A Deeper Dive On Epiphany

     For Sunday, we will share the first part of Matthew chapter 2, the story of the Magi-the Wise Men-coming to Jesus.  We will sing the hymn "We Three Kings" (most of it), but consider this.  We don't know if there were three gifters (only three gifts), we don't know if they were kings (that's an early translation choice into English), and, in God's great plan, we cannot say for certain that if they were all royalty, there might not have been a queen among the kings...    

    Now consider this.  God might be working at deeper levels of understanding in Matthew 2 than we realize.  "Wise Men", Magi, Wisdom came from the East, understanding in their Wisdom that the Star would lead them to the Messiah.  Not the first time 'the East' has Biblical significance.  The Garden of Eden, the beginning of God's creation of the world, according to Genesis 2 is 'in the East'.  The Father of the Jews (and the Christians and the Muslims), Abraham (initially Abram) is also called 'out of the East'.  Where God began Creation, where God called the Father of God's people, two examples of the same direction from which the Wise are coming to see the Messiah. Might be a thing...

    Now, consider this.  When the Magi asked where Jesus was to be born, King Herod was able to turn to the scribes and ask them flat out "Where?"  This Messianic King of the Jews was not just based in nebulous, abstract prophecies.  In Micah 5, the scribes could point out chapter and verse as to where the Messiah was to be born, in Bethlehem.  The geographic precision marks its historic precision.  We sing "Once in Royal David's City..."  The Messiah was in the lineage and the Spirit of David, Israel's greatest king.  Considering the line of David had not held the kingship in Jerusalem for generations, King Herod found this to be a political threat to his own authority.

    Now, consider what happens next (which is not usually part of our Epiphany bible readings). God sent Joseph and family to Egypt to avoid the terror that King Herod was about to unleash.  In the Book of Exodus, the people of Israel were slaves in Egypt-something that the Jews of the time of King Herod were living in themselves, controlled by the Romans through their puppet King Herod.  Thus, when Hosea is quoted, "Out of Egypt, I have called my son", in Jesus is echoed the liberation that begins in Exodus under Moses.  What do you think?  

    What follows next in Matthew 2 is the Slaughter of the Innocents, Herod's massacre to try and kill the Messiah.  Consider that there is a more implicit and a more explicit connection to be made to the Old Testament.  

    What Herod does is not the first Slaughter of the Innocents.  There is a slaughter of the innocents in the book of Exodus.  The Pharaoh of Egypt sought to systematically kill all the male children of God's people when they were born.  They were a threat to the livelihood of the Egyptians.  One survived the slaughter, who grew up and was called by God to lead his people out of slavery and to the Promised Land.  That was Moses.  Is there a parallel to be seen?

     More explicitly, Matthew quotes from Jeremiah 31, "a voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they were no more".  Jeremiah 31 begins with a remembrance on how the Northern Kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians (half the Promised Land and God's people gone).  It continues in lamentation on the Southern Kingdom of Judah going into Exile, conquered by the Babylonians (which Jeremiah was living through).  The political independence of God's people is extinguished in the Exile.  They return to their land but always under conquest, Babylonian to Persian to Greek to Roman.   

    But the conclusion of Jeremiah 31 is that, from this destruction, God will raise up the whole nation of Israel, North and South, once again and deliver them, renew them, save them, and fulfill the promises made to them by God's loving and strength.  Even as King Herod sought to kill the Messiah, God's promise will not be thwarted.  Out of death itself, God will lift us up.

    As God has done in Jesus.

    So consider this.  How deeply is the birth of Jesus interwoven into the entire history and prophecy of Jesus' own Bible, our Old Testament?  How much more is there to God's Great Plan is there for us to discover?

     

Peace,
Pastor Peter