.
But the church is
not a town meeting
or
a popular news program
with a
point and counterpoint
exchange of verbal barbs.
The Church is not a
talk show
for controversial celebrities to rant
at each other.
The church exists
to kneel before the holiness of Christ,
a
mystery we cannot begin to understand.
Like the Wise Men,
we are different from each other as we
can be.
Some are liberal.
Some are conservative.
Some like incense
and Sanctus bells.
Others prefer their
Sunday morning casual and simple.
Some like one kind
of music.
Some prefer a
different style.
Others don’t want
any music at all.
Some like a priest.
Others can’t stand that priest.
And that’s all
fine.
It’s human to have
opinions and preferences.
The thing that
holds us together isn’t agreeing
about any of those things.
It is our shared
willingness
to lay aside our opinions, tastes, and
preferences
to kneel before the holiness
of God.
The point of the
Wise Men’s journey is that,
despite
their differences, they traveled together.
And that probably wasn’t always easy.
T. S. Eliot
attributes these words to one of them,
“A cold time we had of it
Just
the worst time of the year
For a journey,
and such a long journey . . .”
The cold may not
have been just the weather
and the
length may not have been just the miles.
The Wise Men
probably exchanged an opinion or two
along the road.
Their differences
must have made the trip even colder
and
even longer.
But they stayed on
the road and they stayed together,
until at last, together, they worshiped
the Lord
in the beauty of holiness.
They came to that
point without coming to an agreement.
They did not adopt
a common creed or moral code or political ideology.
But they knelt and
prayed as one.
They followed the
light as best they saw the light,
and when they met the Christ,
they fell silent and worshiped him.
God grant us the
grace this Epiphany to do likewise.
