3 Reflections on Epiphany - Reflection #1 – The First Gifts

Epiphany is an ancient Christian festival day that centers on the revealing of Jesus as God incarnate. In Western Christianity the season of Epiphany begins with a commemoration of the visit of the Magi to the Christ child. The visit of the Magi which is found in the Gospel of Matthew, often gets mixed in with the birth narrative found in the Gospel of Luke, but to mix the two stories together misses the unique themes and messages of each story. In this post, and the two to follow, I will reflect on some of the particular insights I gained from pondering this account of the Magi this year. I begin with the first gifts.

The first gifts given in this story were not the gifts of the Magi, but were instead gifts from God. The first gift is the gift of knowledge. It is a gift of the Creator that humans have the ability to think and wonder, to interpret and imagine, to remember and to plan. Without this gift the Magi would not have been seekers of truth, exploring the heavens and the earth for a deeper understanding of the world around them. Without this gift the magi would not have been able to read and understand the writings of others, or have the ability to plan for a difficult and lengthy journey. The magi remind us that the ability to think is a gift from God, one to be used rather than discouraged. Faith does not require us to turn off our brains, rather it should motivate us to use this gift that God has bestowed on humans to the best of our ability.

The second gift is the gift of the star. This is the gift of a pointer, a sign which helps direct the seekers. I believe God gifts us with signs, whether something in nature, or in the actions and words of others, or in the passages of sacred scripture. Signs can be highly personal, meaning something for one person, but not for others. There must have been others who saw the star of Bethlehem, but they either didn’t pay attention to it, or were unable to discern its meaning. The aurora borealis have sometimes been a sign for me in the night sky, a sign of God’s presence and an affirmation of certain directions I’ve taken in my ministry. On one level I know that the northern lights are simply the result of collisions between gaseous particles in the earth's atmosphere with charged particles released from the sun, but even while knowing this I still acknowledge that in some way the aurora borealis have become a sign for me. I think it is less about when the aurora are visible and more about when I notice them. The star the magi noticed had a deeper meaning for them than simply an astronomical phenomena, it was a sign to be pondered and interpreted.

The third gift is the most significant, it is the gift of the Christ child himself. God incarnate, the Word made flesh! This gift is beyond our ability to understand fully, yet it is the centerpoint of time – after this gift was given everything changed. This mystery, this wonder, this surprise, this babe born in Bethlehem remains the greatest gift given to humanity. While Mary could hold this child in her lap, no human can hold the fullness of this gift within their own understanding. In many ways we continue to unwrap this gift given two millennia ago, discovering a fuller, deeper relationship with God as we draw this gift closer to ourselves, and as we share it with others.

In each of these gifts the common denominator is that they were given first. These were not earned, they were not deserved, they were not lucky coincidence. Instead they help us understand the love of God, given as a gift always first and foremost. All we can do is receive such gifts with gratitude. That these gifts from God are first-given is grace, this is God’s way, this is good news. So how do we respond to such gifts? That question I will explore in another post.