Words on the Word
Epiphany
Isaiah 60:1-6: At this sight you will grow radiant.
Ephesians 3.2-6: The pagans are parts of the same body.
Matthew 2.1-12: Seeing the star, they were filled with joy.
Throughout Advent we sing, at vespers, a hymn from the seventh century, still the early Iron Age in our way of counting. There wasn’t a lot of singing up here then. There was as yet no Norwegian civilisation. The hymn, addressed to Christ, begins with the words: Conditor alme siderum. We’ve reduced the noun conditor to something very specific: to us it means a pastry chef. The root meaning, though, is ‘creator’, from condere, meaning ‘to form’. Alma used to be a common girl’s name. It’s a lovely name meaning ‘kind’, ‘nurturing’. Sidus is Latin for a star or a constellation. Conditor alme siderum: Kindly creator of the multitude of stars! That is how the Church invokes the eternal Word of God, longing to encounter him swaddled in the manger, surrounded by amiable presences.
This motif matters to today’s solemnity, in which stars play such a key role. The Magi we read about set out from the East because an unknown star attracted and guided them. On a nightly journey — for who can see starlight by day? — they followed it. It ‘went before them’ quite the way the pillar of fire and cloud had gone before Israel coming out of Egypt. It ‘halted over the place where the child was’. The Evangelist says: ‘Seeing the star, [the Magi] were filled with joy.’ Joy saturates the Epiphany, and resonates in much related poetry, as in Heinrich Heine’s:
The three holy kings from the land of dawn
enquired in every borough:
Where, dear boys and girls,
is the way to Bethlehem?
No one knew, neither young nor old;
The kings went on their way.
They followed the golden star.
It shone with loveliness and cheer.
Over Joseph’s house the star stood still;
They crossed the threshold.
The little ox lowed, the child cried out,
The three holy kings, however, sang!
Only the wrapping is naif, here. The message is sublime. Mary’s Son, needy and exposed like any infant, is nonetheless the almighty Mover of stars, the evident focus of the cosmos. His name, mystically suggested by the prophets of Israel, passed on from age to age, is spoken, too, by mute creation, for those who have eyes to see. When the Magi stand before him, they are so full of joy that words fail them — they must have recourse to song. Likewise we sing today a soaring, forceful, yet peaceful Alleluia, conscious that all creation can become wholly one, united in worshipful adoration.
Our Latin liturgy for today, on a par with the hymn I have cited, is full of poetic force. In addition, the Epiphany has inspired colourful popular piety. Heine was born in Düsseldorf, not far from Cologne, whose cathedral houses the Magi’s relics. They had been his acquaintances since childhood. The Mediterranean countries, France, and England also give us wonderful texts and images drawing us into the star-led pilgrimage.
Our Norwegian tradition is poorer. This has to do with history. Once Christianity had become a project of state, to some extent a political tool, rationalised and cleansed of what literal-minded, earnest men considered papist superstition — which in many instances was simply poetry — there was little space in the Norwegian-Danish inn for extravagant foreigners riding through the night from the Orient seeing and singing. The Magi were roughly carved in pine wood and put on the margins of the crib, told to keep quiet. The thirteenth day of Christmas was still kept, but lost its contour. From being the ecstatic culmination of Christmas, it turned into a kind of weary coda, an occasion to take a last wander round the Christmas tree and to finish left-overs.
Let us then embrace the Epiphany gratefully, with zeal. The Magi’s example is given us that we might follow it. We also are nocturnal pilgrims still. We walk, as Paul wrote, ‘by faith, not by sight’. We must learn therefore to read the night sky, to look to the stars, confident that they will orient us through an unpredictable, uneven terrain. We do well to attend cordially to today’s collect. It opens an extraordinary perspective:
O God, who on this day revealed your Only Begotten Son to the nations by the guidance of a star, grant in your mercy, that we, who know you already by faith, may be brought to behold the beauty of your sublime glory.
‘To behold the beauty of your sublime glory’, before which even the seraphs bow their heads humbly, unable to endure the intensity of Uncreated Light!
God became man, the Word became flesh in order to accustom us to live in the light. ‘The glory of the Lord has risen upon thee’, proclaims Isaiah. But what business is that of mine if I, whether for cowardice or fear, keep my eyes shut or blinkered, or wear the kind of face mask air hostesses hand out on trans-Atlantic flights? The Son of God, Creator of the multitude of stars, would lead us through the night out of darkness, into his flaming glory. Today the Christmas Gospel shows its reach. It is given us to perceive a graciously luminous, blessed conspiracy of light that not only illumines the night, but pierces it. ‘There will be no more night’ where God is fully present. There, Light shines essentially. The Lord pours himself out in his holy incarnation, and on this altar, to be present in us.
Arise from sleep! Become light! And sing! Amen.
The adoration of the Magi by an unknown sixteenth-century Dutch artist, now in the Fitzwilliam Museum.
Die heiligen drei Könige aus Morgenland,
Sie frugen in jedem Städtchen:
‘Wo geht der Weg nach Bethlehem,
Ihr lieben Buben und Mädchen?’
Die Jungen und Alten, sie wußten’s nicht,
Die Könige zogen weiter;
Sie folgten einem goldenen Stern,
Der leuchtete lieblich und heiter.
Der Stern blieb stehn über Josephs Haus,
Da sind sie hineingegangen;
Das Öchslein brüllte, das Kindlein schrie,
Die heiligen drei Könige sangen.