I Think We All Need An Epiphany! … Hello readers on this Saturday morning. January 6 is a designated day for Epiphany or the first Sunday after January 2. Sadly, fewer and fewer churches celebrate this day which means fewer and fewer Christians miss out on the “Epiphany” which Matthew describes:

After Jesus’ birth, wise men  from the east arrived in Jerusalem.
They asked, “Where is the one who was born to be the king of the Jews?
We saw his star rising and have come to worship him.”
-Matthew 2:1-2 [GW]

What are we missing? It’s what we’ve done wrong at Christmas to begin with! Yes, we have the 3 wisemen and their camels at the stable and it makes for a lovely setting. However, these wise Magi didn’t arrive on the scene until almost two years later when Jesus was a toddler. It’s OK to put it with the Christmas story as there is no denying the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, but there is so much to the story that gets missed when it’s thrown in with the Christmas story.

For instance, those gifts? 1) Gold was considered a symbol of kings; 2) Frankincense was a perfume representing divinity; and 3) Myrrh was an anointing and embalming oil that symbolizes death. (Yikes—you bring a child an embalming ingredient?) Think again on the spiritual aspects of these gifts and then ask “how did those Magi know Jesus was King, that Jesus was ‘divinity’ and yes, Jesus would die a horrible death and would need myrrh to embalm his dead body?

It has also caught my attention where they came from. History tells us they could interpret dreams, that the Magi held a dual priestly/governmental authority and had the power to give rule and authority—they were “king-makers,” educated, wise, and powerful as the Magi of the Parthian Empire that rivaled Rome—and Israel served as a buffer state between the two contending empires. Talk about a “tough sandwich” – Herod was so crazy he killed some of his own kids because he was jealous of them and he hated the Jews and was afraid of their ‘god’. The Parthians were thirsty to dominate the world and they were anything but nice! One has to wonder why God chose such a situation to come to earth—right?

The travels of the Magi are interesting. They followed a star for almost 2 years until they spoke with Herod. This shook up the villain but he wisely disguised it by telling them to “let me know when you find this king so I can come and worship him, too.” The Magi knew all too well how Herod was possessed with being the ‘king of the Jews’ so thankfully they listened when: “God warned them in a dream not to go back to Herod. So they left for their country by another road.” I think we can call them “wise men” indeed!

We have heard of the names of 3 of them: Gaspar, Balthasar, and Melchior. But we must remember that the Bible does not support them being kings, nor does it give their names and how many there were. They gave 3 gifts—we think it was 3 men. Historical information says it was likely a cavalry of formidable men on horseback and camels that rode into Jerusalem. No wonder that Herod was troubled—so also was the entire city!

See what adventures we miss by not sharing this story every year? We box up everything about Christmas and head right to Easter and lose all this “good stuff in-between.” If your daughter had a new-born baby would you have Christmas together and then wait months to find out how things were doing? No indeed! You want pictures, you want to know when they burp, when they first said da-da or ma-ma, their first walk, etc—you gotta’ know!!

In this New Year of which we know nothing about how it will play out, setting our sights on Jesus and his incredible life can give us new hope and peace for our hearts; and certainly a wonderful adventure if we are willing to dig a bit into history! If you do go digging, you’ll find that the wisdom of the Magi was likely born from a knowledge and fear of the Lord and was then handed down throughout the centuries, and that Gabriel gave this prophecy from God to Daniel who gave it to the Magi and…it played out just as God intended!

How about those gifts? If you were traveling with all these or one of these, you would have been robbed because the value of each was high, they were expensive, and robbers were just as plentiful back then as they are now. It would take a huge gang to take down a caravan of mighty Magi, their assistants plus camels and horses!

Isn’t this fun, learning some inside scoop on Jesus’ life? We know so little between this, when he was 12 and dumped his folks for a few days to teach in the temple, and then 30 years later he is now a man, at 33 he dies, 3 days later he lives again. What I love about all this is that it is solid history, written by scribes, in historical annals, and it IS truth.

Epiphany means: “a moment in which you suddenly see or understand something in a new or very clear way.” When our hearts are opened up to truth of God it is powerful—an epiphany! Sadly, in our society today the truth is how “you want to make it” but not with Jesus. We just can’t make this stuff up! It isn’t a cute story of a baby, some shepherds, and crazy men on camels, etc. No, it is the true and forever work of God to redeem his beloved children.

The Jesus-story is an adventure and it will remain one every day of our lives when we put our trust in Jesus to lead us in his plan for our lives. Don’t get left behind wondering—you’ll lose the adventure of living with endless love, grace, hope and the blessings God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit has for us. So-no-no-no—you definitely do not want to lose the epiphany that changes our lives—AMEN!