Dear Friends
The  Feast of the Epiphany (January 5)

Merry Christmas! Yes, I know it’s already January 5 ^th and the kids are getting ready to go back to school…But you know what? The Church doesn’t want to let go of the joy of Christmas! So we celebrated on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Then we celebrated on the Sunday between Christmas and New Year’s (Holy Family Sunday). And we indeed welcomed the New Year honoring Mary the Mother of God on January 1 ^st. And now we’re celebrating what essentially is Matthew’s version of the Christmas story: the great Feast of the Epiphany. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus was born in a regular house on a regular street in the city of Bethlehem, Israel primarily because Joseph (at least according to legend) was one in the long line of descendants of King David, who was born in Bethlehem, Israel. So, while Matthew does not make a big deal about the actual birth of the Christ child, what he does emphasize is the impact that Jesus’ birth had on the world.

Remember that according to Luke after Jesus is born in the manger some peasant shepherds come by and some angels were evident in the heavens, but that’s all. In Matthew’s text, Jesus is born the KING of the Jews, and because he was a KING, his birth went viral on social media. Yes, it did! The social media of the ancient world was not the internet but the actual stars in the sky (I’m not kidding). Just as we look to Google, or Alexa, or Siri to answer all our questions, ancient people looked to the stars. The stars fascinated ancient peoples. Their movement in the night sky and the many configurations found in their alignment were considered a valid form of knowledge. So just as Google must have a “flock” of cyber specialists who know how to arrange the ones and the zeros on the internet to meet our demand for knowledge and information, so too the ancient world had their systems analysts, and they were called magi (and yes, this Greek word is related to our word magician).

You’re probably super familiar with the story this weekend. For Matthew, this story of Jesus’-birth-going-viral (which is basically what the word epiphany means in Greek: the manifestation of God), is the Christmas story. The simple fact that he was born is not a big deal for Matthew. What is a big deal is how the birth went viral. The “Good News” (again, this is what a Gospel is) is not so much that Jesus was born, but that the stars announced his birth and that even visiting Information Techies from a foreign country wanted to be the first to get the scoop on this new king. Of course, they bring gifts: gold (appropriate for royalty, and Jesus is very much a King in Matthew’s text), frankincense (which ancient Jewish priests kept burning near the Jerusalem temple) and myrrh (which was used to anoint bodies of the deceased). So the three IT specialists bring gifts that pre-figure what will happen in the life of the Christ child. Jesus will, in fact, proclaim the Kingdom of God, he will act as a priest offering himself as a sacrifice on the cross, and after his death when the women go to anoint his body at the tomb, they will discover him risen from the dead.

And here’s where Matthew’s genius comes in: These IT specialists we call Magi are not Jewish. Wow–no one saw that coming? After all, all of Luke’s shepherds were Jewish. Matthew is telling us that the birth of Jesus having gone viral by being announced by the star, was a revelation (an epiphany) for all peoples on planet earth, not just the Jewish people who lived in Israel. The birth of Jesus signals the beginning of God’s saving plan for everybody. And this really is Good News.
This is the heart of the Gospel as it was centuries ago and still is today. The Good News is that Jesus has become one like us in order to love us so much he’s willing to die for us--and us means everybody, not just people who, look, think, dress, act and live in the same neighborhood as us. The radical inclusivity signaled by the birth of the baby in Bethlehem is Good News for everyone–you, me, even people I don’t understand, and even people I find the most difficult. This is really Good News. And this is the story of Christmas – the gift of God’s saving love for absolutely everyone, from every time who have lived anywhere.

Merry Christmas!