Sunday Sermon - 4 January
This homily is the second of a two-part series. Click here to read the first.
This morning, our story continues.
Last week, for those who were unable to be with us, we honoured Childmas, also known as the Feast of the Holy Innocents. The day when the Church dares to remember the children murdered by Herod in his attempt to destroy the one he was told had been born ‘King of the Jews’. We remembered the cost of unchecked power. We remembered the children whose names are known only to God.
Last week, I spoke about the uncomfortable truth Matthew places before us: the complicity of the Wise Men — the Magi — in that tragedy.
According to Matthew, it is they who bring the news to Herod. They who ask the question that ignites his fear. They who are instructed to locate the child and report back, so that Herod, as he says, might “go and pay him homage.”
What we read last week, though, actually comes after today’s Gospel.
Today, we meet the Magi themselves. Today, we see what happens when seekers finally stand before the Christ. Today, we ask the unsettling question: What if the Magi didn’t start out wise at all? And today, we learn what Epiphany truly means.
Power, and access to power, is intoxicating. George Orwell understood and wrote prophetically about this in his novel 1984. He wrote:
“Power is not a means; it is an end.”
When we stand too close to power, we begin to serve it. Not because it is good, but because it wants to be served and we want to be the ones feeding it.
The Magi enter Jerusalem drawn by a star, following a sign they do not yet fully understand. They are seekers. Scholars. Magoi. This term refers not to magicians, but to a learned priestly caste, educated in astronomy, astrology, and religious traditions. Many scholars believe they were Zoroastrians from Persia or Mesopotamia. They are called “wise” because they are educated, not because they are morally discerning.
It matters that only Matthew tells this story. Only Matthew tells us about Herod’s fear. Only Matthew tells us about the massacre of the innocents.
The Magi arrive in Jerusalem asking, “Where is the child who has been born King of the Jews?” Almost immediately, they find themselves in Herod’s palace — asking the right question in the wrong place, to the wrong person.
This is how they become proximate to power. This is how they are called to serve power and, for Herod, this is how they become useful.
They provide information. They offer timelines. They help locate a perceived threat. They are not malicious, but they are dangerous. Unwitting participants in serving power and enabling a violence they cannot yet even imagine.
In my opinion, before they ever see Jesus, the “wise” men are anything but wise.
If they were truly wise, would they not know of Herod’s brutal ways?
If they were wise, would they not be more discreet in their quest to find the real King of the Jews (knowing of Herod’s insecurities and murderous ways to anyone who threatened his throne)?
Herod commissions them and sends them on their way: Follow the star. Find the child. Report back to me.
Then everything changes.
They leave Jerusalem, they follow the star again, and they enter a house, not a stable. Matthew is careful with his words, he appreciates that words matter. He uses the Greek oikía meaning a home, a place of ordinary, settled life. He refers to Jesus as a paidion, a young child, not an infant. Making the point that time has passed since his birth.
Matthew, notably, never describes Jesus’ birth. No stable. No manger. He begins his Gospel with genealogy — following the lines of David and Abraham —establishing Jesus’ identity. He continues with Joseph naming him, establishing his legitimacy and saving Mary’s reputation.
The birth imagery we cherish and romanticize at Christmas actually comes from Luke. Over time, we have lovingly blended the Gospels of Luke and Matthew into one story - one scene - with the Wise Men arriving at the stable at Epiphany and completing our sentimental image of the Nativity.
The only real congruency between Matthew and Luke, when it comes to the Epiphany, is this point: The family is lowly, humble, not surrounded by the profane glories of kingship. There is no palace. No visible power and no security, they are in a simple house without protection. In both Gospels they are wholly vulnerable. But Matthew doesn’t want us, the reader, there at a stable in a Nativity Scene. He wants us here - in our current state of being, in our own human, relatable context. In a house. With a child. Before a choice. Just like the Magi. Matthew is calling us to connect with them.
When the Magi finally stand before Jesus, they do not find power with this King of the Jews as they expected it. They find poverty. They find Dependence. They find Trust. They find Humanity in its most fragile form.
This is the moment they become wise. This is Epiphany.
The word itself, Epiphany, carries a double meaning that is perfect for this day. An epiphany is a revelation or manifestation — God made known, light breaking into darkness, Christ revealed to the world. An epiphany is also something deeply personal. That moment when something finally clicks, when we see ourselves, our choices, our loyalties, with sudden clarity. It is the moment when we realize, like the Magi, that we have been standing in the wrong place, asking the wrong questions, or serving the wrong power.
Matthew is telling us that Epiphany is not just about who Jesus is; it is about who we are once we have truly seen Him. It is the moment when faith moves from information to transformation, from admiration to decision, from standing near the palace to kneeling before the child.
When the Magi are before the child they see a power that does not dominate. A kingship that does not coerce. A God who does not rule from a throne, but dwells in the midst of humanity, in all its vulnerability. And they fall down and worship.
Only after they worship does God speak to them in a dream. Only after they kneel do they see and finally understand clearly enough to disobey Herod, to undo the seduction of his profane power.
Their wisdom becomes faithful when it is reoriented around humility. When they, at the deepest level, finally “get it.” They experienced and felt the sacred power of God’s love. So they leave by another road. Not just geographically but morally, spiritually and politically. They refuse to return to Jerusalem. They refuse usefulness. They refuse the intoxication - literally the poisoning - of false power.
I’ll be fully open and honest with you: I have never been a big fan of the Wise Men.
Their choices have always troubled me. Herod was known for his violence and brutality. Surely educated men would have known this? They gave him information that endangered a vulnerable family and their refusal to return — however faithful — comes too late to prevent the slaughter of the innocent children that follows.
For a long time, I found them hard to admire. I found them misnamed as “wise” for their actions were anything but smart. Then, just recently (and I mean really recently, like over these last two weeks as I was preparing these two sermons) I had my own Epiphany.
What I disliked in the Magi was something I recognized in myself. I realized I was projecting a trait that I dislike about myself onto the Wise Men. I know and have been seduced by the pull of proximity to power. I know the temptation to please authority and receive that approval from a boss or person of power. To get that “Atta Boy!” by someone who you feel matters more than the others. I know what it’s like to “sell out” for personal gain. I know how easy it is to compromise loyalty, trust — even values — when ambition is involved.
Many of us do. We see it every day in politics, in institutions, in workplaces. The willingness to “kiss the ring.” The way people betray friendships just to stand a little closer to ‘influence’.
Matthew tells this story as a warning—and as a gift. The warning is clear: even the educated, even the seekers, even the “wise” can be seduced by power. But the gift is this: wisdom can be found. Conversion is possible. Epiphany happens.
I am what I dislike about the Wise Men. We (human beings) are the Wise Men. When we truly stand before Christ — when we allow ourselves to see power redefined — we are changed. Converted and diverted. Reoriented.
Conversion is not about perfection. It is about love, humility and refusing to participate in the destructive, selfish and abusive powers in our lives and in our world.
The Magi were not born wise. They became wise when they stood before Christ. May we become the same.
At Christmas, and every time we come to this altar, we welcome Christ into our lives again. Here, in bread and wine, we encounter him not as an idea, but as a living presence. May this encounter give us the courage to see clearly, the strength to resist the lure of profane power, and the wisdom to choose faithfulness over favor and integrity over influence.
May we, like the Magi, choose to bow down and kneel before the Christ child and then rise to walk by another road. I pray that, in our own lives, may we be granted that same grace bestowed upon the wise men, the grace of Epiphany.
Amen.