It’s Epiphany! What
does that mean? Generally, it celebrates
the revelation of the Messiah to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi coming
to offer gifts to the King of the Jews.
These wise men are the descendants of the Chaldeans, the magi(cians)
from Nebuchadnezzar’s day who were saved from death by Daniel’s ability to not
only interpret the king’s dreams but to tell what they had been. The Magi had studied the Hebrew scriptures to
find the wisdom of this man, Daniel and when they saw an astronomical anomaly,
they went to Israel in search of this child.
We Gentiles celebrate the coming of the King not only of the Jews, but
of the entire world. The News is of
salvation for all humankind who believe in Jesus. All the world has seen this salvation and
today we celebrate the universal effect of Jesus’ work on the cross.
Matthew is often cited as having written his Gospel for the
Jews. He cites more prophecy than any
other Gospel writer and is, therefore, seen as having an agenda to convince the
Jews of his day that Jesus fulfilled these prophecies and is, then, obviously
the Messiah. Here, he tells us that the
religious leaders of the Jews wanted to destroy Jesus so He withdrew yet
continued His ministry of healing.
Matthew sees this as fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah concerning
the Gentiles, that in Messiah’s name the Gentiles will hope. He doesn’t tell us where Jesus has gone or
how this impacted the Gentiles directly, we can only draw inferences from this
citation that He must have been among the Gentiles at this time. We know from our own witness that indeed the
salvation offered has reached a western world undreamed of by the people of
that day and in this we, too, rejoice.
In the new Jerusalem the glory of the Lord shines
continually, bringing light to the city, and the lamp through which the light shines
is the Lamb, Jesus. It is difficult to
envision exactly what this looks like or what it looks like for the kings of
the nations to bring their glory into the city.
All the redeemed humanity, from every tribe and language and nation will
come here, bringing the cultural diversity, the ways in which the Lord is
glorified in their culture. Their glory
adds nothing to the glory of God except to reveal Him further. We have much to look forward to but we also
have much in which to rejoice now in what the Lord has done for us.
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