Epiphany, 2011.

When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy; and going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.

It was quite legitimate, long ago, to present your key message in a historical context which might never have happened! This is true of the events in chapter 2 of Matthew's gospel. There is no external verification of these events. But the massacre of the children in Bethlehem, the flight to Egypt and the return to Nazareth can all be seen as parallels to what happened to Moses under the Pharaoh who was the enemy of the Jews. Matthew often sees a correspondence with events in the Hebrew bible and what is said to have happened to Jesus. However this may be, the centre piece of the worship of the magi is Matthew's pièce de résistance. It is comparable to Luke's birth scene except here are Gentiles coming to give gifts fit for a king. There is a sort of quid pro quo at the end of the gospel when Matthew records the risen Lord saying to the disciples, "I am with you always, to the close of the age." (Matthew 28: 20). It is a stunning summing up of the gospel.

While Matthew and Luke have these early narratives of Jesus, Mark begins with the opening of his ministry in Galilee and ends without any resurrection appearance at all, but that the women fled from the empty tomb, '...because they were afraid.' And the central question at the heart of the later gospel of John was, "Who are you?" - spoken by the Jews. To which Jesus replied, "Even what I have told you from the beginning" ... "When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you will know that I am he ..." (John 8: 25-29)

John takes more liberties than the other evangelists in writing about Jesus. This time, not in 'inventing' history but in collapsing the Jesus who was glorified with the Jesus of Nazareth. It can be confusing! It was so quite early on in the first three centuries of the nascent church. It could easily be said - as it was said by some - that Jesus was perhaps just the appearance of a man because he did divine things; or he could be seen as through and through clothed with the divinity of his glorification while he was also so obviously one of us, a human being.

John was the latest of the gospels - perhaps some 60 years after the death of Jesus. Discussions of who Jesus 'was' would have been the talk of all the Christian communities in that period. We see this in the letters of Paul and in the letter to the Hebrews. For instance in the letter to the Philippians Paul is obviously repeating what he had heard and discussed -

'Have this mind among yourselves, which you have in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men ...' (Philippians 2: 5-7)

And in Hebrews there is the same duality -

'... we see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honour because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for every one. ... For surely it is not with angels that he is concerned but with the descendants of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brethren in every respect ... (Hebrews 9: 9-17)

But back in the gospels there is greater clarity about who Jesus is. Whatever was being discussed in the evangelists' communities about the person of Jesus it has very few echoes here apart from John's unique version of events. It seems as if the authors of these wonderful documents had decided not to raise problems which would detract from their narrative. And it is clear that what they hoped to share was the fact of the complete humanity of this Son of Man. Even the birth narratives primarily show that Jesus' birth was to be of the historical people of Judah and according to God's plan long ago. That involved a human birth - 'bone of our bone' and with the same genes that we share, the same psychology and intellect.

Gold, frankincense and myrrh - gifts fit for a king - have particular relevance here. Jesus' mission was to announce and inaugurate the new plan of the Father, which Jesus called the kingdom of God. So from the start Matthew has this in his sights and the spectacular imagery of the magi journeying from the East was an inspired opening to the story of the kingdom which was 'not of this world.' The human beginnings of the 'kingdom' story might otherwise have sounded rather mundane! Then the whole scope of Jesus' life with the disciples and the crowds of people that he met in his journeys needed to be seen to be moving towards the climax of the self-sacrifice of this Son of Man and his glorification - 'I am with you always ...'

We can say of Jesus that he was destined to be not only the Son of Man but also God's Son. That this process should be earthed in true human nature shared with us as the beginning of that process is the miracle of the whole story - of the gospel of Good News. Whatever nuances may have been placed on the gospel throughout history, and whatever 'impossibilities' theologians and philosophers have found in this Man as destined to be also God's Son, cannot erase the human nature of the one destined to be our forerunner into the divine life of love. For nearly the past 18 centuries we have been perhaps reluctant to accept his true nature shared with us. But it was the condition of our own re-awakening to love and faith. And his human nature, glorified, is our hope in the Father's promise for us all. This is John's witness -

"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. This I command you, to love one another. (John 15: 12-17)