Dr. David Currie

Epiphany (an “appearance”) describes the first manifestation of the Jewish Savior promised in the Hebrew Scriptures to the Gentiles—non-Jews—through the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:1-12). Traditionally, the Church has commemorated this event on January 6, marking the end of the Twelve Days of Christmas celebrating the birth of Christ and looking ahead to remembering the suffering of Christ during the season of Lent.

Ironically, given its meaning, Epiphany tends to be overshadowed by the glories—and undermined by the busyness—of Christmas, with the visit of the Magi conflated with that of the shepherds, though Scripture makes it clear that these were two separate events. Jesus was now in a “house”, not a “manger” (Matthew 2:11/Luke 2:7 respectively) and perhaps up to two years after his birth (Matthew 2:16). Undue attention also is given to extraneous details not revealed in Scripture, such as the names and number of the visitors and their titles. Matthew simply uses the plural of “magi” referring to an unnamed and unnumbered group comprised of more than two. (The tradition of three reflects how many gifts, not how many givers.) They were scholar/astronomers-astrologers, not kings in any typical sense.

Even details that are included by Matthew can generate speculation that deflects from wondering at far greater glories and mysteries of the Incarnation. For example, following the lead of that great speculative theologian of the Early Church, Origen of Alexandria, much has been made of the symbolism of the gifts presented to Jesus: gold, indicating his royalty; frankincense, affirming his deity; and myrrh, pointing ahead to his death.  While nothing is invalid about these associations, they can mask an even greater mystery about gift-giving, “the fact that the God of the universe accepts the gifts we humans bring.”[1]

This profound theological insight comes not from an ancient Church Father or a contemporary academic or preacher, but an obscure seventeenth-century Italian laywoman, Martha Marchina, a soap-maker by day and a Latin poet by night, and one of the best Christian poets of the early modern era. In this new translation by Elspeth Currie, hear how Marchina unpacks the graces implicit in human gifts divinely received and reechoed: [2]

The Gifts of an Infant God
To God, a babe, the bowing kings give gifts
and God accepts, for our sake, not his own.
Have faith, a greater cross he’ll lift:
He’ll walk the path with sorrow strewn,
And give himself.  This God, loving and bare,
Accepts our poverty without a care.

Elspeth Currie notes in her book:

The title, “The Gifts of the Infant God,” is wonderfully ambiguous: Are these the gifts we give to God? Or God’s gifts to us? Marchina’s poem nudges us to see the relationship between these two questions, and thus a living interplay between us and God. She is clear: God does not need our offerings. Indeed, the second half of the poem argues that this acceptance is in fact, a gift from God himself, one of many. He smiles at our meager offerings, encouraging us to come to him. But the greatest gift he has for us is himself, his coming to be born among us and die for us. Marchina’s final line works to reassure the reader who might worry at the lavishness of God’s gift or sacrifice to come. Jesus has already demonstrated his great love for us by being born a human. Willingly becoming a helpless, naked infant, showing us his love in this way, Jesus has already cast aside his fear of poverty or loss of majesty. He can give without fear, even to the point of dying for his creation. He accepts our gifts not because he needs things to prop himself up or stave off destitution, but because he loves us and because we need him.

As we may be contemplating which unwanted Christmas gifts we can return or regift without feelings of guilt on our part or of disappointment by the giver, Epiphany, with Marchina’s insights, invites us to contemplate the gift of being able to give to God.  We need not feel ashamed if our gifts don’t measure up to the richness of the Magi’s, nor deceive ourselves that they could ever match what Christ has given us. The invitation is to fall down and worship, taking our place alongside the Magi and Marchina, making our worship tangible through our gifts—be they gold, frankincense, myrrh, or poetry—as tangible as our salvation purchased on a cross and unwrapped in a tomb: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” ( 2 Corinthians 8:9, NIV).

[1] See Alan Kreider’s Patient Ferment of the Early Church: the Improbable Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire (2016) and Christine Phol’s Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition (1999).
[2] The following is excerpted from Elspeth Currie, To Marvel More, 109-111.

Dr. David A. Currie is dean of the Doctor of Ministry Program, dean of the Anglican Formation Program, professor of pastoral theology. He is the father of Elspeth Currie, a Ph.D. candidate in history at Boston College, where she studies women in Renaissance Europe.