EPIPHANY OF THE LORD: Is 60:1-6; Eph 3:2-3a, 5-6; Mt 2:1-12 

 

The feast of the Epiphany is the celebration of the Lord’s manifestation to all peoples, represented by the Magi, who came from the East to adore the King of the Jews.  The adoration of the Magi fulfils the oracle of Isaiah in the first reading, prophesying that the nations of the world would travel to the Holy City following a brilliant light and would bring gold and incense to contribute to the worship of God.

 

In the ancient world, the appearance of a new star or a comet was often associated with the birth or death of a great ruler. According to our gospel reading, when these magi from the east noticed a new star rising, they associated it with the birth of the long-awaited King of the Jews, and so they set out in search of this child. Their fascination with the wonders of creation launched them on a spiritual journey, a pilgrimage. They left their home and set out on a long journey, guided by the new star they had seen rising. There is something of the searcher, the seeker, in each one of us. There is always some restlessness within us, a restlessness of the spirit and of the heart. Saint Augustine said that our hearts are restless until they rest in God. That spiritual restlessness often sends us forth on pilgrimages to places that have been touched by God in some special way. We leave home, if only for a few days or weeks, and we set out to a holy place where we sense we will meet the Lord or the Lord will meet us. Even if we never set out on a physical pilgrimage, like the magi, we will always be giving expression to this spiritual restlessness within us, this deep-rooted desire to come closer to God. It is this restlessness which inspires us to pray, brings us to Mass and to the sacraments.

 

As well as being aware of our searching spirit, we can also be aware of being drawn by the one for whom we search. Jesus says of himself that he came to seek out the lost. His search for us is prior to our search for him, and our search for him is ultimately in response to his search of us, his searching love. The Lord drew the magi to himself through a star. The Lord drew them to himself from within the world with which they were familiar, astrology, the world of the night sky. The Lord often draws us to himself from within the world that is familiar to us.

 

The magi came to a point on their journey when they needed more than the signs of nature to find the child whom they were seeking. When they came to Jerusalem, they had to ask, ‘Where is the infant king of the Jews?’ To make the last short step on their long journey, they needed more than the light of a star. They needed the light of the Scriptures. The chief priests and the scribes who knew the Scriptures were able to point them in the direction of Bethlehem. On our own journey towards the Lord, we too need the light of the Scriptures as well as the light of nature. The Scriptures are a fuller revelation of God than the natural world. It is in and through the Scriptures that we meet God and his Son in a special way. Through the Scriptures, God speaks to us in a privileged way. God asks us to listen to his word and to allow our lives to be shaped by what we hear. The wise men allowed themselves to be guided by the Scriptures, as well as by the star. They displayed the kind of responsiveness to God’s word to which we are all called.

 

Having been moved by the presence of God in nature and in the Scriptures, the wise men came face to face with God in the form of a child newly born to a young couple. The wise men did not worship the star; they did not even worship the Scriptures. But they did worship the child, because they recognized that here in these simple surroundings was Emmanuel, God-with-us. We too worship Emmanuel, and we do so in a special way every time we celebrate the Eucharist. The wise men expressed their worship by offering the child their precious gifts. They gave generously. We too express our own worship of the Lord in the Eucharist by offering him gifts, and the most precious gift we can offer is the gift of ourselves. In the Eucharist we are invited to give ourselves to the Lord, in response to the Lord’s giving of himself to us as bread of life. We say, ‘Here I am. I want to do your will’, in response to his saying to us, ‘This is my body. Take and eat’.

 

After worshipping the child, the wise men returned home by a different way. Their meeting with the infant king of the Jews somehow changed them. Their journey away from Bethlehem was different to their journey to Bethlehem. Our own worship of the Lord in the Eucharist will often prompt us to take a different path too. We come to the Eucharist open to being changed in some way by our meeting with the Lord. We are sent out from the Eucharist to follow the way of the Lord more closely.

The magi only came to Bethlehem once. We come to the Eucharist often. We do so because, like the magi, we are seekers. We come to the Eucharist to seek the Lord. In the words of a modern hymn, we want to know him more clearly, to love him more dearly and to follow him more nearly. Our seeking of the Lord is a response to his seeking of us, his calling out to us. We pray on this feast of the Epiphany that we would be as responsive to the Lord’s call as the wise men from the East were.