The Epiphany to Begin All Epiphanies
The gospel text for Epiphany on January 6, Matthew 2:1-12, recounts the miraculous journey of visitors from the east to worship the newborn king. Their trip to Bethlehem includes a stop in Jerusalem where they receive a directive from King Herod, which drives the story’s tension: Will these visitors travel all this way to pay homage to the child only to do Herod’s bidding on their return journey?
In Matthew 2:12, the gospel writer offers the answer. After delivering their gifts, the Magi, having been warned in a dream, “departed to their own country by another route,” bypassing Herod. Given the power dynamics at play in this account, the simplicity of this phrase belies its import. Whatever mysterious force beckons the Magi to Bethlehem also summons them in a dream as they set out for their home country “by another route.” The epiphany (revealing) of Jesus to the Magi is not the story’s only epiphany, but rather the epiphany to begin all epiphanies.
T.S. Eliot offers an imaginative interpretation of one of these subsequent epiphanies in his poem “The Journey of the Magi.” Eliot writes from the perspective of the Magi as they reflect on what their encounter with the Christ child means after they’ve returned home. The last stanza includes these lines:
Were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods
In the world of this poem, epiphany is not limited to the Magi’s encounter with the Christ child, although it includes that. More accurately, after their encounter with Jesus and his mother, there's nothing that's not an epiphany.
Eliot’s imaginative rendering of the Magi’s reflection serves as a faithful encapsulation of what happens not only for these visitors from the east, but also for people throughout the gospels: namely, that there’s a kind of encounter with Jesus through which it becomes impossible to experience the world in the same way. The death of one way of being signals the birth of another. Read alongside Eliot’s poem, Matthew’s phrase “They departed for home by another route” opens up new worlds of meaning.
As it turns out, “departing for home by another route” serves as an equally apt description of what happens time and again in the gospels when, by whatever star they follow, people find their way to Jesus. Consider how difficult it is to exhaust all the possible significance of the phrase:
Some who come to Jesus wishing to follow him will learn that in order to do so, they’ll have to re-conceive of home altogether and, as a result, find it by another route.
Others who come to Jesus will find that departing for home by another way has nothing to do with an alternative geographical route, like the paralytic who is carried to Jesus on a mat and departs for home in a way previously impossible for him.
Still others, like the Roman centurion with the paralyzed servant, or the synagogue leader grieving the loss of his daughter, or the disciples traveling from Jerusalem to Emmaus, embark on their respective journeys on the route of despair. After an encounter with Jesus, however, they depart on the way marked by hope. Jesus, it seems, makes each of these alternative routes accessible.
Of course, it’s worth noting that the Magi have added motivation to depart for their home country by another route. They do so, after all, in order to avoid a ruthless, insecure king.
The epiphany “hidden” in Matthew 2:12, “they departed by another route,” signals a definitive break with the status quo. Consider the power arrangements present in the story. Herod sends the Magi to find the child so that he can retain the throne. It doesn’t take an astronomer to divine what’s at stake: If the Magi, who themselves presumably possess some measure of affluence, want to prop up the powerful in their places of power, what prevents them from departing for home by the same route they came? The option to stop back by Herod’s place just long enough to tell his henchmen where to find the child is still available to them.
Perhaps something about Herod’s request appeals to the Magi in spite of the obvious paranoia that underlies it. Herod is convincing. Beguiling, even. He offers added motivation for them to find the star, commissions them on their journey, affirms their purpose—he even informs them that he, too, intends to go and worship this newborn king.
What is it about the epiphany to begin all epiphanies that causes the Magi to avoid Herod on their return journey, to depart for home by another way? Or, to borrow to Eliot’s phrase, what causes them to feel “no longer at ease” with the well-worn route that passed through Herod’s kingdom?
Presumably, the One to whom they delivered their gifts, young and utterly dependent as he was, did not commission or affirm the Magi as Herod did; he did not threaten or cajole. Perhaps the only memorable words the Magi heard while visiting the child were those of his mother, whose lap served as his throne, as she sang, guileless, dream-like,
“He has brought down rulers from their thrones
But has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
But the rich he has sent away by another route.”