January 6: All Nations Shall Worship You
♫ Music:
Day 40 - Thursday, January 6
EPIPHANY
Title: ALL NATIONS SHALL WORSHIP YOU
Scripture: Revelation 15:4; Matthew 2:9-11
“For all nations shall come and worship before You, For Your judgments have been manifested.”
And behold, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came and stood over where the young Child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
Poetry:
Star of the Nativity
by Joseph Brodsky
In the cold season, in a locality accustomed to heat
more than
to cold, to horizontality more than to a mountain,
a child was born in a cave in order to save the world;
it blew as only in deserts in winter it blows, athwart.
To Him, all things seemed enormous: His mother’s
breast, the steam
out of the ox’s nostrils, Caspar, Balthazar, Melchior
—the team
of Magi, their presents heaped by the door, ajar.
He was but a dot, and a dot was the star.
Keenly, without blinking, through pallid, stray
clouds, upon the child in the manger, from far away—
from the depth of the universe, from its opposite end
—the star
was looking into the cave. And that was the
Father’s stare.
ALL NATIONS SHALL WORSHIP YOU
Today is the day of Epiphany. Epiphany is taken from a Greek word that means “manifestation or appearance” and marks the celebration of the arrival of the Magi. (Johnson) The celebration of Epiphany started in the third to fifth centuries, making it one of the oldest celebrations in Christendom. Today, Epiphany is more widely celebrated in the Eastern churches than in the Western churches, but the celebration of Epiphany is notable for all Christians.
Our passage today combines two separate passages: Revelation 15:4, part of this week’s introductory passage, and Matthew 2:9-11, featuring the arrival of the Magi.
The arrival of the Magi and their worship of Jesus is a specific event in a specific time and place; but it also points to a brighter and bigger picture where “all nations shall come and worship before [the Lord], for [his] judgements have been manifested.” (Revelation 15:4; the English Standard Version translates the last half of that verse as “... your righteous acts have been revealed.”) While we may think of Epiphany as being about “the three wise men,” as they’re known today, Epiphany is intended to be “the day to celebrate God's Word made flesh in the person and work of Jesus Christ.” (Oxford) Another commentator notes that the arrival of the Magi signifies the reveal of Jesus to the Gentiles for the first time. (“Epiphany”) This glorious truth, that “Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” is worth our celebration! (Ephesians 3:6)
If Epiphany is the celebration of Christ’s revelation to the Gentiles, affirmed by the description in Revelation that all nations will worship, our artwork, poetry, and music are a beautiful depiction of that global Christian unity that stretches throughout time. Our artwork today depicts the arrival of the Magi and their worship of Christ. The artist, Bartolome Esteban Murillo, was a Spanish painter in the 1600s. The painting is today held by the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio. Our music today is an arrangement of an English carol from the 1700s (music) and 1800s (lyrics, originally in Latin), performed by Saddleback Worship, a group based in Southern California. Our poem was written by Joseph Brodsky, a Russian American poet in the late 1980s. Spanning across time and location, these voices sing “the song of Moses … and the song of the Lamb” by proclaiming the good news that Christ is born for all sinners to know and repent. (Revelation 15:3-4)
The gospel, “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes …” is good news for all who hear and believe. (Romans 1:16) May we all be like the seed who fell on good soil, with deep roots of belief in the salvation and righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ. Happy Epiphany to us all!
Prayer:
Thank you Jesus, for the goodness of your gifts to us. As we look forward towards the rest of the year, please help us to love others and love you well.
Works Cited:
“Epiphany” in The Zondervan Encyclopedia of the Bible Volume 2. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010.
Johnson, R. Kevin. “Epiphany” in The Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization. Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2011.
Devotion Author:
Stacie Schmidt
Reference and Instruction Librarian
Library Liaison for Education, History, and Political Science
Biola University
For more information about the artwork, music, poetry, and devotional writer selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Artwork:
Adoration of the Magi
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo
1655–1660
Oil on canvas
1461 x 1908 cm
Toledo Museum
Toledo, Ohio
About the Artist:
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617–1682) was a Spanish Baroque painter. Although he is best known for his religious works, Murillo also produced a considerable number of paintings of contemporary women and children. These lively, realist portraits of flower girls, street urchins, and beggars constitute an extensive and appealing record of the everyday life of his times. Murillo began his art studies in Seville under painter Juan del Castillo. His first works were influenced by Francisco de Zurbarán, Jusepe de Ribera, and Alonso Cano, and he shared their strongly realist approach. The great commercial importance of Seville at the time ensured that he was subjected to artistic influences from other regions. As his painting developed, his more important works evolved towards the polished style that suited the bourgeois and aristocratic tastes of the time, demonstrated especially in his Roman Catholic religious works. In 1642, at the age of twenty-six, he moved to Madrid, where he most likely became familiar with the work of Velázquez, and would have seen the work of Venetian and Flemish masters in the royal collections; the rich colors and softly modeled forms of his subsequent work suggest these influences. The Museo del Prado in Madrid, Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and the Wallace Collection in London are among the museums holding works by Murillo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolom%C3%A9_Esteban_Murillo
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/bartolome-esteban-murillo
About the Music:
Prelude (O Come All Ye Faithful) from the album Before the King
Lyrics:
O come, all ye faithful,
joyful and triumphant,
O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem.
Come and behold him,
born the king of angels.
O come let us adore him,
O come let us adore him,
O come let us adore him,
Christ the Lord.
About the Performers:
Saddleback Worship is a community of worshipers serving Saddleback Church, with locations spread across four continents. Recording their music in Southern California, the team is prayerful in their efforts to put pen to paper and to capture what God is saying in their community. Saddleback Worship is a diverse group of members and exists to point every heart to the name above every name—the name of Jesus.
https://www.saddlebackworship.com
About the Composers/Lyricists:
The music of the traditional hymn “Adeste Fideles” is commonly attributed to John Francis Wade with English translation of the Latin by Frederick Oakeley.
John Francis Wade (1711–1786) was an English hymnist who is generally credited with writing and composing the hymn "Adeste Fideles" (which was later translated to "O Come All Ye Faithful"), even though the actual authorship of the hymn remains uncertain. The earliest copies of the hymn all bear his signature. As a Catholic layman, he lived with exiled English Catholics in France, where he taught music and worked on church music for private use.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Francis_Wade
About the Poet:
Joseph Brodsky (1940–1996) was a Russian-born American poet and essayist. Brodsky ran afoul of Soviet authorities and was expelled from the Soviet Union after being sentenced by authorities to a Soviet mental institution and years in an arctic labor camp. A public outcry from American and European intellectuals over his treatment helped to secure his early release. In 1972, with the help of the poet W. H. Auden, he settled in at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor as Poet-in-Residence. He then taught at several universities, including Queens College in New York, Yale, Columbia, and Cambridge. He won a Nobel Prize for his work and was appointed United States Poet Laureate in 1991. Predominant themes in his work are exile and loss, and man’s timeless concerns—man and nature, love and death, the ineluctability of anguish, and the fragility of human achievements and attachments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Brodsky
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/joseph-brodsky
About the Devotion Author:
Stacie Schmidt
Reference and Instruction Librarian
Library Liaison for Education, History, and Political Science
Biola University
Stacie Schmidt has a B.A. in History from Cedarville University and a M.L.I.S. from UCLA. At the Biola Library, Stacie guides students in their research through instruction and in-depth consultations. Outside of the library, she loves to read Dorothy L. Sayers’ mystery novels, write about film, and count the days until the next Star Wars movie.