Thoughts on Today’s Lessons for Sunday, Jan. 5, 2014
One of the earliest known depictions of the Magi, from a 3rd-century sarcophagus in the Vatican Museum.
First Reading: Jeremiah 31:7-14
Sunday is the Twelfth Day of Christmas! Wish your friends a very Merry Christmas one more time before we move on through Epiphany toward Ash Wednesday, Lent, Holy Week and Easter. In today’s first reading, we hear the Prophet Jeremiah in exile, dreaming of a beautiful future day when the people have returned to Jerusalem and are revived as a great nation, filled with prosperity; singing, dancing and feasting with joy. Centuries later, the evangelist Matthew will look back and interpret Jeremiah’s prophecies as promises of the resurrected Christ as Messiah.
Psalm: Psalm 84
Today’s Psalm echoes Jeremiah in its lyrical hope to find joy in God, urging the people to worship and pray for God’s favor, trusting that God will welcome the people home and will offer protection, favor and honor to those who trust in God.
Second Reading: Ephesians 1:3-6,15-19a
Paul reflects today’s previous readings as he offers generous, expansive praise in the opening pages of his letter to the people of Ephesus, then a Greek city on what is now Turkey’s Aegean shore. Paul praises the Ephesians for their faith in Jesus and reminds them – and us – that knowing and trusting God through Jesus opens us up to hope in God and the glorious riches of God’s grace.
Gospel: Matthew 2:13-23
This is a hard reading to ponder during the joy of Christmastide; and we haven’t made it easier for you: We’ve chosen to retain the optional, horrifying verses about Herod’s slaughter of the infants in Bethlehem. This bloody event may not be historical, as neither Flavius Josephus nor other historians of the era mention it. But the terrible story, which evokes Moses and Pharaoh and the Exodus and provides Matthew a firm link between Jesus and Old Testament prophecy, also frames an important reality: Jesus’s call to bring in the Kingdom of God by delivering good news to the poor and the oppressed will not always be received with joy and approval. There is risk in following Jesus, yet we must do it all the same.
Gospel (Alternate Reading): Matthew 2:1-12
The Gospel gives us a preview of the feast of the Epiphany tomorrow, as we hear Matthew’s account of the wise men from the East (“Magi,” or literally “magicians” in the original Greek). Matthew tells the fascinating tale of astrologers summoned to the infant Messiah by a shining star; verses from the prophet Micah that seemed to foretell the future king’s birthplace in Bethlehem, and a suspicious, sneaky King Herod who plots to use the Magi to track down the baby. (You’ll notice that the Magi found the holy family in a house, not a manger … it is only Luke’s Nativity story, not Matthew’s, that places them with the shepherds, cattle and sheep.)