From: "Dr. Kim Murray" <kmurray@island.net>

Good Morning All,

I offer the article which I have written for my column in our

diocesan newspaper as a reflection on the Epiphany - I hope that you

find it useful.

I really like the CMB "chalking" idea! I'm going to use it both on

Sunday morning and at our parish Epiphany Party on Sunday Afternoon.

Pax,

Kim

By the time that you are reading this they will have come and gone

again. The Magi - those mysterious travellers who bring their mixed

blessings into the pastoral diorama of Bethlehem. Who were they? Where

did they come from? Where did they go? I don't really expect any of us

will know the answers to those questions this side of eternity. But like

so many who make cameo appearances in the gospels, they tease, they

vaguely irritate the peripheral vision of our mind's eye. They hint that

there is something of great importance in the manner of their appearing,

and almost as soon as we are able to bring them into sharp focus they

slip away into the distance again. They bring gifts fit for a king. They

precipitate, without intending to do so, the murder of Bethlehem's

children. Who are they?

Perhaps a more fruitful line of enquiry might be to ask what they meant

for the editor of the gospel named for Matthew. Why, for instance, does

the scrap of tradition which they represent survive, while others, like,

for instance, the story of the prophecies of Simeon and Anna, (recorded

in Luke) seem not to have made that much difference to the editor of

Matthew? The birth narrative in Matthew functions as much more than

simply the story of how Jesus of Nazareth came to be born. It is in fact

a mini-gospel, a rehearsal of the major themes which will be fully

expanded in the main body of the work. The birth narratives in Matthew

and Luke are like overtures which precede a symphony or an opera. The

Magi appear at the beginning of what we might call the "passion

sequence" of the birth narrative. Their very presence precipitates the

crisis which will end with a figurative "death" - the slaughter of the

innocents and the flight into Egypt - and a "resurrection" - the return

of the holy family to Nazareth after the death of Herod. They represent

the outcastes, the untouchables, the lepers, the cripples, the women and

the gentiles to whom Jesus will extend the gracious invitation of

covenant community and redemptive love. It was principally because of

the threat which that invitation posed to 1st -century Judaism's vision

of itself as the chosen people of Yahweh that Jesus was crucified. The

Magi are in fact representative of humanity's yearning and searching for

God, a yearning which could not be satisfied without the sacrifice of

the cross and the triumph of the resurrection.

So the Magi arrive at Bethlehem as our representatives. We are there,

in them. That is at one and the same time good news and a disturbing

announcement. Most of us would like to think that we would bring good

gifts to the Christ-child. Gifts like gold, frankincense and myrrh. But

if the Magi are our representatives, we must also own the darker gifts

which attended upon their embassy to the home of Mary, Joseph, and

Jesus. For with them came Herod's paranoia and violence, his willingness

to sacrifice the future hope of the people of Bethlehem in pursuit of a

moment of relative security for himself. Perhaps that is why we have

always found the Magi subliminally disturbing - because they, and the

story of their adoration of the infant Jesus, remind us that not all of

the gifts which we present to our Saviour are shiny and new and nice. We

would rather not admit that we bring other gifts, like greed, violence,

hatred, bigotry and indifference to the needs of others. Yet until we

are able to acknowledge our ownership of these dark gifts, and having

done that, offer them to Christ in repentance and faith, we cannot begin

to know what it means to be redeemed, nor fulfill our calling as a

redemptive people. The Magi remind us of who we really are, and of how,

through God's grace revealed in Christ, we are redeemed.