Late sixth century mosaic of the three wise men
in the Basilica of Sant' Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, Italy.
By courtesy of Nina Aldin Thune.

'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
... A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices ringing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

... were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? ... I had seen birth and death,
But had thought that they were different;this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

(T.S. Eliot, Journey of the Magi, The Complete Poems and Plays, Faber & Faber, 1969, page 103.)

' ... our death.' We might think it quite strange that in a poem about the 'wise men' Eliot speaks not of the glamour of those who have come to present their gifts to the Redeemer, but of death. Before writing this poem Eliot had recently become a Christian. So he sees the magi coming to Christ and, in the process, dying to their old life - called by Paul, the life of sin:

' ... you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.' (Romans 6: 11)

Unfortunately the letter to the Romans was misinterpreted by Augustine of Hippo in the early 5th century as witnessing to humankind's 'rottenness' and that we are all unable to rise out of our misery except by the fiat of God's grace, unable to do anything of our own will. But apart from this aberration - which has haunted Christians for centuries - the history of Christianity has another desperate side: the desire of Christian rulers, both clerical and lay, to seek power both for themselves and for their own Christian churches.

So, by the time that these mosaics were erected in Ravenna in the early 6th century by an Ostrogoth Arian ruler, the magi had become kings in all their earthly glory. Magi, astrologers, wise men, kings? Of course it doesn't really matter who they were! Indeed, where did Matthew get this story and that of the slaying of the infants in Bethlehem by Herod as a result of their visit? The only evidence we have is that maybe Matthew, who seemed to wish to emphasize the Jewish background to the gospel, has highlighted the prophecies of Jeremiah and Isaiah and our Epiphany stories are the fulfilment of them. (See Jeremiah 31:15 and Isaiah 60:3)

More positively, Epiphany means, roughly, a manifestation event, so in Isaiah 60:1 -

This is echoed in Paul -

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the likeness of God. For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For it is the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. (2 Corinthians 3:3-6)

What has happened in the 2000 years of Christianity is that the glory of God, known in Jesus as Lord, has often been veiled by the all too human weakness of Christians in attempting to secure stability and unity through physical and spiritual power over others and by an appeal to the secondary witness of texts from the past which today cannot withstand the examination of reasonable criticism.

May we have the faith to stand before Jesus the Lord who can illuminate our minds and wills and only then engage with others from whom we differ - both as individuals, and between churches or as Christians within a church where there are divided opinions. It is too easy to write that! The truth remains, in an appealing word of Paul faced with great problems -

'Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:10)

Copyright © Aelred Arnesen