A homily for the Epiphany of the Lord

Readings: Isaiah 60:1-6   Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6   Matthew 2:1-12

Modern theater began as an aural experience. Here is Stephen Greenblatt’s description of London theaters in Shakespeare’s time. It is from his new biography of Christopher Marlowe, Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare’s Greatest Rival (2025):

The playhouses were all designed roughly on the same circular model. The platform stages in these open-air buildings had no curtains, no scenery, and no lighting. The effectiveness of the performances depended on the force and conviction that the costumed players managed to bring to their words. Audiences in the period talked about going “to hear” a play not “to see” one. The trained actors had extraordinary powers of projection, as well as prodigious memories: in any given week, they could be performing up to six different plays. 

Years ago, my mother visited me in New York City. I treated her to what I considered to be a quintessential Broadway experience. The artistic value of “Phantom of the Opera” is debatable, but what could match it for sheer spectacle: costumes, a grand staircase, an underground lake, and a one-ton, 10-foot chandelier that crashed onto the stage after soaring above the audience?

Ironically, my mom gave me my first experience of theater around the time I started school, and it was much closer to drama in the time of the Bard than to Broadway. We went to the county seat to watch a passion play, which was performed in the civic center with “no curtains, no scenery, and no lighting.”

Each year on the Epiphany, we return to an indelible scene, one that is entirely visual. 

They were overjoyed at seeing the star, 
and on entering the house
they saw the child with Mary his mother.
They prostrated themselves and did him homage.
Then they opened their treasures 
and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh (2:10-11).

No one speaks in this scene from St. Matthew’s Gospel, though St. John Chrysostom said that, as a purely natural phenomenon, the Star of Bethlehem already addresses even those who are unfamiliar with the promises of prophecy (Gospel of Matthew, Hom 7.3).

Contemporary Scripture scholars, however, judge this to be one of the most historically improbable scenes in all the Gospel narratives. For them, it is theology dressed up as history. We are to ask what it means, not did it happen. 

Yet no one can deny that the scene captivates because it speaks directly to the heart. The rich and the powerful, those in the know, offer silent homage to a child, one so powerless, so poor! We find such beauty in a world, at least for a moment, inverted, stood on its head.

Except for the very first generation of disciples, all of us come to salvation by way of story. We do not see for ourselves; we hear what others tell us.

Of course, that is how the great majority of all that we know comes to us. Most of us cannot explain why bridges remain standing or how computers work. We rely on the knowledge of others. Granted, we think that if given enough time and interest—and let’s not forget talent—we could master any of these realities for ourselves. 

So, we have a term to distinguish between reliably borrowed knowledge and that which is less so: hearsay. 

The Gospel that we have heard and believed is judged by many of our contemporaries to be just that, mere hearsay. And no one can travel back in time to verify what we have heard.

So, why do we believe? I would suggest that it comes down to three reasons. The first is lamentable; the second, quite lovely; and the third is incontestable. 

First, the unfortunate but understandable reason that many believe: They were born into the Christian faith. They do not challenge it any more than anything else that they have inherited. They might yet be shaken out of it, though they are more likely to remain, ever so lukewarmly, within it. 

As for the second reason, if I were to try to explain to another the truth of what I have heard in the Gospel, it would all come down to its sheer beauty, encapsulated in this scene from St. Matthew: the rich and the powerful, those in the know, offering obeisance to a child so powerless, so poor!

I do not know a more lovely story than the Gospel. When Hollywood producers called it “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” I think what they really meant is that it is the most beautiful tale ever recounted. A virgin gives birth to one who is God in our midst. 

Some, albeit skimming over details, would call this a myth and say that it has been told before. But not the part about God loving us so much as to suffer and die for us. And after the resurrection, which turns every story the world has ever heard on its head, he chooses to remain among us in the power and presence of his Holy Spirit. 

True believers fall in love with the beauty of the story, which plays itself out in the heart, the only stage that truly matters. There, the ancient promise of Isaiah finds its fulfillment.

You shall be radiant at what you see,
your heart shall throb and overflow (60:5).

Simply put, the Gospel is too beautiful not to be true. But of course, beauty can deceive. So, why do we trust this story, make it our own?

That brings us to the third, incontestable reason that we accept the Gospel: We do so because every time that we return to the tale, not just hearing it proclaimed but rehearsing it again in our hearts, the Holy Spirit becomes its principal actor. We perceive another person standing in front of us—beneath us, within us: spatial references do not avail. On the stage we call our heart, we know that we are in the presence of another who loves us, who accompanies us, who quite literally saves us from enduring a world that makes no sense without the salving presence of this one whom we have come to love. 

Shakespeare, Marlowe and my Kansas passion play lacked the glitz of Broadway and Hollywood. That path of persuasion was closed. They had to rely upon the most powerful of words. The Gospel does as well. It enters through the ear, and its undeniable beauty captivates the heart. 

Perhaps Shakespeare knew all of this. After all, he’s the one who wrote,