Saturday’s feast of the Presentation is a day for the blessing of candles. Why does liturgy require candles? In the first years of the church, worship was often at night, and candles and torches were carried from place to place within the worship space as needed. Candles were also a mark of festivity and hospitality when people gathered for prayer in homes, and later on in large buildings with thick walls and dark corners. But even after gaslight and electricity, candles were kept.

We find it difficult to convey ideas to people unless we can actually show them something, demonstrate what we mean. God, who is invisible and truly beyond human understanding, apparently faces the same difficulty. People want to see, not just listen to an idea. So God gave us Jesus Christ, God made visible in the world.

For many weeks now, we have been celebrating the appearance of the divine presence in human form. As a child, he came to Mary and Joseph, was seen by the shepherds, and then by some wandering magi from the East. Today we celebrate another showing, later in time, to a group gathered at the Jordan River.

The splendid magi, all sparkle and dash and solemnity, march right up off the pages of Matthew’s Gospel and into our churches today. Matthew alone tells us this grand and seductive story so that we might see the light and know that the child these magi visited is the fulfillment of prophecy, the king of the world that stretches to the magi’s home country and beyond, right down the ages to us.