Today’s readings: Isaiah 60,1-6; Ephesians 3,2-3.5-6; Matthew 2,1-12
“Though night still covers the earth, the glory of the Lord is rising on you.” These are the words of Isaiah which we need so much to hear in these times. For the umpteenth time we celebrated Christmas and relived, at least in the Christian world, what it stands for. The birth of the Messiah as one of us means that God who created us and the world we inhabit will make redemption sprout from our own humanness.
The more deeply we probe in what is really giving shape to our existence, the more we acknowledge how slow is the process of our redemption. That first birth of the Messiah in time needs to have so many sequels in the history of humanity to make God’s promises come true. What actually we celebrate in today’s feast of the Epiphany of the Lord is the Lord’s second birth or rebirth in the life of peoples and nations and in our own personal life.
The wise men coming to Jerusalem from the East represent the eyes of wisdom that we need to discern in time where and how the Lord’s powerful presence is manifesting itself. At times it’s right there just in front of our eyes. And we fail to perceive it. Our perception of things, when lacking wisdom, deceives. We stop at things as they look at the surface. Our nights many a time are never followed by dawn and our darkness is never shattered by light.
Like Herod we prefer to fear for ourselves, for our lives, for what we possess. We continue to deceive ourselves thinking with little minds and simply hoping to continue enjoying our own little kingdoms we build for ourselves. But the Lord’s coming perturbs, confuses our status quo, dismantles our projections into a future that is no future at all.
At the surface, the gospel account sounds like a fable and seems to address only the imagination of children. Yet it hides a big truth we all need to hear and see.
We cannot continue in self-adulation and self-adoration. It is the adoration of the true Lord that opens our mind and heart and that shows us the way to a true homecoming that befits who we really are.
Like the wise men of the gospel, our call is to be insightful. We all need a star to follow, a promise that motivates us and keeps us going, a dream that stimulates us to pursue the right things in life without desisting. The moment we stop dreaming of a better world will be the end of the story.
We cannot afford gripping to the type of religion that was mainstream in Jerusalem. That was a religion of promises lacking the wisdom to see clearly how God makes his promises come true.
The people belonging to that religion knew it all and had ready made answers. But they lacked the wisdom to see what was happening just in front of their own eyes. It is a religion that lacks faith and, harbouring no hope, leads nowhere. It can be so misleading, inward looking, misrepresenting the true God who saves.
That explains why the wise men had to go back to their own country through a different way. They had to bypass Jerusalem, which no longer offered the solace of faith in spite of being the centre of religion. Many today unfortunately are being redirected on their journey home. Many are being obliged to try different ways to come to God, given that the normal ways still on offer in our mainstream religious life no longer give the feeling of one’s really being in God’s saving presence.
The God we believe in is a living God and still manifests his presence and reveals his saving mercy according to our needs and shortcomings. God adjusts himself to who we are and where we stand. It is not that he is there static and we have to always struggle uphill to reach out to him. He himself reaches out to us. That changes the story completely. It provides the right standpoint from where to see insightfully how God reveals what we need to see. If only we realise this!