Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today the Church celebrates the joyful occasion of the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord, marking the occasion when the Lord revealed and made Himself known to all the people of all the nations as represented by the Three Magi or the Three Wise Men or Three Kings, a story which we all are certainly familiar with, in how they came from their distant lands to seek the Saviour of the world, the Light of His salvation and grace, and found it in the Holy Child born in Bethlehem over two millennia ago. On this day we all rejoice in the great Christmas joy celebrating the salvation and hope which we have all received from God’s most generous love and compassionate Heart, manifested in real and tangible form in His Son, Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour.

In our first reading today, we heard about the premonition and prediction of this event which the Lord had made through His prophet Isaiah many centuries before everything came true. The prophet Isaiah had been sent to the people of God who have suffered difficulties, challenges and trials, as those in the southern kingdom of Judah had witnessed their northern neighbours and fellow Israelites in the kingdom of Israel conquered and having their cities destroyed by the Assyrians recently, and how many of those people had been brought into distant and far-off lands by those same Assyrians, bereft of their homeland and their dwelling, forced to live as exiles among the foreigners, all because of their lack of faith and virtue, their disobedience against God.

And similarly, those in Judah itself had not been spared from all those difficult moments, as in the context of the time when this prophecy was revealed through the prophet Isaiah, it was likely that the people of God in Judah had faced and survived the event when the King of Assyria, Sennacherib brought with him a mighty force numbering in the hundreds of thousands with the intent of conquering and destroying Judah and Jerusalem, just as they had done with their northern brethren earlier on. And as the Assyrians besieged Jerusalem, their king even mocked the Lord and made blasphemous comments about Him, trying to make the Israelites to give in to fear and despair, saying how the other gods of the other people the Assyrians had conquered were powerless to stop them.

But God showed His might and crushed all the forces of those Assyrians, and sent their king back home in great shame. And through this and many other events, the Lord proved His love and providence for His people, reassuring them of His constant presence and help, and as what we have heard in today’s first reading, the Lord promised the coming of His Salvation and Light which will be revealed and shared to all the nations, which will all come to Him, seeking His love and compassion, His kindness and grace. God does not desire the destruction or damnation of any one of His children and He loves all of us mankind without exception. That is why He gave us all His Son, Our Lord and Saviour, and revealed Him to everyone, and showed that His salvation is given freely to all and not just to a select group of people.

In our second reading today, St. Paul in his Epistle to the Church and the faithful people of God in Ephesus spoke of this same revelation, that God reveals the desire He has to save each and every one of us mankind, without exception, His love and kindness, His generous mercy, that all those who seek Him, regardless whether they are Jewish or non-Jewish, they will all be saved and become part of the one holy people of God, those whom God has called and chosen. This is the response to those whom at the time of the Lord’s ministry and the early Church who claimed that only the Jewish people deserved salvation from God, or that everyone who sought to be saved must adopt all the customs, practices and beliefs of the Jews to the extent that they themselves became Jewish.

Thus, St. Paul refuted such a claim, and the fact that it was he who did so is significant because St. Paul was a Pharisee who adhered to such beliefs in the superiority and exclusivity of salvation to only the Jewish people. But God revealed the truth to St. Paul, and upon whose conversion received the reality and true intention of God in calling all of His people to Himself, regardless of their background, race, origin or by any other worldly parameters we often differentiated ourselves by. To the Lord, everyone is truly equal, equal in stature, equal in opportunity and equally beloved by Him without prejudice or discrimination. And He has given us all the ultimate means to achieve this salvation, and that is through His Son and His coming into this world.

In our Gospel passage this day we then heard of the story of the moment that we are celebrating about this Epiphany of the Lord, when the Lord Jesus had been born in Bethlehem, the Saviour of the world and the Son of God Most High, the Divine Word of God Himself incarnate in the flesh. At that time, a great and bright sign has appeared in the sky, the Great Star of Bethlehem, clearly heralding the coming of the Saviour. And three wise men from the East, from distant places and renowned for their great wisdom and knowledge of astronomy, which were studied for signs from God and they all saw the great Star heralding the coming and arrival of the Messiah, the Saviour from God. The three of them went on a long journey towards the land of Judea, coming to seek the salvation of God, which has come into our midst, and the Lord showed Himself to everyone, symbolically presented through the Three Magi.

We heard how the Three Magi eventually found their way to Bethlehem to the presence of the Lord, the Holy Child after enquiring about Him at the court of King Herod the Great. The Three Magi came to the Lord to pay homage to Him, bearing the three unique gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Gold represents the kingship and the glory of Christ, while the frankincense represents both His Divinity and also His role as our Eternal High Priest, and lastly the myrrh represents the way how the Lord would accomplish His mission, through the suffering and death that He would have to endure during His Passion, for our sake and our salvation. Through all these three gifts therefore, we all come to know the full extent of Who the Lord our God is, and what He has done for us through His Son, Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. This is the essence of what the Epiphany celebration is all about.

First of all, the gift of gold is a very symbolic sign of the kingship of Christ, as gold has always been a very valuable commodity and noble metal used in coinage and in collection of wealth, and they are often associated with power and worldly glory, and they also have associations with the Divine, as gold is often used on the ornaments and the worship of gods and idols in various cultures and traditions. Gold in this case symbolised that Christ is truly our Lord and King, the King of Kings, Lord and Master of all, all of creation and the whole of the Universe. It also showed the glory and divinity that our Lord and God has, and how each and every one of us are expected to give Him honour, glory and homage, as the King over all of us. He is the only One truly worthy of our worship and obedience.

Then, the gift of frankincense is a representation as earlier mentioned, of the divinity of Christ, as incense is often used in religious festivities and worship, and incense is used until this day in the Church to indicate the prayers of the faithful people of God rising towards God. At the same time, incense was also usually used by the priests in offering the sacrifices and offerings to God. Hence, this frankincense, which is among the finest type of incense available, is a representation that Christ our Lord is truly Divine, the Almighty God Who manifested Himself in the flesh, to be in our midst. Then, at the same time, it also highlighted Christ’s role as our one and true Eternal High Priest, the One Who would offer on our behalf the perfect and worthy offering, for the absolution and forgiveness of all of our sins.

Lastly, the gift of myrrh is the representation of what the Lord would do for our salvation, as myrrh is a precious spice used for the embalming of the bodies of the dead. It may indeed be a rather strange and curious gift for a newborn Child, but in this case, it is a representation of how Christ would suffer and die from the Cross that He Himself would bear, and through His death He would redeem all of us, by making us all free from sin, and then by His glorious Resurrection, He would lead us all into a new life, no longer subjected to sin and death, to evil and destruction. This is what the gift of myrrh had revealed to us, and we are all reminded that we are all truly so fortunate that God has done all of these for our sake. We must be thankful for all that He has done, and we must return to seek the Lord and His salvation.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we celebrate wonderfully during this time of the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord, we are reminded through the three gifts of the Magi of the true nature of that Child Who has been born in Bethlehem two millennia ago, He Who revealed Himself to all of us through the symbolic representation of the Three Magi. In Christ our Lord, we have the Divine Lord Himself, Almighty and all-powerful coming down into our midst, to dwell among us and to be with us, and ultimately, to offer Himself for our sake, to suffer and die for us, so that all of us can receive the sure promise of eternal life and fullness of grace from Him. Let us all keep this in mind as we go forth to this world, to our communities around us, to proclaim the Lord our God and Saviour, He Who has come into this world and revealed His love, to everyone, calling them to His Presence and mercy.

May the Lord, Who has been manifested, ‘Epiphaneia’ in the flesh, revealed in His love and kindness through the Holy Child of Bethlehem, continue to be with us and bless our every endeavours and deeds, and may He continue to bless our every works, efforts and endeavours to glorify Him by our lives, our every actions, works and deeds. Holy God, Mighty God, Holy Immortal God, revealed to us all through the Wisdom and love You have shown us, have mercy on us and give us Your love and grace, now and forevermore. Amen.