Today the
church celebrates Epiphany – known to good Germans, such as His Holiness
Benedict XVI, as Drei-Königs Tag, or Three Kings' Day. This day we focus our
worship and faith on the Three Wise Men, or Magi (I'm not as sure that they
were actual kings… but I wasn't there, either).
We are told
that when they found the infant (or toddler) Jesus, they presented Him with
three gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. But before we look at the pointed
significance of these three particular gifts – and the source of the possible
misidentification of these astronomer-sages as kings, and then move into a final
quote for this most beautiful of seasons – let me back up a moment.
I said
"toddler" above because it seems likely – basing this on the
scriptural account – that Jesus may have been almost two years
old by the time these mysterious men showed up. Their inquiries
directly of the puppet/patsy ruler at the time tragically triggered the
massacre of, I would guess, dozens (or more) of young boys. (The Eastern Church
says thousands.) The Church calls them "The Holy
Innocents", these poor lads being the very first of all people
to die for Jesus' sake, and simply because of where and when they'd been born.
The Magi seem
to have been learned in the lore and traditions of the peoples of that part of
the world, and possibly of farther realms as well (the Zoroastrians
most particularly). In an era when there was little distinction made between
astronomy and astrology, these were likely men with quite a breadth and depth
of knowledge far beyond the superstition that sufficed as "science"
for most people. This odd star (planetary conjunction, supernova; who knows?)
was for them just confirmation that something great had come about. Being men
of science, they sought as well to confirm this – and, it turns out, as much
for the people who heard and witnessed them… and ultimately for the ages as
well.
The online footnote
to Matthew 2:11 offers three Old-Testament passages as suggestions for why,
over time, these men came to be regarded as "kings": verses 10
and 15
in Psalm 72, where mention is made of kings doing homage; and in a prophecy of
the Messiah in Isaiah (a book rich in messianic prophecy throughout) 60:6,
which in fact mentions "bearing gold and frankincense".
So. Gold is
quite naturally symbolic of wealth, and here represents Jesus' role as king –
as the Magi, in fact, referred to him.
Frankincense
is, obviously, a kind of incense: it comes in the form of a dried,
crystalline resin; one of its many aromatic uses down through the ages has
been in religious ceremonies. Thus for Jesus, it represents his role as prophet
and religious leader.
Myrrh
may possibly have filled Mary and Joseph with some unease: also a kind of
resin, or oil, it was primarily used in embalming, and here represents Jesus'
own ultimate martyrdom.
I hope these
men – through translators, or possibly by their own command of Aramaic or
Hebrew, or Greek – did at least explain to Joseph and Mary the significance and
symbolism of these three gifts. Being quite well educated, they may have been
teachers as well, and so the kindness of an explanation would have been
natural. In fact, they still are teachers…
But I really
want to wrap up these Twelve Days of mullings over some of the particular
significances of Jesus' birth, and life, by quoting someone who knows a good
deal more about these things. Having mentioned him at the top of this posting,
I turn back again to His Holiness, and his Christmas-Eve homily of 2006. You
can find the full text here; I'm including parts of it below.
The Pope
focuses in particular on the aspects of Jesus' birth concerning simplicity,
poverty, and humility – exactly what I've been spotlighting here since
Christmas. I was startled to find that I'd been paralleling him, when I read
this text for the first time only a few days ago. I'm not so vain as to even
suggest that "great minds think alike" in this instance, nor that God
might have been steering the direction of my thought to follow the Pope's. More
likely, our co-pastor's dwelling on these points himself in his own
Christmas-Eve homily this year may have been fed by Pope Benedict's words from
last Christmas… and I just listened, and read some of the same Biblical
passages, and thought, and prayed, and found myself in the same channel.
Here, from the
Pope's midnight-Mass homily, 2006:
Nothing
miraculous, nothing extraordinary, nothing magnificent, is given to the
shepherds as a sign. All they will see is a child wrapped in swaddling clothes,
one who, like all children, needs a mother's care; a child born in a stable,
who therefore lies not in a cradle but in a manger.
God's
sign is the baby in need of help and in poverty. Only in their hearts will the
shepherds be able to see that this baby fulfills the promise
of the prophet Isaiah: "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given;
and the government will be upon his shoulder". Exactly the same sign has
been given to us. We too are invited by the angel of God, through the message
of the Gospel, to set out in our hearts to see the Child lying in the manger.
God's
sign is simplicity. God's sign is the baby. God's sign is that He makes Himself
small for us. This is how He reigns. He does not come with power and outward
splendor. He comes as a baby – defenseless and in need of our help. He does not
want to overwhelm us with His strength. He takes away our fear of His
greatness. He asks for our love: so He makes himself a child. He wants nothing
other from us than our love, through which we spontaneously learn to enter into
His feelings, His thoughts, and His will – we learn to live with Him and to
practice with Him that humility of renunciation that belongs to the very
essence of love. God made Himself small so that we could understand Him,
welcome Him, and love Him.
The
Fathers of the Church, in their Greek translation of the Old Testament, found a
passage from the prophet Isaiah that Paul also quotes in order to show how
God's new ways had already been foretold in the Old Testament. There we read:
"God made his Word short, He abbreviated it" (Isaiah
10:23; Romans 9:28). [Note: my
online reference does not match the Pope's. His homily is translated from
Italian into English for l'Osservatorio Romano – obviously two very
different scriptural translations are involved; any error here is mine.] The
Fathers interpreted this in two ways. The Son Himself is the Word,
the Logos; is the eternal Word that became small – small enough to fit into a
manger. He became a child, so that the Word could be grasped by us. In this way
God teaches us to love the little ones. In this way He teaches us to love the
weak. In this way He teaches us respect for children. The Child of Bethlehem
directs our gaze toward all, particularly toward children who suffer and are
abused in the world, the born and the unborn; toward children who are placed as
soldiers in a violent world; toward children who have to beg; toward children
who suffer deprivation and hunger; toward children who are unloved. In all of
these it is the Child of Bethlehem who is crying out to us; it is the God Who
has become small who appeals to us.
(Let
us pray this night that the brightness of God's love may enfold all these
children. Let us ask God to help us do our part so that the dignity of children
may be respected. May they all experience the light of love, which humankind
needs so much more than the material necessities of life.)
All
this is conveyed by the sign that was given to the shepherds, and is given also
to us: the Child born for us, the Child in whom God became small for us. Let us
ask the Lord to grant us the grace of looking upon the crib this night with the
simplicity of the shepherds, so as to receive the joy with
which they returned home. Let us ask Him to give us the humility and
the faith with which St. Joseph looked upon the Child that Mary had conceived
by the Holy Spirit. Let us ask the Lord to let us look upon Him with that same
love with which Mary saw Him. And let us pray that in this way the light that
the shepherds saw will shine upon us too, and that what the angels sang
that night will be accomplished throughout the world: "Glory to God in the
highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased". Amen!
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