The Epiphany occurs on the Twelfth Day of Christmas when the three Magi come from distant countries to pay homage to the newborn King, Jesus. It commemorates the manifestation of Jesus’s divinity. This holiday is a hybrid that combines three events: 1. the Magi’s adoration with three gifts (Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh), 2. the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist in the Jordan River, and 3. Jesus’s first miracle of changing water into wine at Cana in Galilee. This feast is loaded with fascinating stories and traditions.

 

However, Henry Van Dyke’s The Story of the Other Wise Man (1895) and his gifts to Jesus resonates with me this year and has been my reflection during this Advent and Christmas season. The book was adapted into a movie in 1985, which recounts the story of Artaban, the fourth Magi, who missed the birth of Jesus but spent his life looking for Jesus, his King. Without spoiling the book or movie for those who have not yet read or watched it, Van Dyke’s opening words are quite inviting: 

‘You know the story of the Three Wise Men of the East, and how they traveled from far away to offer their gifts at the manger-cradle in Bethlehem. But have you ever heard the story of the Other Wise Man, who also saw the star in its rising, and set out to follow it, yet did not arrive with his brethren in the presence of the young child Jesus? Of the great desire of this fourth pilgrim, and how it was denied, yet accomplished in the denial; of his many wanderings and the probations of his soul; of the long way of his seeking, and the strange way of his finding, the One whom he sought—I would tell the tale as I have heard fragments of it in the Hall of Dreams, in the palace of the Heart of Man.” 

 

Dear brothers and sisters, Christmas, the divine son born for us, has begun a gift-giving chain, whether to the Magi who have seen with their own eyes or to us who are not eyewitnesses. Epiphany, therefore, is a feast that reminds us of the gift of Christmas that keeps giving.