Compare and Contrast

 

A Sermon preached on 7.1.2024 Epiphany (I) at St. Augustine’s, WI

Isaiah 60:1-6, Ephesians 3:1-12, Matthew 2:1-12 (Genesis 1:1-5, Acts 19:1-7, Mark 1:4-11)

As so often at this church, we are trying to do two things (or more) at once! Today is officially the first Sunday after the Epiphany, known as The Baptism of our Lord. Yesterday was the Feast of the Epiphany, one of only seven principal feasts of the Church, which we also want to celebrate. If we were an Orthodox Church, we would not have this problem. In the West we commemorate the visit of the Magi (aka three kings) at Epiphany. It is important as Jesus’ first manifestation to the Gentiles, to non-Jews, anticipating the expansions of Jesus’ mission to all nations that – mostly – follows his resurrection and is the theme of the Book of Acts.

Eastern Christians, on the other hand, only commemorate the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River, which is seen as his manifestation to the world as the Son of God. The Gospel (Mark 1:4-11) for Epiphany I describes his baptism as follows: “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’” That is why the feast is also known as the "Theophany," the Greek for a visible manifestation of God. So, in the Eastern tradition, there is only one feast, not two! And so, we are going to be a little “Eastern” today and do two in one!

When reading Matthew’s account of the visit of the Magi, I had to think of the “Compare & Contrast Essays” that many of us will have had to write at school or college. If you’ve forgotten (or perhaps repressed that memory), “compare and contrast” is a style of writing that discusses the similarities and differences of two or more things: ideas, concepts, items, places, persons etc. When Matthew’s readers heard the name King Herod, known as the Great, they would remember him as the Roman puppet ruler who had violently overthrown King Antigonus from the Jewish Hasmonean dynasty (which had ruled Israel since 140 BC). Herod was a very insecure ruler and later executed several members of his own family, including his wife, because he was worried that they were plotting against him! So it is entirely in character that he fears a child “born king of the Jews” and by duplicity and violence will try to remove Jesus, his potential rival. At the same time, Matthew’s readers might also have compared Herod with another insecure and murderous ruler, Pharoah who so feared the Israelites, because they might “join our enemies and fight against us,” (Exodus 1:10) that he first oppressed them and then “commanded all his people, ‘Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live.’” (1:22) This is another similarity to Herod who, “when (he) saw that he had been tricked by the wise men … sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old.” (Matthew 2:16) Pharoah was as brutal as Herod, and equally ineffective in thwarting God’s plans. Unlike Herod, he was a powerful, independent ruler and not a puppet king!

If Herod displays similarities with Pharoah, what about Jesus and Moses? To escape Herod, Jesus’ family fled to Egypt, according to Matthew (2:15) and recalling the Exodus experience “to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son.’” Before he died, Moses had told the Israelites, "The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen" (Deuteronomy 18:15) and later during his active ministry, many people identified Jesus with this prophet like Moses. Jesus often did so himself, for instance in John’s Gospel (3:14-15) when he tells Nicodemus “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” There are many other comparisons: providing food (manna/loaves and fishes), crossing the red sea/calming the waters of the lake, but there are also significant differences. While Moses intercedes and asks God to help, Jesus acts on his own, his power comes from within. He is God incarnate and he is the new and embodied Law: "For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." John 1:17

The appearance of a star in connection with Jesus’ birth points to another comparison that Matthew’s audience would have made. Stars and other supernatural portents were often associated with special births. They were observed at the births of Alexander the Great, whose successor Seleucus (Seleukos) founded the Seleucid Empire that had once conquered Israel (until the Hasmoneans threw them out), and of the Emperor Augustus, who was the Roman emperor at the time of Jesus’ birth. According to legend, only a few months before Augustus was born a portent was observed at Rome which gave warning that nature was pregnant with a king for the Roman People, who was also praised as the Savior of the world! Imperial announcements were called evangelion, Good News. When the Gospel writers used that word for their books about Jesus, they were laying claim to Jesus being the true Saviour and greater than any worldly king or emperor. Augustus initiated an imperial cult; the emperors were worshipped as gods. Jesus, as the voice from heaven told us at his baptism, is truly God’s Son, God’s Beloved. At the time of his birth, Jesus, a helpless child seems incapable of rule and even later his power of love and selflessness often looks like weakness. The rest of Matthew’s Gospel reveals what such “weakness” can achieve!

Matthew’s birth narrative already foreshadows Jesus’ Passion and ultimate victory. When the Magi arrive, we hear that all of Jerusalem is frightened – later all Jerusalem rises against Jesus and demands his death. First, he is worshipped - by the Magi – before he has to flee for his life. Then he enters Jerusalem in triumph, worshipped as God’s anointed, before he loses his life. And the Magi bring not only the gifts of the gentiles – gold and frankincense – that we heard about in Isaiah’s prophecy (60:6), but also a third gift, Myrrh, associated with anointing and the burial of the dead.

And what about the two holy days we celebrate today, the “Epiphany” and “Theophany”? Both are about God breaking through into the world. One emphasises the universality of Jesus’ mission, the other his unique status as Son of God. Both stand for God’s promise that Jesus, and not Pharoah, Herod, Alexander nor Augustus, nor any modern equivalent, is the true and only king for us and that in accepting Jesus as our Lord and Saviour through the sacrament of Baptism, we not only become citizens of his kingdom, but also, in the words of  the author of Ephesians (3:6), “fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.”

Amen