The Epiphany - January 6

Perhaps He May Need One
Matthew 2:1-12

Today is THE Epiphany. It always comes twelve days after Christmas, which means it only falls on a Sunday from time to time. But THE Epiphany is one of the principal feasts or holy days in our church calendar. It’s nice to celebrate it on a Sunday.

The word epiphany means revelation. It has some use, although maybe not a lot, outside the church. An epiphany is a sudden revelation or insight. The season of Epiphany, which begins today and continues up until the brink of Ash Wednesday, is all about sudden revelations or insights of the presence of God. The Scripture readings tell stories of people who suddenly saw God revealed in the man Jesus. It reminds us to look for God revealed… in the man Jesus, or the woman next door.

But today, THE Epiphany, commemorates a particular event… the arrival of the kings in Bethlehem, and their recognition of God’s presence in the child. The revelation that the king, the child, they sought, was God. In many parts of Christendom the Epiphany is the primary feast of the incarnation, rather than Christmas. It is not the birth of the child, but the revelation that the child is God’s own, that is celebrated.

The story of the kings is a story full of wonder, and there are all sorts of insights and lessons to be gleaned from it. I’m going to talk about gifts. Because, of course, the kings came bearing gifts. That’s one of the things we are told about them. They brought gifts to the child. And now that the flurry of Christmas gift giving is pretty much over for us, maybe it’s a good time to reflect upon gift giving. Why do we give gifts?

Perhaps the first thing to note is that gifts have a recipient. Gifts are given to someone. Always. There is a recipient. In this case it is Jesus. So the question is: Why give gifts to Jesus?

I can think of several possible reasons. First, to pay homage. To give a gift is an act of worship, a way of enacting reverence. In Scripture, the kings are described as paying homage to Jesus. They bring gifts of great value, bow down to Jesus, and pay him homage. When we are encouraged to give the first fruits of our life’s labor or other gifts of great value, we do so to worship, to pay homage, to Jesus. When we offer and give all that we are, our souls and bodies, before we come to the Lord’s table, that gift-giving is an act of reverence and worship.

We also give gifts as an act of love. I think that’s probably the best reason to give gifts to other human beings. The act of giving is an expression of love and a way of sharing and enriching a relationship. We mutter and decry the materialism of the Christmas season. But when gifts are given as tokens of love, the Holy Spirit is a part of that. And when we share our giftedness with Jesus or with the Body of Christ, it is an act of love. When we share some joy or some talent that we cherish, like music making or teaching or some creative activity, we are sharing and building a relationship of love.

So we might give gifts to Jesus as an act of worship or an act of love. I have one more possible motivation in mind and it’s the one that I’ve been living with particularly the last few days. I’m still not sure what it means for me. Here are two illustrations of this sort of gift giving, both fictional, one humorous, one more poignant.

The humorous one first. It comes from Garrison Keillor. I only have it second hand and didn’t have time to track down the original source, but it comes from his book, Life Among the Lutherans. He notes that of all the characters in the Christmas story, the Magi are the only ones who probably weren’t Jewish, but rather gentile. Keillor thinks the Magi may be have been Lutherans because they brought myrrh, which everyone knows is a “sort of casserole made from hamburger and macaroni.” Before they departed on their long journey, says Keillor, the wife of one of the Magi probably said: “Here, take this myrrh. They’ll be hungry. And make sure you bring back the dish.”

They’ll be hungry. The holy family… They’ll be hungry. They are away from home with a brand new baby. They don’t know anybody in Bethlehem; they don’t have a place to stay or cook. They’ll be hungry. They’ll need food. Give them something to eat.

The second illustration is from Gian Carlo Menotti’s opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors. It’s about a young crippled shepherd boy, named Amahl. He’s poor. His widowed mother is struggling… struggling to make ends meet, to raise a crippled, but precocious boy. The kings, the Magi, are the night visitors of the title. They come to the simple hut of Amahl and his mother, seeking hospitality along the way as they follow the star on their long journey. The mother covets the gold they carry, thinking of how she could help her son with all that gold. But as she comes to hear about the child the Kings seek, and as the plot unfolds, the mother comes to the place where she says, if she weren’t so poor, she would like to send a gift to such a child as the one the Kings seek. The crippled boy Amahl says, “Let me send him my crutch. Who knows, perhaps he may need one. And this I made myself.”

Perhaps he may need one. Perhaps the young boy born in Bethlehem might need a crutch.

Both of these stories tell of gifts given to meet a need, whether real or imaginary. “Who knows, perhaps he may need one.” Those words of the young crippled shepherd boy Amahl have stayed with me. Maybe the Holy Family is hungry. Maybe the young boy Jesus will need a crutch. Perhaps there’s a need that I can meet.

What does this mean for me, for us today?

One place to go with this is to see the face of Christ in others and to meet their needs. We do give gifts to Jesus every time we give to anyone who bears the image of Christ.

But I’ve also been thinking about Jesus’ own needs. We who live centuries after the birth of the Son of God in Bethlehem know that God doesn’t “need” anything. And the incarnate Christ is not among us now, as a child or as a man. But what if he were? What might Jesus need? For himself or his mission?

 Gifts have a recipient, and they are not forced. They are initiated by the giver. We may choose to give gifts to Jesus, as acts of worship or love or perhaps to meet a need. Perhaps he may need a crutch, says the crippled boy. Is there something I have that Jesus might need?