Epiphany

Epiphany
January 8, 2005

"Your light has come... darkness covers the earth... but upon you the Lord shines... raise your eyes and look around..." (Isaiah 60:1-6). "They opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh" (Matthew 2:2-12)

The prophet has a vision of a dark world suddenly bathed in light of the Most High, and invites humankind to be courageous enough to look around and see it. My brother and I were just talking about this on New Year's Day while looking at all the depressing news about chaos and violence around the world. We wondered about our fascination with it, and why we do not have a similar fascination with the beauty and peace which also surrounds us. It is not as if these two worlds exist separately, but rather, at least in this life, tied together. St. Augustine, referred to this mysterious relationship, when he asked "What has Athens (this world) got to do with Jerusalem (the heavenly world)?". He believed, as I do, and that we distort the reality of life as we know it now when we attempt too rigidly separate these two worlds. In our world of time and space, death, chaos and darkness flow in the same river with life, order and light. Each can reveal something about the other. We cannot avoid the bad news but neither do we have to be swept away by it.

The Nativity story continues with the visitation of the Magi to the child Messiah. If the shepherds represent the Jewish people, we have always understood the Magi as symbolizing the discovery of this divine event by the Gentile world. We can also see the contrast between the poverty and powerlessness of the shepherds and the wealth and power of these "kings". The shepherds had only themselves and their simple trust and understanding to give. The Magi had great wealth and knowledge of the world to give.

Some of us are shepherds. We give to each other from our poverty and God makes it precious. Some of us are Magi. We share our earthly abundance and knowledge as if none of it belongs to us because in truth it does not. Most of us are no doubt somewhere in between and do some of both. The homage of all has equal worth in the eyes of God, who recognizes no distinctions of wealth, knowledge or sophistication as long as there is love and confidence in the Spirit's presence.

All of us live out our days accepting the mysterious interaction of dark and light, good and bad, power and weakness, poverty and wealth, truth and illusion, until our ultimate birth where there is only light, love, truth and God's smiling face.