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This Sunday we celebrate the Epiphany. This is part of Matthew’s Gospel where the Three Wise Men, who are people of high stature come to pay homage to the newly born Jesus Christ. We now come to the conclusion of the Christmas Season with the Epiphany. People often mistake Advent to be the Christmas Season, however the Christmas Season starts from Christmas Night and leads to the Epiphany making the twelve days of Christmas. You may have looked at your calendar and asked why is Christmas where it is. Knowing that there are twelve days of Christmas, whereby the Magi visited Jesus after twelve days, the Christmas Season is placed over the new calendar year journeying from the understanding of a baby being born to the new realisation that this is a king.
We believe these men to be Melchoir, Casper and Balthazar coming from other texts. Out of the four Gospels, Matthew is the only one to mention the Magi. In Luke, we see the acknowledgement from shepherds which highlight the humanity of Jesus, whereas Matthew highlights the great king. In this passage we acknowledge that Jesus is royalty from above and not just a rebel from the lower class. It is in the acknowledgement of the wise, the men sent by Herod that we too come to the great realisation this child is our king.
An epiphany is a moment of sudden realisation. We may wonder at the reasoning of calling a time where the three Magi found what they were looking for a moment of sudden realisation. Although the three wise men have prepared, been commissioned, and journeyed together for this moment, the moment of seeing the Saviour in the manger still fills these men with awe and amazement. They may already know what to expect but it is still a sudden realisation being in the presence of the Saviour and not just having the knowledge of Jesus as an image in the back of the mind. Our faith is not just about knowledge but the experience of Jesus in our lives. We ought to undergo the same process. Even though for many of us our Christmas preparation started before Advent, we may not have had the time to take in what this season is about.
In our lives we can become very complaisant with Jesus being among us. The Christmas gift giving, celebrating and partying may not allow us to take a moment to embrace that our Saviour has come in the flesh. During the time of Epiphany people are starting or have already finished taking down all the Christmas decorations and have started moving on to the next thing on the calendar. This lead up to the Epiphany is not a time of trying to forget the previous year, but rather to take time to have a look at where Jesus has been for you and the surprising times where you were graced with Christ, didn’t realise and have now come to the sudden realisation – Epiphany.
