Isaiah 60:1-6 / Ephesians 3:2-3, 5-6 / Matthew 2:1-12
By now we would have already opened up all our Christmas presents.
If we were not surprised by the presents that we got, then we may not be aware of Murphy’s principle about Christmas presents – “we always get the most of what we need the least”. And maybe there is also another one – we never get what we want. The irony of Christmas presents.
Nonetheless, it is still quite exciting to tear away the wrappers and see what is the gift, even though we may already know that it is a box of chocolates, or a bottle of wine, or a shirt, or several pairs of socks, (seems like I am talking about what I got for presents …)
Anyway if we got our presents before Christmas Day, would we wait for that day to open our presents? Well, we should, but being pragmatic Singaporeans, we would open up the presents before Christmas Day and then see if we can “recycle” those presents!
But the spirit of Christmas is to give something precious isn’t it?
A 5-year-old boy was telling his 3-year-old brother: “Let’s play Christmas. I’ll be Santa Claus and you’ll be a present, and I’ll give you away.” So much about giving away something precious …
To put it business-like, the deadline for giving Christmas presents is Christmas Day.
Nonetheless, belated Christmas presents are still welcomed, but don’t wait till next Christmas.
Although it is not stated anywhere, but the last day for giving Christmas presents would be today, on the feast of Epiphany.
Today the Nativity Scene is a little more crowded than on Christmas Day because of three additional figurines. The three wise men have finally appeared, together with their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
And their appearance is really a contrast to the rest of the figurines in the Nativity Scene. They have crowns on their heads, their robes are royal and elegant, their gifts are exotic and mystical.
These three wise men (let’s just take it at three) capture our attention, and they also stir up our imagination, and they also lead us on to a reflection.
Although they appeared at the end of the Christmas season, their journey actually began much earlier and they would give us something to think about at the start of Advent.
They saw a star, it was “His star” in their own words, and they began the journey to look for the infant king of the Jews.
The star stirred them to go on a journey of a search and to look for this king of the Jews. But it was not a straight-forward journey on first-class.
Because it meant crossing the harsh desert sands to Israel to look for this king.
Also the directions were not clear for them. The star was not there for them all the time. They had no clear indication of where the infant king of the Jews was.
They came to Jerusalem thinking He was there. King Herod came to know who they were looking for and he schemed to make use of them to get to know the whereabouts of this infant king of the Jews.
Unlike the shepherds who had a vision of angels and were told in detail how and where to look for Jesus, the wise men had to be redirected to Bethlehem.
And it was in the final stages of their search that the star appeared again to lead them to their destination.
The wise men presented gifts of symbolic and mystical meaning. Gold points to the kingship of Jesus; incense points to the divinity of Jesus; and myrrh points to the humanity of Jesus.
But the wise men are also gifts to us because we see in them the aspects of our faith. Our faith is one of searching and it also entails a struggling.
We too search of answers to our prayers. We search for answers to quell our doubts. We struggle with the fundamental questions of sickness, suffering and death, with hurting and broken relationships, with terrorism and wars and hunger and poverty, and recession and retrenchment.
We search for answers to the things that say that there can’t be a God, if God is the one who allows miscarriages and babies to be born with severe defects and illness.
We struggle with the anxiety and worry of job security, financial security and emotional security.
Yes, we search and we struggle for the answers to life and its burdens, challenges and difficulties.
The wise men also had to search and struggle for answers and directions.
But they appear in this feast of Epiphany with a message for us. Epiphany means revelation.
And their message for us is this: You will face your greatest opposition when you are closest to your greatest revelation.
Yes, like the wise men, we will face our darkness, our uncertainties, the Herods who will manipulate us.
But on this feast of Epiphany, the wise men had this message for us – they found what they are looking for; they found who they were looking for.
And so will we. Jesus will reveal Himself to us. That is His promise to us on this feast of Epiphany.