Epiphany celebrates God revealing Himself to the Gentiles. The first people who worshiped the Christ-child as the king over the world were lowly shepherds outside Bethlehem. The second group were magi from the east, whom God deliberately led right to the very house where the child was. Why? So they could worship Him, too. They brought gifts. They fell down on their faces in homage. They worshiped. Then, they rejoiced and went home. That means something. It’s special.
The Old Covenant clearly explained that God intended His family to include more than ethnic Jewish people. However, for various reasons, by the time of Jesus’ birth a nasty “Jew v. Gentile” attitude had taken root in major corners of Jewish popular culture. We see this in Peter’s harsh words to Cornelius (Acts 10:26-27), in the Jerusalem church’s indignant interrogation of Peter (Acts 11:1-3), and in the incident which prompted the letter to the Galatians. This attitude was completely at odds with the care and deliberation God shows us in this passage, wherein God prepared, equipped, and led the magi out west for perhaps two years time until He’d brought them right to the very house where the newborn king lay with His mother and Joseph.
This sermon is about the “epiphany” God revealed to a community that had a difficult time accepting it. In different times and in sundry ways, churches have made the same mistakes. This passage teaches us to look out for our blind spots, because there is no caste system in God’s family.
Below is my translation of Matthew 2:1-12 from my Epiphany Sunday sermon, on 07 January 2024. The video of the sermon is below, along with the problem and solution I focused on from the text.
1-2: After Jesus was born in Bethlehem, which is in Judea, in the days of Herod the King—listen to what happened next!—wise men from the East arrived in Jerusalem. They were asking: “Where is the one who was born as King over the Jews? Because we saw His star in the East and we came to worship Him.”[1]
3-6: Now, when Herod the King heard about this, he was very uneasy–along with everyone else in Jerusalem. So, he gathered together all the chief priests and scribes from the Jewish people and was asking them: “Where is the Messiah going to be born?”
And they said to him: “In Bethlehem, in Judea, because that’s the way it was written by the prophets: ‘And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah–you are certainly not least among the rulers of Judah! Because from you a leader will emerge who will shepherd my people–Israel.’”[2]
7-8: Then Herod secretly summoned the wise men to learn from them exactly when the star appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said: “Go and search carefully for the child. When you find him, report back to me so that I too can come and worship him.”[3]
9-12: After they heard the king, they set out and–listen, now!–the star they saw in the east was going out ahead of them and came to rest above where the child was. When the wise men saw the star, they rejoiced with very great joy.
Then they came into the house and saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him, and they opened their strongboxes and offered him gifts–gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.
Because they were warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they went back to their own country by another route.[4]
[1] Τοῦ δὲ [transition] Ἰησοῦ γεννηθέντος ἐν Βηθλέεμ τῆς Ἰουδαίας [partitive] ἐν ἡμέραις Ἡρῴδου [partitive] τοῦ βασιλέως [gen. apposition] ἰδοὺ [interjection, imper.] μάγοι [BDAG, s.v. “μάγος,” sense 1, p. 608] ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν παρεγένοντο εἰς Ἱεροσόλυμa 2 λέγοντες [attributive, paired to μάγοι; iterative]· ποῦ ἐστιν ὁ τεχθεὶς βασιλεὺς [predicate nom.] τῶν Ἰουδαίων [gen. social relationship]; εἴδομεν γὰρ αὐτοῦ τὸν ἀστέρα ἐν τῇ ἀνατολῇ καὶ ἤλθομεν προσκυνῆσαι [anarthrous, complementary inf.] αὐτῷ [direct obj.]
[2] ἀκούσας [adverbial–temporal] δὲ [transition] ὁ βασιλεὺς Ἡρῴδης [nom. app] ἐταράχθη [BDAG, s.v. “ταράσσω,”sense 1, p. 990; LSJ, s.v., p. 1757] καὶ πᾶσα Ἱεροσόλυμα μετʼ αὐτοῦ, 4 καὶ [conclusion] συναγαγὼν πάντας τοὺς ἀρχιερεῖς καὶ γραμματεῖς τοῦ λαοῦ [partitive–Jewish, not secular advisors] ἐπυνθάνετο παρʼ αὐτῶν ποῦ ὁ χριστὸς γεννᾶται [futuristic present] 5 οἱ δὲ εἶπαν αὐτῷ· ἐν Βηθλέεμ τῆς Ἰουδαίας [partitive]· οὕτως [adverb of manner] γὰρ γέγραπται διὰ [agency] τοῦ προφήτου· 6 καὶ σὺ Βηθλέεμ, γῆ Ἰούδα, οὐδαμῶς ἐλαχίστη εἶ ἐν τοῖς ἡγεμόσιν Ἰούδα ἐκ σοῦ γὰρ [explanatory] ἐξελεύσεται ἡγούμενος [substantival], ὅστις ποιμανεῖ τὸν λαόν μου τὸν Ἰσραήλ [acc. apposition].
[3] Τότε Ἡρῴδης λάθρᾳ καλέσας [BDAG, s.v., sense 3, p. 502] τοὺς μάγους [dir. obj.] ἠκρίβωσεν παρʼ αὐτῶν τὸν χρόνον τοῦ φαινομένου ἀστέρος, 8 καὶ πέμψας αὐτοὺς εἰς Βηθλέεμ εἶπεν· πορευθέντες ἐξετάσατε ἀκριβῶς περὶ τοῦ παιδίου· ἐπὰν δὲ εὕρητε, ἀπαγγείλατέ μοι, ὅπως κἀγὼ ἐλθὼν προσκυνήσω αὐτῷ
[4] Οἱ δὲ ἀκούσαντες τοῦ βασιλέως ἐπορεύθησαν καὶ ἰδοὺ ὁ ἀστήρ, ὃν εἶδον ἐν τῇ ἀνατολῇ, προῆγεν αὐτούς, ἕως ἐλθὼν ἐστάθη ἐπάνω οὗ ἦν τὸ παιδίον. 10 ἰδόντες δὲ τὸν ἀστέρα ἐχάρησαν χαρὰν μεγάλην σφόδρα. 11 καὶ ἐλθόντες εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν εἶδον τὸ παιδίον μετὰ Μαρίας τῆς μητρὸς αὐτοῦ, καὶ πεσόντες προσεκύνησαν αὐτῷ καὶ ἀνοίξαντες τοὺς θησαυροὺς αὐτῶν προσήνεγκαν αὐτῷ δῶρα, χρυσὸν καὶ λίβανον καὶ σμύρναν. 12 Καὶ χρηματισθέντες [adverbial, causal] κατʼ ὄναρ μὴ ἀνακάμψαι πρὸς Ἡρῴδην, διʼ ἄλλης ὁδοῦ ἀνεχώρησαν εἰς τὴν χώραν αὐτῶν.
The Eccentric Fundamentalist 