forest hill 
January 5, 2025
Celebrating the Epiphany
“Then hatred he'll banish; then sorrow will vanish”
Matthew 2:1-12
In our whole congregation Christmas pageant last month, Luke the story teller was just wrapping up his story when he was interrupted by the surprise appearance of Wise Ones from beyond the borders of the Empire. Did his confusion catch you unawares? In the Bible, the Wise Ones aren’t a part of Luke’s gospel at all. Luke and Matthew tell the story of Jesus’ birth very differently. Luke’s version includes the shepherds and the manger; Matthew’s includes an angel that comes to Joseph (not to Mary), and the miraculous star that guides foreigners to Bethlehem. Both stories have important things to tell us about the adult Jesus that those gospel writers are introducing; neither story has every element that we have traditionally incorporated into our pageants.
I’ve never felt troubled that Matthew and Luke describe different events in their birth narratives. Both authors, really, are using their stories to highlight important aspects of who Jesus would grow up to be. I think it’s most valuable to explore the truths that they illustrate about Jesus, rather than argue about which one might be more historically accurate or complete. From 2000 years away the historical questions are hard to pin down; the “meaning” questions are the reason we keep sharing these stories with our children. Look at what these authors think that the birth Jesus “means,” for their generation and also for ours.
For an intercultural congregation like ours, it’s especially poignant to think of the international significance of Jesus’ birth, I think. The star in Matthew’s story is visible to the whole world; not simply to Palestine, or to Jews, or even just to people within the bounds of the Roman Empire. It’s a sign that this birth will be good news for everyone, and not just for Jesus’ parents or their neighbours. There’s hope there for each of us in this congregation, regardless of the nation in which we or our ancestors were born.
The Wise Ones in Matthew’s story illustrate a similar truth: this birth has significance for people of all cultures, backgrounds, educational and income levels – not simply for Jewish peasants in the first century. We often imagine religion and science as competitors; in Matthew’s story, the best of human wisdom and the best of divine wisdom meet with joy and with hope in these sages, and neither detracts from the truths the other can offer.
Herod’s reaction to the arrival of the Wise Ones is also typical of the ways that authoritarian leaders respond to those who will call them to account. Herod pretends to welcome this beacon of hope, but ends up instigating what we have come to call the “massacre of the innocents.” It’s the most unpleasant part of the Christmas story – but when we ignore it, we ignore the evil that Jesus was born to put right. How many innocents, before and since, have been massacred by authoritarians who rely on terror rather than fairness to keep order? How can people of good heart find the courage to oppose such oppression, and hope to survive or prevail? For Matthew, Jesus evoked that kind of reaction from the representatives of evil from the day he was born till the day he died … and yet never was deterred from his mission, or defeated by the opposition he faced. Jesus’ followers should not be surprised to encounter the same resistance; we need to learn to meet it with the same courage and determination.
This is not a children’s story, for all that the child in each of us warms to the fun aspects of it. This is a story of a leader born into a world both gentle and harsh, beautiful and deadly, awe-inspiring and crippling. This is the story of a leader who knew what he was facing; a leader who came to make change because change is so needed; a leader who knew the risks and called his followers to engage them in courage, with the assurance that they would never be alone as they did so. This story is the story of Jesus’ whole mission – in miniature. Come join us on Sunday as we explore that together, and revel in some of the truths that aren’t always evident in a pageant for kids.