Solemnity of the Epiphany

Is 60:1-6
Ps 72:1-2,7-8,10-11,12-13
Eph 3:2-3a,5-6
Mt 2:1-12

How many of you were told not to eat cookies before meals growing up?  Why are we told that?  Because it would spoil our appetites! If you indulge yourself too much with snacks and sweets, you mess up your dinner right?  But you know what? That’s the Christmas season, the big dinner: the great food that we eat, the celebration of Christ’s birth, and the time together with family.  But we spoil it by preemptive Advent festivities.  How many of you don’t feel like celebrating Christmas right now?  The reason the Church tells everyone to put on the brakes, slow everything down in Advent is to give us the time and the moment to prepare and most importantly savor what Christmas is all about.  Christmas is practically shoved down our throats right after Halloween and we burn out before we even start.  And then we are expected to celebrate Christmas for one more week?!  Yes, today is the last day of the 12 Days of Christmas and the Christmas season extends for one more week!!  We wouldn’t be burned out for Christmas if we really took the time to celebrate Advent for what it is – But you know what?  Hindsight is 20/20 – we’ll see if we can do better next year.

So today being the last day of Christmas – we celebrate the Epiphany.  Some families have this tradition of bringing the Magi from one corner of their living room and moving them closer and closer to their nativity set each day as they approach this special feast.  There’s also the blessing of chalk to bless the doorways of homes and a bunch of other little family traditions that surround this time of year.  As we know, the Epiphany the manifestation – the great “Ah-Ha!” – of Christ as King with the Magi bringing gifts to Baby Jesus.  But before I talk about the gifts, I would like to talk a little bit about the date itself – because this date is really steeped in tradition.

Today, we celebrate the feast of the birth of Christ on December 25.  Historically, the celebration of the birth of Christ is somewhat cloudy. And despite what detractors and atheists may say, December 25 is still a very strong contender for the actual date of Christ’s birth.  In the early Church – in the first hundred or two hundred years there was also the tradition of celebrating the birth of Christ today: January 6.  This was especially true in the East from the Christians around there.  The reasons for it are too involved to get into now, but they held January 6 as the date for Christ’s birth.  These two dates December 25 and January 6 ultimately became the dates for Christ’s birth.  The Church in the West – the Latin Church, that’s us – focused on December 25 as the Birth of Christ and the Church in the East focused on January 6 as the day of His birth.  To make a long story short: because we are the Catholic Church and we love baby Jesus – we made Christmas both days and all the days in between; hence the twelve days of Christmas.

However, January 6 – the Epiphany – also focused on a few more celebrations in addition to the birth of Christ in the East: the gift of the Magi, Christ’s baptism, and the wedding feast in Cana, where Jesus changes water into wine.  Of course, all these events signify major events in Christ’s life and are precursors to His destiny.  The Epiphany really rounds off the Christmas celebration with the Magi and then kicks off the next two Sundays where we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord and the wedding feast at Cana.  As time went on, Christ’s birthday was given its place on December 25 and the rest of the major events of Christ were placed on Epiphany.

Traditionally, today is also a day where we announce the dates for Easter and the movable feasts of the Year: Ash Wednesday, Ascension, Pentecost, and the First Sunday of Advent.  In an age where we all have calendars and electronic devices that already tell us when these important days are, I still argue that it is important to announce them, not because it is tradition, not because we want to waste your time, but because the proclamation – when done well – points to something greater.  Epiphany roughly translates to “manifestation” – the manifestation on Earth of the kingship and glory of God.  And when is He glorified?  The fact that He has incarnated and has come amongst us we celebrate gladly, but He is truly glorified when He suffers, dies, and rises from the dead on Easter Sunday.  In other words, the announcement of the date of Easter and these other days is connecting the fact that through the event of the birth of Christ in this world, manifesting Himself as the God made Man – He has and will truly come to save us through His most precious body and blood on that most Holy Cross on Easter.  To announce the date is to connect these celebrations and to realize that the story of our salvation does not end here, but continues on until the Resurrection and the end of time.

This is further realized for us when we see the gifts of the Magi – the wise and powerful men from a foreign land that had come to pay homage to the newborn King of the Jews.  Certainly for biblical scholars and theologians this is a sign that salvation is not just for and from the Jewish people, but that all peoples – us gentiles – now have a share in this salvation too.  So, the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh are not some white elephant gifts that the wise men found on the way to Jerusalem, but rather they are prophecies of what the Christ Child is destined to do.  Gold for a King, frankincense for a priest, and myrrh for the prophet who will suffer and die; priest, prophet, and king.  These are the three “munera” – or roles, obligations, duties that Jesus has come to be: to rule as Christ the King, to offer sacrifice as a priest, and to be sacrificed to fulfill the prophecy.  Again, this points to what will happen when we celebrate Easter – that already, even as a baby, Jesus is being prepared and destined to bring us salvation through His passion and death.

In the vein of gift giving, I know some families do not give gifts on Christmas but actually exchange gifts on the Feast of the Epiphany to follow the lead of the Magi giving gifts to Christ – it makes more sense doesn’t it?  “Jesus is born for us, so let’s get each other gifts!” doesn’t make much sense.  Wouldn’t it be better to say, “Jesus Christ is born for us, so let us offer gifts to God and each other, as the Magi offered gifts to God”?  I think this practice is just radical enough to break the trend of consumerism that consumes us during Advent AND you get all the after Christmas sale prices on top of that.  It might be something for you to try next year.

So to close, the Epiphany gets short-changed here in the West because we are burned out before we even get started for Christmas. (I cannot tell you how many times I have heard in the middle of Advent, “I can’t wait for Christmas to be over.”)  This is something for us to work on, but for now, the celebration of the Epiphany is to serve as the last bookend to Christmas and to prepare us for the Easter mysteries.  Our worship of God is always directed towards Easter – Christ’s passion, death, and glorious Resurrection.  So let us bear this in mind as we continue this celebration of the Mass: that the gifts that the Magi – and in a small way, we the gentile people – have given to baby Jesus: gold, frankincense, and myrrh will ultimately be exchanged for the ultimate gift:  Jesus Christ offering Himself for us in His body and blood in the Most Holy Eucharist.