Epiphany is the celebration of God revealing Christ to us because we could never intuitively figure it out. God reveals Christ to us, and “us” has no limits when it comes to God’s work in revealing His Son to be our Savior. Any notions of “us” and “them” are erased under the mercy of God. God’s revelation extends to outsiders like the Magi. When the original readers of Matthew’s Gospel got to Chapter 2, verse 1, they would not have thought of wise men. They would have thought of pagan outsiders. They would have said: “Magi! What are they doing here? Them? They’re outsiders.” One might even expect their foolishness to disqualify the Magi from meeting the Christ. First, the magi go to Jerusalem, the wrong city. They clearly were not faithful readers of the Old Testament Scriptures, but it is an easy mistake to make. They are looking for the one born “king of the Jews,” so they head to where the king of the Jews lives. The king of the Jews, Herod, is in Jerusalem. The thing about Herod is, well, Herod does not play well with others. The Magi went to Jerusalem to ask about the new king, and: “When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.”
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