2nd Jaunary, 2011

All nations shall fall prostrate before you, O Lord.


Jesus Christ did not leave anything in writing nor did he command his disciples to write down his teachings. What we know of Jesus from the Gospels and other New Testament writings came from what was remembered, reflected upon, and transmitted by witnesses from the beginning and the ministers of the Word. When the evangelists wrote the gospels, it was not only to preserve what Jesus taught and did but also to enlighten believers in their living of the Christian faith. Words and deeds of Jesus that could serve as inspiration or enlightenment in the life situation of Christians were easily recalled.

When Mathew was writing his gospel, the good news of salvation was already being preached, first to Israel, and then to the other nations, that is, the pagans. The proclamation was met by two kinds of responses: some believed and came to worship the Saviour, others rejected the message. The Jews as a whole did not accept Jesus as the Messiah while many of the pagans did. The pagans deprived of sacred Scriptures, have knowledge of God only through nature (Rom 1:19-20). And so the magi receive a revelation through astrology.

The story of the magi, therefore, is a miniature gospel. Already it presents Jesus as a sign that is contradicted, a cause for the fall of some but the rise of others, as Simeon prophesies of him (Lk 2:34). In the words of St. Paul, “God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing, things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God” (1Cor 1:28-29).

The solemnity of Epiphany elicits in us praise and thanksgiving to God who has revealed his Son to all, on no merit of anyone. The revelation to the magi is a sign that the “Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same body, and co-partners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (Eph 3:6).