Faith Works 1-6-23

Faith Works 1-6-23
Jeff Gill

How far would you travel to know
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Epiphany, also known as the Twelfth Day of Christmas, is necessarily on January the Sixth.

In the Christian calendar it marks the visit of the Magi, or "wise men from the East" in certain translations, to the presence of the newborn Jesus and his parents, Mary and Joseph.

In parts of Christendom, Epiphany is the day for gifts and celebration; in our neck of the woods, it's when the tree comes down if it hadn't long before. Across the history of Biblical interpretation around the birth of Jesus, from Balaam's prophecy in the Book of Numbers to the statements about camels and gifts in Isaiah, to the nativity tale in Matthew's Gospel, these mages, these wise folk, astronomers or perhaps astrologers, bearing three gifts whether that's how many of them there were or not, are said to have traveled.

They came from the east, the tribes and nations and peoples beyond the conquering arc of Alexander the Great, extending beyond the orbit of the Pax Romana. In this place beyond everything familiar, there were wise people who watched the skies and the stars, and who saw signs leading them first to Jerusalem in Judea, and then on to Bethlehem (or Nazareth, some suggest, but the question is open).

We don't get the details in the Matthean account, but we are told the consequences. The Magi traveled a long distance, which took a long time, across hazardous terrain. They entered a place they didn't know before, they had the boldness needed to approach the court of a distant king, by the name of Herod, and they continued even when they realized they'd backed into some vicious internecine conflict in this land.

Somehow, in some way, the movements of stars and planets and their positions in relation to the circling constellations, all told these intrepid pilgrims there was good news of some sort worth taking the effort to see first hand. Which leads me to a question.

Mark Twain in his "Innocents Abroad" of 1869 said: "To do something, say something, see something, before anybody else — these are the things that confer a pleasure compared with other pleasures are tame and commonplace, other ecstasies cheap and trivial. Lifetimes of ecstasy crowded into a single moment." Is this why the Magi came to the manger?

Contrariwise, Samuel Johnson in the late 1700s told potential tourists about a site in northern Ireland: "[The Giant's Causeway] is worth seeing, but not worth the effort of going to see." Yet the Magi, without knowing for sure what or who it was they would see at the end of their journey, continued on in the face of dangers and distractions and surely just the temptation to turn around and go home, where they had no doubt comfortable beds and knew in their sleep where the alarm clock was, to reach out and turn it off and doze another half hour.

Which makes one lesson of Epiphany, for me, this question: what news would motivate and empower me to make that kind of trip? Is there out there any learning or knowledge or illumination that I need or want enough I'd cross the Tigris AND the Euphrates to reach?

What possible information would keep me atop a camel, across a desert, and in defiance of a king's powerful and vicious will, to gain for myself, to know firsthand and see face to face?

My your Epiphany start you off on a journey of illumination and inspiration in 2023.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's made some trips, but usually just to see family. Tell him what's put you on the road to find what you're looking for at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.