As a person of below average physical stature, I'm not entirely sure I would appreciate being covered by a multitude of camels. When I'm playing hide and seek, two little kids and two cats jumping on me is about the only amount of covering I can take. Yet in our reading from Isaiah 60:1-6 today, being covered in camels is a good thing. The author of this part of Isaiah was inspired by God's own voice to bring to God's people a divine promise. This promise offered the Jewish people and the people living in Jerusalem a vision of what their future with God would look like. The author's use of the word "you" didn't imagine to be writing to individuals 2500 years later who happened to be reading this book. The "you" here is plural and directed towards the city of Jerusalem. Ever since that city was conquered by David around the year 1000 BCE, the city had experienced a large amount of challenge, prosperity, hardship, and calamity. The city watched David's kingdom split in two and survived when 10 out of the 12 tribes of Israel were lost during an invasion by the Assyrians. Jerusalem survived through God's help and by playing the local political powers against each other. The kings of Judah sent a ridiculous amount of money, gold, and other resources to other political kingdoms as tribute. By this point in the book of Isaiah, the Babylonian exile was already over and the returning community were looking to rebuild the Temple. They were still under control by another nation, the Persians, would who still demand their own kind of tribute. For centuries, Jerusalem sent its resources away on carvans of camels, trying to save themselves from destruction while fueling the lust for powers that others had. But in the future, this would be reversed. All the wealth and abundance of the nations, the best they have, will come to Jerusalem. This is the queen of Sheba story (1 Kings 10:1-13) but on overdrive, pointing to a future where current expectations are replaced by God's great reversal.

On this Epiphany, we are drawn to the verse about gold and frankincense because these are two of the three gifts the magi brought to Jesus. As Christians, we see the great reversal expressed in Isaiah 60 as bearing fruit in the birth, life, and death of Jesus. The magi offered extravagant gifts to an infant who had no army, no sword, and who couldn't walk. Yet they saw who Jesus was, is, and will be. They knew that a relationship with Jesus, rooted in God's love, grace, and faith, would be the one thing no empire could ever take from us. During this life, we will probably never be covered by a multitude of camels. We will wonder why the exploitation by the rich seems to be growing in intensity. The world does not  match the future God has in mind. Yet God has laid out, for each of us, a different way of life that notices who we give our gifts too. And once we see who we give our gifts to, we can embrace a new way of life that lives into the hope when every vulnerable community will know that their light has come.