The Christmas season officially ends today as the Catholic Church and Western
Christian denominations that borrow
its liturgical calendar observe the Feast of the Epiphany. In the United States and some other countries
the feast is now celebrated on the First Sunday after New Year’s Day which would have been January 3 this year. Theologically
it is a celebration of the revelation to
the world of Jesus as the fully human God the Son. As such it
celebrates a facet of the Trinity.
Little wonder that my Unitarian
Universalists, who deny the
whole Three-in-one God deal, don’t
make much of the day.
There are several components of the revelation. The first is the visit by the Magi to the Child in Bethlehem—the announcement of the Holy presence to the Gentile world. Second is the baptism of Jesus in the River
Jordan by his cousin John, the half-mad preacher. Third is the marriage party in Cana
where Jesus was said to have performed his first miracles—proof of his divine power.
Despite the complexity of the multiple stories, in the West the Feast of the
Epiphany is largely all about those Magi. In a fact in most Latin American countries it is most commonly known as the Feast of the Three Kings, which sort of
diverts attention from the alleged star.
On the Eve the Magi are
finally added to Nativity scenes
and on January 6, children wake up
to gifts from the Kings. It was the main gift giving occasion of the Christmas season, or at least was until
ubiquitous Santa Claus began
invading traditional cultures.
In Jolly Olde England the 5th was Twelfth
Night of Shakespearean fame. It
was a traditional time for mumming
and the wassail. The Yule Log was left burning until the
6th. It was also a day for playing practical jokes, similar to April Fool’s Day. Thus all of the foolery in the Bard’s play which was written to be
performed on its namesake. All of this
gayety and mirth, was, of course, squelched by those pesky Puritans and few vestiges
of these traditions are still celebrated.
Now about those alleged Kings…First,
it they existed at all they were surely not rulers of any sort. What we
know of them comes from the Gospel of
Mathew as described in the King
James Version:
2 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days
of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,
2 Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we
have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.
3 When Herod the king had heard these things, he was
troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.
4 And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes
of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.
5 And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus
it is written by the prophet,
6 And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least
among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall
rule my people Israel.
7 Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men,
enquired of them diligently what time the star appeared.
8 And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search
diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word
again, that I may come and worship him also.
9 When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the
star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over
where the young child was.
10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding
great joy.
11 And when they were come into the house, they saw the
young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when
they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and
frankincense and myrrh.
12 And being warned of God in a dream that they should not
return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way.
Note that they are not identified in
any way as kings. They are said to be
from the east so it is likely that they were meant to represent Persian priests or Asian astrologers. Nor is
any number set. The early church
sometimes used figures up to twelve.
Eventually the number was settled at three and totally un-Biblical tales sprang up around
them. They even grew names and origin
stories—Melchior, a Persian; Caspar, an Indian; and Balthazar from Arabia—perhaps from Yemen which then had Jewish kings.
There is no reason to believe that
their visit fit neatly into the
later liturgical calendar twelve days after a mid-winter birth. In fact the kind of Biblical scholars who try
to find historical accuracy in the Bible
think that the visit may have been up to two years after the birth and that the
Holy family may have been in
residence in Bethlehem for that
long. They infer this from the fact that
Herod ordered the massacre of all male children under two years of age, not just infants.
Then there is the issue of the Star.
Of course if you are a literalist, you believe that an actual star
either hovered over the City of David,
or actually moved, leading the Magi on their journey. But those seeking natural explanations for the phenomena have proposed various
possibilities, most commonly a comet or
the appearance of a near-solar system
super nova. The problem with either of these
suggestions is that the very careful records kept by Chinese astrologers make no
note of either phenomenon in a five year window around the time of Jesus’s
presumed birth. And they surely would
have noted it.
One explanation that has gained some
traction is that the Star was actually a triple
conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation Pisces which is known to have occurred
in 7 BCE, a little late for the story but close enough for some. But contemporary Babylonian records show little interest in the event and does not
suggest that the planets converged closely enough in the sky to create a super
bright object.
Then perhaps it was a UFO.
That will probably be a History
Channel two hour special next year.
Or the Star and the Magi are all pious fiction and poetry meant to inform the understanding of the birth of the Messiah to the Gentile world. No mention of
the Magi can be found in the simple nativity story found in Luke.
Presumably the sudden presence of well-dressed strangers in the stable would have been noted by those shepherds. And why did they
have to follow a Star when God apparently had no shortage of herald angels to tell the travelers
just where to go.
But I don’t want to nit-pick a treasured story. After all,
much fiction can be truth in a
broader sense, or at least symbolic of
a truth.
Back to the Feast of the Epiphany. The Copts and Eastern Orthodox also celebrate the feast but on different dates dependent on their calendars. They also celebrate the incarnation of God in Man, but build their observances not so much on the Kings. They concentrate on the Baptism as the great announcement.
It was also much more celebrated in
the Medieval Western church as
evidenced by many pre-Renaissance paintings
of the Baptism and concerning Jesus’s relations with his cousin John.
But those virtually disappeared signaling
a change of Christology in the Catholic Church. Emphasis on John and other earthy relatives of Jesus such as his siblings like James of Jerusalem seemed uncomfortably close to viewing Jesus as a
wholly mortal man, not a partner in
a godhead.
Anyway, there you have it—The Feast
of the Epiphany. Celebrate or not as you
choose. But tomorrow it won’t be
Christmas any more.
The song most associated with the Epiphany is, of Course, We
Three Kings of Orient Are. It was
written in 1857 by John Henry Hopkins
Jr., Rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. He wrote
the carol for a Christmas pageant in
New York City at his alma
mater, the General Theological
Seminary. He
published the carol in 1863 in his book Carols,
Hymns, and Songs. It was the first American Christmas carol to achieve international popularity, as well
as the first to be featured in Christmas
Carols Old and New, the prestigious and influential collection
published in Britain in 1916 and was
printed in the hymnal of the Episcopal Church.
It has been recorded countless times. Among the loveliest of versions is by Blackmore’s Night the British/American traditional folk rock band
formed in 1997 by multi-instrumentalist Ritchie
Blackmore and vocalist and woodwinds player Candice Night with a rotating ensemble of from 3 to 12 five additional musicians on Medieval and modern instruments and singing harmonies. This track
was featured on their 2006 album Winter Carols.
