The
word “Epiphany” comes from two Greek words: epi,
“on, upon”; and phaino, “to appear,
to shine.” Therefore, the “Epiphany” refers to the divinity of Jesus “shining
upon” the earth, in other words, the manifestation of his divine nature.
The
use of the word “epiphany” for the revelation of divinity predates
Christianity. The Syrian (Seleucid)
emperor Antiochus IV (reign 175-165 BC), the villainous tyrant of 1-2
Maccabees, named himself “Epiphanes,” because he considered himself the
manifestation of divinity on earth. His
people called him “Epimanes,” which means roughly “something is pressing on the
brain,” in other words, “insane.” Antiochus eventually died in defeat;
apparently mankind would need to wait for a different king to be the “Epiphany”
of divinity.
1. Our First Reading is taken from Isaiah 60:1-6:
Rise up in splendor, Jerusalem! Your light has come,
the glory of the Lord shines upon you.
See, darkness covers the earth,
and thick clouds cover the peoples;
but upon you the LORD shines,
and over you appears his glory.
Nations shall walk by your light,
and kings by your shining radiance.
Raise your eyes and look about;
they all gather and come to you:
your sons come from afar,
and your daughters in the arms of their nurses.
Then you shall be radiant at what you see,
your heart shall throb and overflow,
for the riches of the sea shall be emptied out before you,
the wealth of nations shall be brought to you.
Caravans of camels shall fill you,
dromedaries from Midian and Ephah;
all from Sheba shall come
bearing gold and frankincense,
and proclaiming the praises of the LORD.
the glory of the Lord shines upon you.
See, darkness covers the earth,
and thick clouds cover the peoples;
but upon you the LORD shines,
and over you appears his glory.
Nations shall walk by your light,
and kings by your shining radiance.
Raise your eyes and look about;
they all gather and come to you:
your sons come from afar,
and your daughters in the arms of their nurses.
Then you shall be radiant at what you see,
your heart shall throb and overflow,
for the riches of the sea shall be emptied out before you,
the wealth of nations shall be brought to you.
Caravans of camels shall fill you,
dromedaries from Midian and Ephah;
all from Sheba shall come
bearing gold and frankincense,
and proclaiming the praises of the LORD.
In
this passage from Isaiah, God addresses the city of Jerusalem as a woman—the
“you” throughout the passage is a feminine singular pronoun. This is typical of Isaiah, who elsewhere
speaks of Jerusalem as “the daughter of Zion” or even “the virgin daughter of
Zion” (Isa 37:22). Zion, of course, was
the ridge on which David built the royal palace, and was thus the heart of the
city, which in turn was the heart of Judah, which was the heart of Israel. Thus “Zion” or “Jerusalem” often represents
the entire chosen people of God.
As
Christians, we understand “Jerusalem” and “Zion” to refer now to the Church,
which is the “heavenly Jerusalem” (see Heb 12:22). In a particular way, the Church is embodied
in Mary, the mother of the Church. Mary
is “the virgin daughter of Zion” in a unique way. After all, since Zion was the royal district
of Jerusalem, the “virgin daughter of Zion” referred particularly to the virgin
daughters of the king, the royal princesses who were the most beautiful,
accomplished, and celebrated young women in the city. Mary was this virgin daughter of the royal
line, a descendant of David. As Mary saw
the camel caravans of the Magi arriving at her humble home, laden with gifts
fit for a king, brought from distant Gentile lands, the words of Isaiah 60:1-6
found a special fulfillment: “You shall be radiant at what you see … the wealth
of nations shall be brought to you.” As
Pope Benedict XVI remarks in volume 3 of Jesus
of Nazareth on the infancy narratives, “Mary appears as the daughter of
Zion in person. The Zion prophecies are
fulfilled in her in an unexpected way” (p. 28).
To
summarize, in this First Reading, (Isa 60), the prophet foresees a day when
divine light shall shine all over God’s people, attracting the nations who will
be grateful for this light. The presence
of God within his people will draw not only the traditional people of God
(Israel), but even distant nations with very different cultures, like Sheba
(either southern Arabia or Ethiopia). As
we will see, this prophecy has important connections with the Gospel Reading.
2.
The Responsorial Psalm (Psalm 72) is one of the most important in the
collection of 150 Psalms. It comes at
the end of Book II of the Psalter (i.e. Psalms 42-72), one of the most
optimistic of the five Books of Psalms, surpassed for joyfulness only by Book V
(Psalms 107-150). Psalm 72 is labeled
“of Solomon,” but was traditionally understood as a psalm written by David about Solomon rather than one authored
by Solomon himself. It describes the
utopian peace and prosperity that prevailed during the early part of Solomon’s
reign, when he followed God’s law and enjoyed all the blessings of the Davidic
covenant. Indeed, Psalm 72 is an
emotional and spiritual high point of the Psalter, just as Solomon’s reign was
a high point of the history of the people of Israel:
R. (cf. 11) Lord, every nation on earth will adore
you.
O God, with your judgment endow the king,
and with your justice, the king’s son [i.e. Solomon];
He shall govern your people with justice
and your afflicted ones with judgment.
R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
Justice shall flower in his days,
and profound peace, till the moon be no more.
May he rule from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
The kings of Tarshish and the Isles shall offer gifts;
the kings of Arabia and Seba shall bring tribute.
All kings shall pay him homage,
all nations shall serve him.
R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
For he shall rescue the poor when he cries out,
and the afflicted when he has no one to help him.
He shall have pity for the lowly and the poor;
the lives of the poor he shall save.
R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
O God, with your judgment endow the king,
and with your justice, the king’s son [i.e. Solomon];
He shall govern your people with justice
and your afflicted ones with judgment.
R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
Justice shall flower in his days,
and profound peace, till the moon be no more.
May he rule from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
The kings of Tarshish and the Isles shall offer gifts;
the kings of Arabia and Seba shall bring tribute.
All kings shall pay him homage,
all nations shall serve him.
R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
For he shall rescue the poor when he cries out,
and the afflicted when he has no one to help him.
He shall have pity for the lowly and the poor;
the lives of the poor he shall save.
R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
The
reign of Solomon is an important anticipation or type of the reign of Christ and the establishment of the Church. Solomon ruled over a multi-national empire (1
Kings 4:21), an empire that foreshadowed the multi-national spiritual empire that is the Catholic
Church. Solomon’s wisdom was so renowned
that wise men came to hear him from
all nations, even from the East (1 Kings 4:29-34). Likewise, the last time that caravans arrived
in Jerusalem bearing gold and frankincense from Sheba (mentioned in the First
Reading) was during Solomon’s reign (1 Kings 10:10). Of course, this only happened when Solomon
was at the height of his power. Jesus
outdoes Solomon, because even as a toddler, the wise men of the East are
already coming to him to acknowledge his greatness and show him honor. Jesus is a better, wiser Son of David than
even Solomon himself.
Solomon
had intellectual wisdom, but in addition to that, Jesus brings a wisdom which
is greater than wisdom, the wisdom of love (1 Cor 13:2). The Scriptures always hinted that love
surpasses wisdom, because the greatest of the three ancient wisdom books of
Solomon was the Song of Songs. It is not
coincidental that the Song of Songs is the only Old Testament book to mention
all three of gold, frankincense, and myrrh (Songs 1:11,13; 3:6,10; 4:6,13;
5:1,5,11,13,14). This returns us to our
nuptial theme that characterizes Scripture.
Not only is Jesus the bridegroom king anticipated in various Old
Testament passages about the Davidic monarch (e.g. Ps 45), but he is himself
the “wedding” of human and divine nature in one person. Epiphany is, in a sense, the kings of the
earth bringing wedding gifts to the marriage of human and divine.
3. The Second Reading is taken from St. Paul’s
Epistle to the Ephesians. In it, St.
Paul speaks of a “mystery” of God that has only now been revealed to the world,
namely, that the Gentiles (non-Israelite nations) are “coheirs, members of the
same body, and copartners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the Gospel.”
Brothers and sisters:
You have heard of the stewardship of God's grace
that was given to me for your benefit,
namely, that the mystery was made known to me by revelation.
It was not made known to people in other generations
as it has now been revealed
to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit:
that the Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same body,
and copartners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
You have heard of the stewardship of God's grace
that was given to me for your benefit,
namely, that the mystery was made known to me by revelation.
It was not made known to people in other generations
as it has now been revealed
to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit:
that the Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same body,
and copartners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
This
passage was chosen for St. Paul’s statement about the Gentiles as “coheirs,
members of the same body, and copartners in the promise….” The Magi, as Gentile
scholars from some eastern land, are the first Gentiles in the New Testament to
acknowledge the lordship of Jesus Christ.
They are a foretaste of the incredible ingathering of different nations
to the people of God that we call the “Church.”
Today,
we so take it for granted that “all people are God’s children” that it’s hard
to re-create the sensation of novelty that St. Paul and other early Jewish
Christians felt at the concept that the pagan nations were being invited by God
into his covenant people. Certainly most
Jews in antiquity did not foresee this: the Essenes at Qumran, who gave us the
Dead Sea Scrolls, thought the future of the Gentiles was only destruction or
servile subjugation under a world-wide Israelite empire (see, for example, the War Scroll, 1QM).
This
is one subject on which the Essenes did not reason correctly from the Scriptures,
because there are a wealth of direct and indirect Old Testament prophecies of
the Gentiles sharing the glory of God with Israel in the end times, including
Isaiah 60 read above. (See also Gen
12:1-3; 22:15-18). The connection of St.
Paul’s words with Epiphany is clear: the Gentile Magi from the East, coming to
worship Jesus, are a foretaste and anticipation of age of the Church, when the
doors to salvation will be thrown wide open to all the nations of the earth. Many of us watch the Pope’s traditional Urbi et Orbi address on Christmas day. It is a moving sight to witness this, and hear
the cheers of each language group gathered in the plaza at the feet of the
successor of Peter. It is a visible sign
of the fulfillment of the word of the ancient prophets of Israel, that one day
the LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would be worshiped in all the nations
of the earth. Who would have thought
this possible in Isaiah’s day, when the nation of Israel was being reduced to a
tiny vassal kingdom in southern Palestine, and would soon cease to exist as an
independent state? Only divine
revelation could give Isaiah such foresight into a future that seemed humanly
impossible in his own day.
4. The Gospel Reading is the account of the
arrival of the Magi (Wise Men) to worship the child Jesus (Matt 2:1-12):
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea,
in the days of King Herod,
behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying,
"Where is the newborn king of the Jews?
We saw his star at its rising
and have come to do him homage."
When King Herod heard this,
he was greatly troubled,
and all Jerusalem with him.
Assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people,
He inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.
They said to him, "In Bethlehem of Judea,
for thus it has been written through the prophet:
And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
since from you shall come a ruler,
who is to shepherd my people Israel."
Then Herod called the magi secretly
and ascertained from them the time of the star's appearance.
He sent them to Bethlehem and said,
"Go and search diligently for the child.
When you have found him, bring me word,
that I too may go and do him homage."
After their audience with the king they set out.
And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them,
until it came and stopped over the place where the child was.
They were overjoyed at seeing the star,
and on entering the house
they saw the child with Mary his mother.
They prostrated themselves and did him homage.
Then they opened their treasures
and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod,
they departed for their country by another way.
in the days of King Herod,
behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying,
"Where is the newborn king of the Jews?
We saw his star at its rising
and have come to do him homage."
When King Herod heard this,
he was greatly troubled,
and all Jerusalem with him.
Assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people,
He inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.
They said to him, "In Bethlehem of Judea,
for thus it has been written through the prophet:
And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
since from you shall come a ruler,
who is to shepherd my people Israel."
Then Herod called the magi secretly
and ascertained from them the time of the star's appearance.
He sent them to Bethlehem and said,
"Go and search diligently for the child.
When you have found him, bring me word,
that I too may go and do him homage."
After their audience with the king they set out.
And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them,
until it came and stopped over the place where the child was.
They were overjoyed at seeing the star,
and on entering the house
they saw the child with Mary his mother.
They prostrated themselves and did him homage.
Then they opened their treasures
and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod,
they departed for their country by another way.
The
Magi were learned men, the academics or scientists of their day. Their knowledge base would have included the
fundamentals of astronomy, which was not distinct from astrology in antiquity. Different constellations were associated with
various ethnic groups, and there was a certain interpretive “language” that
identified astronomical phenomena with historical events. Providentially, the astronomical events
around the time of Our Lord’s birth indicated a new royal line among the Jews
in the interpretive schema employed by these eastern sages.
The
character of Herod in our Gospel reading fits the personality of Herod as
recorded by ancient historians.
According to the Jewish historian Josephus, Herod was a brutal tyrant,
perhaps partly insane, who executed large numbers of political opponents as
well as members of his own family, including several of his wives and
sons. A Machiavellian before
Machiavelli, Herod’s primary goal in life was to maintain his own power, and he
was constantly vigilant against possible threats to it, especially from those
who claimed to fulfill the royal prophecies of the Jewish Scriptures. He was supremely paranoid, and his erratic
behavior inspired fear among those who had to govern the nation with him. No doubt much of the city and his court were
not pleased at the arrival of the Magi with their “politically incorrect”
inquiries about a newborn king. These
inquiries would provoke Herod’s paranoia; and if Herod became disturbed, people
would die.
The
gifts that the Magi bring are rich in biblical symbolism. “Frankincense and myrrh” are only mentioned
together in the Old Testament in the Song of Solomon, where they are nuptial
perfumes employed by Solomon and his bride to prepare for their marriage. Here in Matthew, Jesus is being marked out as
Bridegroom King from his birth.
At
the same time, “gold and frankincense” are only mentioned together in the
Scriptures in the prophecy of Isaiah 60:6, part of our First Reading. So, there is an obvious association of Jesus
with the “light” predicted by Isaiah, which is associated with the miraculous
star that brings the Magi to the Christ Child.
Speaking
of this star, numerous suggestions—some quite intriguing—have been made over
the years for the identification of this celestial object. However, some of the Church Fathers (e.g.
Origen) already pointed out that the star in question had to be a supernatural
object, since natural stars do not move or stand still, nor are they able to
mark a terrestrial location as small as Bethlehem, much less an individual
house. Without being dogmatic on the
issue, I believe the star was a supernatural appearance to these Magi. God communicated to them using a language
they understood: the language of the stars.
As
we ponder the meaning of these sacred Readings for ourselves this weekend, we
are struck first by the fulfillment of the prophecies of the gathering of the
nations to Christ. Now at the beginning
of the third millennium, one in three inhabitants of the globe identifies him-
or her-self as a follower of Christ, a total of 2.2 billion, of whom half are
Catholics. Even when the last New
Testament writer wrote, the population of Christians was at best in the tens of
thousands, mostly Greek-speaking and concentrated in the eastern part of the
Roman Empire. The incredible expansion
of this “Jewish cult” to lands unknown would have seen absurd in those ancient
days.
In
modern times, the faith has exploded in areas that were once closed to the
Church. Sub-saharan Africa, in which the
numbers of Christians were negligible even a hundred years ago, is now around
60% Christian. Though there is always and at all times an ongoing spiritual
battle, it is true that a multitude from all nations has gathered to the Light.
On
another level, we see in the Magi representatives of the scholars and
academics, those who give their lives to learning, to the acquisition of
wisdom. These Magi, however, are not “wise
guys” but wise men; that is, they demonstrate a true wisdom. In some way (we do not know how clearly),
they saw in the child Jesus a gift of God to mankind, a sign of the love of God
for humanity. True wisdom recognizes
wisdom’s limits. There is something
higher than wisdom, and that is love (1 Corinthians 13:1-13). Love is the ultimate wisdom. These intellectuals get down on their knees
and bow before something greater than themselves: the Love of God, a Love which
is as humble and unthreatening as a baby in his mother’s lap. Far from detracting from their wisdom, their
humility in the face of Love enhances it.
Those
who give their lives in pursuit of learning need to avoid the trap of
intellectual pride in order to be of any good to their fellow human
beings. The Magi are scholars who bow
the intellect before the reality of love and humility. We should follow their example.
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