Sermon for the feast of Epiphany – 4th January 2026
Fr Leonard Doolan – St Thomas Anglican Church Crete
The Three Kings, as they are commonly referred to, are a popular part of the persona dramatis of the Nativity. Their noted presence is due only to St. Matthew’s gospel. The journey of these kings, wise men, or Magi, represent a piece of gospel material, a pericope, unique to Matthew. Why did St. Luke say nothing of them? There is some overlapping of material in both gospels, of course, and between Luke and Matthew we have traditionally built up our common understandings of the events surrounding the birth of Christ. Did Luke say nothing because it was not a part of the jigsaw puzzle that he possessed? Or was this specific information deliberately omitted by St. Luke? His gospel is characterized by themes of poverty – so maybe some rich guys turning up with the tokens of worldly wealth left Luke feeling uncomfortable? Who knows – and the good news is that I’m not going to try and solve this question.
Whatever the discrepancies and differences in the material used by the gospel writers – a challenge that runs right through the first three of the gospels – today we are reflecting on the travellers who attended the new-born Christ lying in his food trough. In the Liturgical Calendar of the western Church we refer to our celebration as Epiphany and traditionally this is celebrated on January 6th at that time often referred to as Twelfth Night. (Please don’t try to calculate when Twelfth Night actually is – you will only end up frustrated).
For Orthodox Christian friends who hear this sermon, or read it, a brief word of explanation is needed, and the longer explanation you can check out for yourselves.
On January 6th, when the western Christians are telling the story of the Wise Men arriving at the house where the Christ-child is laying, the Orthodox Church, in Greece at least, is celebrating the Theophania – the revelation of God, not through star-led chieftans following a star, but in the Baptism of Christ in the River Jordan. Put simply, this is caused because some Orthodox nations follow the Gregorian Calendar, while others keep to the original Julian Calendar. So it is that Many Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas 12 days later than the West (and Greece), not for a theological reason, but because of adherence to different calendars.
This difference of date has been used as political statement – such as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church recently deciding to keep Christmas on the Western date, December 25th, as a clear statement of their distance from the Russian Orthodox Patriarchate. However, enough of that explanation – it is almost more of a mystery than the Word of God becoming Man in Christ Jesus.
To Epiphany. This we generally translate in English as ‘manifestation’ or ‘revelation’ or even ‘appearance’.
In terms of today’s feast, through the arrival of the Magi to a house in Bethlehem, we are celebrating the revelation of the glory of God in Jesus to the non-Hebrew speaking world, that is, to the gentiles. St. Matthew is making it clear that the birth of Jesus has an impact on Jew and Gentile alike – it is a universal event, a truly catholic revelation of God to his entire creation. St. Matthew’s account also makes it very explicit that the birth of this child impacts local politics and is a challenge and a threat to inherited religious power, the balance of which had been worked out by the Roman overlords over several generations of oppression.
The language that is being passed around about the event in Bethlehem will be a catastrophe both to King Herod and the Temple authorities. Herod is King, yes, but only because the Romans tell him so. He is what we historically call a ‘puppet king’. Someone else pulls the strings.
He hears of the goings on in Bethlehem, and also the rumours of… the rumours of what? Astronomers, Wise Men, Potentates, Kings? Who knows exactly? The text calls them Magi. Their journey has prompted much speculation and inspired art and literature. Names have even been assigned to them, though not by St. Matthew – Caspar (presumably he is the friendly one!), Melchior and Belthazzar.
They come to an arrangement with Herod, an arrangement that they later renage with terrible consequences. Onward to where the star stops – again, no astronomical debates about a special star! It’s there in Matthew’s gospel. Now the purpose of their arduous journey is fulfilled. Whatever earthly power and riches, entitlement or superiority, they are in the presence of majesty, the very embodiment in human form of the truth and grace, and glory of God
How the mighty have fallen – fallen to their knees. Their natural order is disturbed, turned on its head. Those accustomed to receive tribute afford worship to the greatest power – ironically the power of power that will not be exercised; God fully humbled in humanity so that humble humanity can participate in the divine glory. It is both beautiful and disturbing at the same moment.
Tribute is paid – Matthew provides detail. They are the sort of gifts that would naturally be paid at a royal court by a visiting potentate – all three gifts are extravagant, expensive, exclusive possessions of the people of power or wealth. They are presented to the King of Kings who needs none of them. It must have been uncomfortable for the Magi to worship someone not seated on a throne. Our world currently experiences the power of a few rich men, men of possession – possession of wealth, control, obsession with filling their treasure chambers rather than the giving from it as did those Wise Men of old. The birth of Christ disturbs the natural order, the order of self preservation and self-centredness.
The gifts are delivered. Honour and worship has been fulfilled. Now it is time for St. Matthew to present yet more uncomfortable material in his narrative. Feeling deceived by the travellers breaking their contract it is time for Herod to react and to act.
A warning dream from an angel tells Joseph to take his family away to safety. The family become political refugees. What contemporary resonances this has in our own time – world-wide. The big ‘hot potato’ of the political climate. What profound message can we learn from the manger, from the gifts of those Wise Men, from the refugee status of the Holy Family.
Herod the King wreaks his revenge. The slaughter of the Holy Innocents we call it – little holy innocent children whom we remember every December just a few days after the Nativity. In the Orthodox calendar they prescribe a number – 40,000. Innocent deaths that seem to Herod to be just and proportionate. It is a disturbing episode to absorb so quickly after all the festivity and happiness of Christmas Day. Little wonder if passes almost unnoticed!
Another route home is taken by the Magi. To where, we don’t know. To a place as mysterious as the one from which they came. We know nothing more – however I would suggest that they returned home as different people, touched, changed, re-formed by what they experienced of the glory of God a glory that now travels with them wherever they find themselves. We may focus on their journey to Bethlehem, but what of their journey away from Bethlehem – did they sense that were were travelling home to familiar places, or did they now feel they were travelling away from home, the house where they found truth in Bethlehem, House of Bread, as it means, in the house where they discovered the Bread of Life.
‘A cold coming we had of it, just the worst time of year, For a journey, such a long journey…’ TS Eliot’s popular poem the Journey of the Magi is better known, perhaps for its beginning, reflecting as it does the onward movement to Bethlehem narrated by St. Matthew. Perhaps less familiar are the last few words of this famous poem. These words locate the Magi after their return, and I suggest they inform us prophetically of what we might all seek to find on this Epiphany.
‘I had seen birth and death, but had thought they were different; this Birth was hard and bitter agony for us, like death, our death. We returned to our places, these kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, with an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death.’
What is it we find as we travel in our minds and hearts to that home in Bethlehem? What is it we offer there before the throne of grace and truth?
And perhaps most significantly we ask ourselves, ‘how has this changed us?’ It is a disturbing question, uncomfortable. Let us pray –
‘Lord God, humbled in the Christ-child in a manger, raised to glory on the cross, guide us to your perfect light.’ Amen.
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