Steve Lindsley
(Matthew 2: 1-12)

I am fascinated by the idea of the belated birthday card.  It’s rare I have to use them anymore, should circumstances require one.  Much easier to send a quick text or short video: oops, forgot your big day, hope it was a good one!  But in those instances when an actual card is in order, there are some good ones I’ve seen in the racks.  One had a tortoise on front who said, “So I’m a little slow…”  When you open it up, the inside read: “What?  Are you in a hurry to get old?”  There’s also one with a cute puppy: “I missed your birthday…”  Inside: “Do I still get cake?”  And then there’s my favorite.  On the outside it reads: “Sorry I forgot your birthday, but I have this problem with short term memory loss….”  You open it up and it says: “Sorry I forgot your birthday, but I have this problem with short term memory loss….”

I wonder if the Wise Men in our story today might’ve brought their own belated birthday card with their gifts for baby Jesus.  Because despite our tendency to lump them in with our other manger scene participants – the shepherds and angels, the barnyard animals,  baby Jesus and parents – despite all that, most scholars agree that the Wise Men’s arrival happened long after the others – weeks at least, and in some traditions even a year.  I wonder what their belated birthday card would’ve said?  Sorry about the delay, but there was this bright light in the sky, and we couldn’t see a thing!  Or, Yeah, we’re late, but we brought gold and frankincense and myrrh – so we’re good, right?

More on those gifts later.  This coming Wednesday is Epiphany. We don’t talk a lot about Epiphany in the church, and that may have something to do with it falling on a calendar day – January 6^th – rather than a particular Sunday.  It also has the disadvantage of following closely on the heels of Christmas and New Years, getting lost in the seasonal shadow.

Even so, Epiphany is the day we typically recognize the arrival of the Wise Men.  So, a few things about that.  First, contrary to popular opinion and a hymn we’ll sing in a few minutes, there’s no hard evidence that these visitors from the East were actually “kings.”  Nor is there any indication that there were just three of them –  that’s something we’ve probably just deduced from there being three gifts.

Something else that doesn’t get a lot of attention is the role that King Herod plays.  He, too, wasn’t actually a king, although apparently he liked calling himself that.  Herod was the Roman ruler of Judea at the time of Jesus’ birth and was known for being mighty protective of his power.  So it’s no surprise, his reaction, when these wise men from the East show up and start asking questions about a “king of the Jews” who’d recently been born.  Right under Herod’s nose.

It’s no surprise that Herod receives this news as a grave threat and something to be reckoned with.  He’s a crafty guy, so he asks the visitors to return to him after finding this new king so he can worship him too – yeah, right.  And when they don’t return, Herod has every boy age two and under put to death.  It is an unspeakable horror, and it is certainly the reason Jesus and his parents flee to Egypt.

So we have the three kings who aren’t kings, we have Herod with a major insecurity complex and violent streak.  And we have the star that shone in the night sky.  A couple of weeks ago the “Christmas star” made a