In keeping with the ancient practice, following the proclamation of the Epiphany Gospel, I just chanted the announcement of Easter and the Moveable Feasts for this liturgical year.
Before the age of mass produced calendars and smart phones, the chanting of the feasts was a practical necessity; now, we do it as a way of remaining rooted in our Catholic tradition; the light of faith, the light of our Catholic Tradition is something that we’ve inherited from ages past, and it’s up to us to keep the light of faith burning in this darkened age.
Light. The Feast of the Epiphany sheds light upon the identity of the child born in Bethlehem, a light which the Catholic Church is called to manifest throughout the world.
“What child is this?” asks that beautiful Christmas carol. To an ordinary onlooker, he is just another child born into poverty—this one so unfortunate that he is born in a stable, amidst the filth of beasts of burden. There is no crib, so he is laid in the feeding trough. But then something interesting happens. As if choreographed by heaven, the christmas star, a spotlight from heaven shines upon the stable, and three strange figures approach the stable, and the fall prostrate before the child.
What child is this, that these learned men—these magi—these royal philosopher astrologers from the east—having traveled a thousand miles, from Babylon to Bethlehem, see him, and fall flat on their faces?
What child is this that after doing him homage, they offer him gold, frankincense, and myrrh? Who did they think this child was to offer him these strange gifts?
Well, they had studied and pondered the ancient jewish prophecies, and they believed this child to be a king, the king of king and lord of lords, and so they brought him gold. The first gift: gold fit for a king. By the gift of gold they acknowledged the child to be the long-awaited heir to the Davidic Kingdom. A king who would gather all the scattered peoples of the earth into a single kingdom. A king who would rule over the whole earth—over a kingdom that would last forever. An eternal and universal kingdom, a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace. And a king who would make his dwelling place among his people.
The prophet Zechariah says that this king “shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne.” He would not only be a king, but a priest. And hence the second gift—the gift of frankincense. In the book of Exodus, Aaron and his sons were consecrated to God as priests with frankincense.
Just like the smoke of the sweet smelling incense rises up to God, the priest’s job is to offer sacrifice to God on behalf of the people--to offer sacrifice for peace and blessing and healing and favor and the forgiveness of sins. And so the gift of frankincense acknowledges the identity of the child as priest—the high priest of the One True God—the fulfillment of the priesthood.
And then the final gift, the bitter gift, the gift of Myrrh. Myrrh was used throughout the scriptures in many different ways: for purification, for anointing, as a medicine and a painkiller, as a sort of perfume for the wedding bed, and also for the anointing dead bodies at the time of burial.
Myrrh, like frankincense is a sort of resin cultivated from trees. Myrrh is extracted by piercing the tree’s heartwood and allowing the resin to trickle out into bitter red droplets called tears. Even the process of cultivating myrrh makes us think of the sort of death the Lord would endure—pierced on the cross for our sins and laid in the tomb, so that we may be healed, and cleansed, so and presented to God as a pure and spotless bride.
What child is this? Through the gift of Myrrh, the Magi showed that this child through his suffering and death would bring about our healing and purification and union with God.
Throughout the centuries there have been attempts to reduce Jesus to a moral teacher—simply a good role model of the morals we should adopt. In the early 1800s for example, Thomas Jefferson composed a sort of alternative bible, in which he attempted to extract all of the moral principles of Jesus’ teaching from the new testament, while leaving behind anything that hinted at the Lord’s divine mission and establishing the Church. Jefferson’s Bible contains a bit of the Christmas story, how the child Jesus was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. But it omits any reference to today’s Gospel of the Magi and the gifts they brought. For the gifts of the Magi show that the child is much more than a moral teacher, guru or life coach. He is king, priest, and savior.
Jefferson, a wonderful statesman, but a lousy theologian, and so many of our contemporaries, deny that Jesus is anything more than a moral teacher. They believe that human flourishing and blessedness can be reached simply by human efforts. But God directs us to a higher good than human frailty can attain on its own. Jesus is not simply a frail human teacher with some good ideas about living an upstanding life. He is more than that. He is king, priest, and savior, and so we owe him more than an interested ear. We, like the wise men, owe him our complete homage. We journey to him and fall prostrate before him. We like the magi bring him the gold, frankincense, and myrrh of our lives—the honor, obedience, and worship we owe to God.
And by allowing the fullness of his light to shine in our lives, in the words of our collect today, we are able to pass through the shadows of this world and reach the brightness of our eternal home. Picking which moral teachings we wish to follow is not enough in order to obtain heaven.
“What child is this?” How we answer that question, how we allow that question to shape our earthly life will determine our eternity. Will we go a search diligently for him, and fall down in worship before him, or will we, like Herod, sit in our palaces lazily, and leave the work of worship and service to others—the spreading of the light of His Gospel.
May this new year be filled with gifts, the gifts of homage, prayer, worship, obedience, gratitude, honor and faith, given to Him, every day, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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