Sermon preached by The Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
The Feast of the Epiphany
What’s your sign? How many of you know what your sign is? Yes, I’m speaking of your zodiacal sign. I’m a Scorpio. While most all of us know what our sign is, Christians on the whole don’t live according to what the stars say they should or shouldn’t do, and that’s a good thing! In fact, there was an ancient belief that what we are celebrating today put an end to living according to the stars. St. Ignatius, a bishop in Antioch during the first and early second century, said that “by means of the star which manifested Jesus to the world all magic was dissolved.” St. Justin Martyr, in the second century, and he was joined in his belief a few hundred years later by St. Augustine, “thought of the magi as formerly being loaded down with sin, but now being turned from superstition to the adoration of the true God.” What we read in the Gospel according to St. Matthew, however, is simply that the magi came from the East, led by an unusually bright star, to worship the Christ child in Bethlehem. They were most likely astrologers, people who believed that human affairs were predicted by the positions of the stars.
We are familiar with the story, but there is much that has been written about this story. So, I am going to spend some time telling you a little bit about what we know and what we do not know about these strange visitors. First of all, they could have come from one of three places. They could have come from Parthia or Persia, from where the term magi comes. In early Christian art the New Testament magi were depicted in Persian dress. They wore belted tunics with full sleeves, trousers, and Phrygian caps. In the year 614 the famous Basilica in Bethlehem was spared destruction by the Persians when they swept over Palestine because of a mosaic picturing the magi as Persians. They recognized their countrymen, so they didn’t destroy the basilica.
The magi could also have come from Babylon, because there was great interest in astrology in Babylon at that time. Or they could have come from Arabia, where gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh were characteristic of what one would find there.
Well, were they from Parthia or Persia, Babylon, or Arabia? One guess is as good as another. What is most important is that these were Gentiles who came from another country to worship the Christ child. Jesus, the Messiah, was not just to be the king of the Jews, but the Savior of the world.
And what about the star? It could have actually been one of three possibilities. It could have been a super nova, or “new star.” A super nova is a faint or very distant star in which an explosion takes place so that for a few weeks or months it gives out a great deal of light, sometimes to the point of being visible even in the daytime. The 17th century German astronomer, mathematician, and physicist Johannes Kepler thought that the Star of Bethlehem was probably a super nova. But that was just a guess!
It could also have been a comet. Halley’s Comet appeared in 12 B.C. Jesus’ birth, however, is thought to have been around 6 B.C., so if our dating is correct, it wasn’t Halley’s Comet that the magi saw.
Or it could have been a planetary conjunction. Jupiter and Saturn are the slowest of the visible planets in their orbit around the sun. For Jupiter there is an orbit every 12 years; for Saturn, every 30 years. In the course of these orbits the two planets pass each other every 20 years; and in so passing, even though they may be considerably north or south of each other, they are said to be in conjunction. A much rarer occurrence is when Mars passes during or shortly after the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, so that the three planets are close together. Kepler saw this occur in 1604. He calculated that it occurs every 805 years and that it happened in 7 – 6 B.C. From calculations we know that the three high points of the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn were in May/June, September/October, and December of 7 B.C. and that Mars passed early the next year.
This “great conjunction” of Jupiter and Saturn took place in the zodiacal constellation of Pisces. Pisces is a constellation sometimes associated with the last days and with the Hebrews, while Jupiter was associated with the world ruler and Saturn was identified as the star of the Amorites of the Syria-Palestine region. The claim has been made that this conjunction might have lead Parthian astrologers to predict that there would appear in Palestine among the Hebrews a world ruler of the last days. At any rate, this great conjunction is probably the bright star the magi saw.
Ask most anyone who is familiar with Christmas and he or she will tell you, without hesitation, that there were three magi. Yet nowhere in the text is there a number of magi given. Because there were three gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh, the number of magi eventually came to be thought of as three. In second century catacomb art there are only two magi. There are four in the third century catacomb fresco at St. Domitilla. There are twelve, with names, in some medieval Eastern lists.
What were their names? The first known attempt to give them names comes from a 6th century text: Hormizdah, king of Persia; Yazdegerd, king of Saba; and Perozadh, king of Sheba. In another Christian work, titled the Book of Adam and Eve, these were the names: Hor, king of the Persians; Basanater, king of Saba; and Karsudan, king of the East. Better known to us are the names given in our own Western tradition: Balthasar, Melchior, and Gaspar.
In order to make the three kings representative of all of humanity, eventually one was considered to be old, one young, and one middle-aged. Likewise, one was white-skinned, one brown-skinned, and one black-skinned.
Finally, there is one more tradition around the wise men that I want to mention. There was an obituary notice in the calendar of saints in Cologne, where the magi finally came to rest. Here is the obituary: “Having undergone many trials and fatigues for the Gospel, the three wise men met at Sewa (Sebaste in Armenia) in A.D. 54 to celebrate the Feast of Christmas. Thereupon, after the celebration of Mass, they died: St. Melchior on January 1st, aged 116; St. Balthasar on January 6th, aged 112; and St. Gaspar on January 11th, aged 109.
As the biblical scholar Raymond Brown says, “We may smile at the anachronisms in such descriptions, but this imaginative reflection on the magi is not too far from Matthew’s own intent. In the persons of the magi Matthew was anticipating the Gentile Christians of his own community. Although these had as their birthright only the revelation of God in nature, they had been attracted to Jesus; and when instructed in the scriptures of the Jews, they had come to believe in and pay homage to the Messiah,” so that eventually they would be honored as saints in the Church.
In this great, ancient feast of the Epiphany, we affirm that our Lord Jesus is the Savior for all the world—men, women, and children; young and old, strong and weak, rich and poor; persons of every race and nation. This Jesus whom the magi came to worship would grow up, gather some disciples together, teach some wonderful things, tell some amazing parables, and perform some memorable miracles. But the main reason he came, and the reason that brought these visitors to Bethlehem, was to suffer and die on the cross, that all people for all time might be reconciled to God.
That’s why we remember the birth of Jesus. That’s why we remember the visit of the magi. And that’s why whatever zodiacal sign you may be doesn’t matter. The only sign that matters for us is the cross.
Note: Details about Epiphany are taken from Raymond Brown’s The Birth of the Messiah.