Lectionary Readings: Year A, The Feast of the Epiphany
Have you run across the TV show called The Great British Bake Off? Multiple amateur contestants try to impress the judges with their creations. Anything from cake that looks like a beaver to pastries that look like fruit, to whatever else. There’s other shows that do the same thing – always a contest of some sort – with varying degrees of success. For those who are still too amateurish to get onto a show like this, they will often post their attempts to recreate something from one of these shows and usually in the form of a before and after picture – an “expectation” picture versus the “reality” of what they created. Usually, the reality is far from the expectation.
I know that if I managed to produce the one on the right, I would not want to post it online. I’d wait until I got just a little bit better at making unique cakes before I posted proof of my lack of skills.
And, if you’re here on a Tuesday morning, on the Feast of Epiphany, you’re probably wondering why on earth I would be showing pictures of Olaf from the movie Frozen in cake form. Especially since this is supposed to be the day we celebrate the arrival of the wise men from the east, who came to pay homage to the child king. The birth of the king who would provide salvation for his people Israel: the Messiah.
Let’s take a quick look at who these wise men were. At least what we think we know about them. They would likely have been descendents of the Israelites who lived in Babylon – those that decided not to return to Israel, but stayed there. Cousins to the Israelites, as it were. They would have been highly educated; they would have studied the Jewish scriptures, and would have spent the time searching for the signs that would indicate when the Messiah was to be born. And when one of those signs showed up in the form of a star, they decided to act on their knowledge, to act on their faith, and head toward the star, to see if their interpretations were correct. To see if the King of Israel would, in fact, be born there where the star directed them.
And so, on their journey, they arrive in Israel. And we see that they don’t have complete knowledge of what is going on in the prophecy of the Messiah. They have some knowledge that pointed them in the right direction, but they didn’t have the total picture. So they stop off at Herod’s palace, and they question the chief priest and the scribes, and Herod, the current “King of the Jews,” about where the “King of the Jews” would be born. They ask about the King of the Jews, because they too, like everyone else, were expecting a human king who would rule with military might, and free the people from Roman occupation and restore Israel to independence. And so they ask Herod about this baby king.
Think about this: the Wise Men from the East, thinking that those in Israel would be overjoyed at the birth of the Messiah, ask the current king of the Jews where they can find the newborn “King of the Jews.” Not exactly a wise move. Unless they thought that every person in Israel would be as excited about the coming Messiah as they were.
But Herod instead seemed to go through the process of first being confused: “Huh? I’m the King of the Jews.” To then being frightened: “Wait? There’s another king coming? Will he get rid of me? WIll I lose my power?” In the end, full of anger and hatred, and driven by his fear, he asked the wise men to tell him exactly when the star appeared, so that he can find out exactly when the child was born, and so that he would know what age of child this newborn king would be. Herod felt threatened, and so he wanted to kill the child Jesus.
But we are more concerned about the wise men today, and not so much with Herod’s motivations for wanting to kill Jesus. When the wise men entered the house where Jesus was, they found the mother and her child there, and they bent down and paid the child homage, presenting him with the gifts of Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh.
Now, the Greek word that was translated as ‘homage’ here means ‘to pay respect, as to one’s human superiors.’ Pay respect, as to a king. But still, a human king. You see, at that very moment when they first entered the house where they saw the child with his mother, they were still expecting an earthly king, an earthly Messiah, someone to be the King of the Jews and be the salvation of his people through military might. Someone to be the strongman. That was the result of their studies of the scriptures and the cultural expectation of their time. This is why Herod was afraid, after all. Someone who would come and take Herod’s power by force.
But, as these Wise Men spent time with the child they slowly came to grasp what was going on. They could ask themselves why Herod had responded with fear, and why the leaders of the people weren’t as excited to learn of the fulfillment of a prophecy as the wise men themselves were. And they could then be free to understand the importance of that child at that moment. They humbled themselves to the point of paying respect to a baby, offering gifts fit for a king. And somewhere in that act of humility, somewhere in the act of paying respect to a baby, they experienced a true Epiphany, and they said to themselves:
“This is no human child”, and
“This is no earthly king,” and
“This … is not at all what we were expecting.”
And then, at that moment, homage became worship.
Reality had broken all their expectations. Reality had broken into what they had hoped to see, and provided something more amazing than they could have hoped for or imagined. You see, they had been expecting to pay homage – respect – to the earthly king who would free Israel from their earthly chains.
And instead, they come to see God.
This Feast of the Epiphany is called an “epiphany” because the word means “to reveal,” or a “manifestation of the divine or supernatural” in this world. They had expected a human king, and instead, the reality was that this child was God. Instead of seeing the salvation of Israel alone, they saw that God had planned for the salvation of all people, including those from outside the nation of Israel. That is, these men from the east had come to realize that their very own salvation rested in this child.
They had promised King Herod to return back by way of Jerusalem and tell him about the child. But after this encounter with God incarnate, they are changed. They are warned in a dream that they are not to return to Jerusalem to Herod, and they comply and go home by a different road.
An encounter with the divine changes you. And this change in the wise men had clearly changed their minds and hearts about this little child. Their expectation, it turns out, had been woefully inadequate compared to the reality of what they found.
I would contend that our own expectations of God often fall woefully short of the reality of God. But, if we seek God like these wise men did, then we too will find a reality of God revealed in our own lives that exceeds what we could have hoped or imagined.
[There was no video recording or live stream of this service.]
[This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on January 6, 2026.]