Lord of all

Today's readings: Isaiah 60, 1-6; Ephesians 3, 2-3.5-6; Matthew 2, 1-12.

Christmas is not just a story to be retold, but a mystery that waits to be made manifest. Today's feast of the Epiphany with the wise men, or the Magi, coming to Jerusalem from the East, shows that the meaning behind Christmas story about the birth of Jesus is for us not a point of departure but a point towards which we need to come. So the 'East' in today's Gospel stands for our different standpoints from where we start our journey.

The wise men's journey teaches us that God is not as we usually imagine Him to be. Their journey started at the very moment when they knelt down before the child.

Epiphany is about the searching soul. There is something factual, historical, about Christmas. But Epiphany is a manifestation, a revelation. It is about a hidden meaning which can be revealed only through the Spirit.

Our claim that Jesus Christ is the saviour of humanity needs to be put always in the broader context of a world that embraces a plurality of faiths and religions, of ways of living and philosophies of life, many of which place themselves outside the Christmas story.

This challenges us to come to terms with what St Paul writes in the reading from Ephesians about the pagans who "now share the same inheritance". There are so many people who, independently of their colour, race, religion or culture, belong to the universality of those who in their deepest longing are authentically in search of God.

This puts authenticity and belonging to God at the centre. For us, educated to think in terms of institutional belonging, this may sound disturbing, just as the arrival of the Magi was disturbing to the people of Jerusalem. The Lord of history is the Lord of all. This is God's universality, God's will to save everyone.

We'll never be in a position to figure out how. Hence the need for a spirit of discernment and a spirit of revelation not only to understand what is happening in the world, but also to grasp the real meaning of God's Word, whose deeper meaning waits always to be evoked.

Isaiah in today's reading is addressing God's people on their return from exile. He warns them that their unity and strength cannot rest on ethnic or social foundations.

At the time when Jesus was born, Jerusalem was a city closed in on itself, not in the least bothered by what was happening outside its walls. Its chief priests and scribes could read all the prophecies without in any way being in a position to read their times.

Today, we acknowledge that this is not just a distant story. This was one of the reasons why Matthew's Gospel was written in the first place: to witness the fact that communities at that time were less and less Jewish, and more often made up of Gentiles or outsiders.

Even for the first Christian communities, with time it was becoming more difficult to delineate clear boundaries between insiders and outsiders, believers and non-believers.

To discover the true face of God, as the Magi from the East did, we need to ensure that we are travelling along the right path. As at the time when Jesus was born, God is still mysteriously veiled in a sacred silence. He invites us to that inner pilgrimage which is called adoration. That is the longest pilgrimage which knows no dead ends.