I love the liturgy for Lessons and Carols that includes the Bidding Prayer we shared on Christmas Eve:

Dear People of God: this year, more than ever, we yearn for the message and power of Christmas. In the story of God’s unwavering love and steadfast commitment we hear words of consolation and hope for a world torn apart by violence and war. In this dark time of fear and violence in the world, it is the promise of peace on earth and goodwill among the peoples of the world that, like a shining star, draws us to the stable in Bethlehem. There we find, wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger, the child in whom the hopes and fears of all the years are reconciled for ever.

As we stand on the threshold of a New Year, the story of Epiphany comes to us as good news. We yearn for the message and power of Christmas.

Of all the four gospels, only Matthew tells the wondrous story of the visit of the magi that we celebrate on Epiphany. It is a story that comes to us with good news as we mark a New Year.

In his recent commentary on Matthew (2006), Stanley Hauerwas of Duke observes that sentimentality is one of the greatest enemies of understanding the gospel, especially the Christmas story and the events surrounding the birth of Jesus. Our sentimentality can eclipse what the text reveals and doesn’t reveal. A good example of that is the story of the Magi. When we hear the story retold or we see it illuminated in pictures, we more often see three men, dressed in royal garb, journeying to Bethlehem on camels bearing gifts.

We don’t know that there were three. That particular number was a later century attribution to match the three gifts mentioned.  We sing the story: “We three kings of orient are….” but the wise men were not kings. In the ancient world in the region of Persia and Babylonia, a magos (which is the singular of magi) was a wise man or astrologer who specialized in the reading of the stars. They would have taken to any anomaly in the heavens because they looked for signs. They noticed something that apparently escaped the noticed of ordinary people.

Matthew was piecing this marvelous mystery together. Writing to a Jewish audience, he paid particular attention to the presence of Gentiles and saw it as a fulfillment to OT prophecy. Matthew makes more reference to the Hebrew Scriptures than any of the four gospel writers.  You may have noticed that already in our Isaiah text when we read:

the Lord will arise upon you,
and his glory will appear over you.
Nations shall come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

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