Second Sunday After Christmas Matthew 2:1-12

“We Three Kings of Orient Are” – a hymn with which we are all familiar, and which we tend to sing as a Christmas carol. However, it isn’t really a Christmas carol – it is an Epiphany carol. Epiphany is a day that in most Protestant churches, with some exceptions, gets minimal recognition as a holiday separate from Christmas. Nonetheless it is a very important day in our Christmastide story, and one we know well. It is the story of the arrival at the manger of the Wise Men from the East.

Around the world, where the Epiphany is celebrated as a major holiday, some interesting customs have developed over the centuries.

In Italy, there is a traditional story about an old woman named La Befana who was the most renowned housekeeper in her entire village. She would happily spend the day with her broom sweeping the floor, cupboards, and front step. The neighbors all knew her home was spotless. What an amazing woman!

One day as she was sweeping, she was interrupted by a knock at the door. When she opened it, she saw quite a sight: three strangers looking travel-worn but well-to-do. The first one said that they had traveled a long way. The second explained that they needed somewhere to rest and heard that her house was the most hospitable in the village. The third told her the strangest thing of all: they were following a star.

Old Befana eyed them warily. She had lived alone for a long time and was cautious. They did not look like robbers, but more like scholars or wealthy merchants or possibly royalty of some kind from lands far away. Hospitality was important and so she invited them in to stay. She showed them to where she slept and they settled onto her small pallet, pulling up her blanket, and falling asleep immediately.

In-between sweeping, Old Befana checked on the strangers from time to time, but they did not stir. She wondered where they were from, and why they were following a star.

When they finally awoke in early evening, she offered them food and drink and asked them her questions. They told her they came from the East and were following a star that would lead them to a newborn Child who was the King of the Jews, and who would be the King of all kings. The strangers wanted to reward her hospitality by inviting her along to find this Child and bestow gifts upon Him.

Old Befana had been so caught up in their story that she dropped her broom in surprise. To travel with three strange men following a star? It would not be proper! Besides, who knows how long it would be before they found this new king? Think of all the dust and cobwebs that would collect around her humble house! She shuddered as she pictured it and told the strangers kindly, but firmly, “No, thank you,” and wished them luck as they walked on into the night.

Does this sound familiar? No, we aren’t all the greatest housekeepers, but we all have something that requires our time, responsibilities that we feel we must fulfill. When we are asked to step out of the familiar we tend to balk. We make excuses. It doesn’t matter if it is in order to join in some philanthropic, even blessed project. We don’t like the unfamiliar or the unknown – and even when the Light of Christ beckons, we tend to hold back, to hold onto what we already know, hold on to that to which we are accustomed.

When Befana went to sleep that evening, she tossed and turned as she dreamed of the strangers, the star, and a baby bathed in light. When she woke up the next morning, she could think of nothing but the strangers, their story, and their invitation. All the time she spent thinking about that little King who perhaps lived in a village just like hers interrupted her cleaning schedule so much that, at last, she had a change of heart and decided to follow the strangers after all.

Again, this could be us. The Light of Christ always shines ahead of us, even when we try to ignore it. But it stays, distracting us, beckoning us to come, follow!

That night, she set off on the road with her broom in one hand and gifts tucked in her apron, looking for the light of the star and peeking into every house along the way. If it looked like a child lived there, she would leave a little gift, as she could never be quite certain which child was born the King of all kings.

The story of Old Befana, as she is called, is typically associated with Epiphany celebrations, as it is related to the three Wise Men from the East who came to seek where the King of the Jews could be found. We give gifts at Christmas because the Wise Men brought gifts to the baby Jesus. But in Italy, children also receive a small gift on Epiphany, the day we celebrate as that on which the Wise Men completed their journey and, rejoicing, arrived at the manger. The Epiphany is also the twelfth and final day of Christmas, and it is the day on which the Eastern Church celebrates Jesus’ birth.

But returning to the Wise Men – who were they? The three strangers that both the legendary Befana and our Gospel story’s King Herod encountered were not kings, but most likely Persian or Babylonian experts in the occult, which in Matthew’s time would have been understood as astrologists and interpreters of dreams. This would not have been seen as odd in the ancient world, as astrologers prophesied, from what was written in the stars, the birth of other prominent rulers, such as Alexander the Great. Prophetic dreams happened to Gentiles and Jews alike – as we see in the Gospel of Matthew, as well as in the Old Testament. Both the star and prophetic dreams reveal God’s presence in miraculous ways that call those who experience each to act in faith.

The star which the three men follow becomes a bridge between the pagan astrological hopes that invite the Gentiles into God’s story and the Jewish Biblical promises of a Messiah from the “star out of Jacob”. Two dissimilar worlds, aligning in one same goal: hope for the future.

If the Magi were from the East – meaning the Babylonian empire in this context, consider what a long journey they would have had to make, it echoes Abraham’s obedience to God in traveling from Ur, in modern-day southern Iraq, all the way to Egypt and back to Hebron in the Promised Land of Israel. What would compel not just one person but three to follow a portent in the sky on such a dangerous journey so far from home? And we must ask ourselves, would we, like Old Befana, have first refused, and then attempted to join them?

We have been living through a global pandemic for almost an entire year. Our journey has been long and we do not know when the end will be in sight. It is a situation filled with loss, and one that creates discomfort. We are tired of wandering through the wilderness, all the anchors which used to hold us in place uprooted, setting us adrift. Adapting daily to new information and ways of doing things is tiring. Personal losses, whether through death, a job loss, or other changes, deplete our emotional reserves. Many wonder why God would allow this to happen, and some have lost their faith in God.

This is where our story and that of the three Magi converge. We are not lost. We are traveling toward something greater than ourselves and Emmanuel – God with us – is as close as our breath. As Christians in this broken, hurting world, we can act now to reach out to our neighbors and offer hospitality, not in person, because that is not yet possible, but hospitality of the heart. Like Old Bafana we can offer them gifts – of peace and joy, of love. We have what the Magi and Matthew’s community had: hope for a better future in Christ Jesus.

Like the Magi, we follow the star that brings us to Jesus, and, in knowing Jesus, like the Magi, we change course, going home another way. Life will never be the same as it was before the pandemic. There is a quote often attributed to Carl Jung that was actually written by Desiderius Erasmus, a Dutch Renaissance humanist and theologian: Bidden or unbidden, God is present.

The Magi did not know God in the way that the Judean people did. Yet God’s sign compelled them to become part of God’s hopeful story. Old Bafana did not know the Magi, but after struggling within herself, and sorting out her feelings and priorities, she too went in hope to find the King of Kings.

Christian hope can be defined as living “with confidence in newness and fullness of life, and to await the coming of Christ in glory, and the completion of God’s purpose for the world”. God is doing a new thing even now, and we are all invited to be part of the unfolding hope. Will you be part of that hope? Will you follow?

Let us pray:

O God, by the leading of a star you manifested your only Son to the peoples of the earth: Fill us with hope. Lead us, who know you now by faith, to your presence, where we may see your glory face to face; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Ghost, one God, now and for ever. Amen.