Year C / Christmastide / Solemnity of the Epiphany
Readings: Isaiah 60.1-6 / Responsorial Psalm 71.2, 7-8, 20-11, 12-13 (R/v cf 11) / Ephesians 3.2-3a, 5-6 / Matthew 2.1-12
“Arise, shine out, Jerusalem, for your light has come.”
Isaiah declares this to the Israelites in the first reading. It’s his invitation to them to wake up from sleep, to gather in the holy places and to pay homage to God. Simply put, Isaiah challenges them to respond to God’s desire to know and be known by us. Today, Isaiah demands we do the same.
Isaiah uses metaphors of light and darkness to help us understand and speak of Jesus as God’s radiance that dispels the darkness in us and around us. They help Him explain how an Incarnate God is present among us. Even more, how God is revealed to us in Jesus, just as the day is revealed by its dawning. The Scriptures and Church tradition also use these metaphors to do the same. And they help our finite minds make sense of an infinite God come down to us.
The wise men do likewise; they speak of a star that guides them to Jesus. “We saw his star as it rose and have come to do him homage,” they say in the gospel reading. I imagine how the light of this star tells that even the galaxies are caught up in the wondrous story of God gifting Jesus to us. Even more, this light, this star, reveals the faith God has given us – it leads us to Him who Jesus alone reveals.
Indeed didn’t our faith helped us make the Advent journey to the only manger God desires: our hearts? Is He really dwelling in our hearts?
Jesus also wants to dwell in everyone’s hearts. In the second reading St Paul reminds the Ephesians and us that God makes this same promise to Christians and non-Christians alike: that in Jesus, all peoples are saved.
How then are all of us to navigate the myriad valleys, plateaus and peaks of today’s world and find our way to Jesus? We must consider because these can distract us from finding Jesus or delay our journey toward Him or draw us into the darkness of sin and death, blinding us from following that star to Him.
The wise men can be our guides to Jesus. They have three dispositions to make this journey; we need them too.
First, fervour. These wise men are foreigners, led through the night by wonder and hope. They come to Jesus eagerly following the path fixed in the stars (which, of course, can only be seen in the dark). Do we approach Jesus with equal wonder and hope? How eager are we to encounter Jesus?
Second, freedom. The wise men are not bound by Herod’s political machinations. Neither are they beholden to anyone wanting to dominate or exploit them. I imagine them safeguarding their freedom to let the star be their only guide to Jesus. Yes, they faithfully, even obediently, followed God’s light. How free are we to let go and let God lead us to Jesus? What obstacles block us onward?
Third, faithfulness. To reach Jesus, the wise men are guided by dreams and visions, by the wisdom of hidden roads, by attentiveness to the signs around them. With faith, they say ‘yes’ to God’s invitation to come and see. Today, God wants to do the same for us. Is our individual, even collective, faith equally strong to go wherever God wants to take us and meet Him there?
Fervour. Freedom. Faithfulness. These God-given dispositions can lead us, like the wise men, to that place of our collective longing: to gaze upon God’s hidden face in Jesus and through Jesus, to know that He is gazing back at us. What would we see reflected in his eyes?
Maybe this. Wise men, kingly in stature, prostrating and doing Him homage as the infant king of all the nations. Shepherds, lowly, poor, and socially outcast, but the first to come and adore him. Mary and Joseph looking back at Him tenderly, loving Him who is God-with-us.
What else can all this be but the revelation that Jesus’ coming as the Christ turns everything upside down. The mighty are made low; the poor are uplifted. The hungry are fed; the rich sent away empty. Yes, all that Mary sung about in her Magnificat comes to life when Jesus is born; because of him, nothing will ever be the same again.
If we squint our eyes and look a little more attentively into Jesus’ eyes, we might see ourselves reflected back. See our thankful faces that Jesus is born and is with us. Then, we might just realise that it doesn't matter how small we think we are – how insignificant, not worthy or broken – because here we are rejoicing with the angels on high and singing with Mary about the great big love story God wrote that first Christmas and is still writing now. And yes, that we are doing this alongside the wise men, the shepherds and everyone else, regardless of race, language or religion.
All of this is unbelievably possible because God so loved the world that He sent us Jesus, his only Son, and whoever believes in him will have everlasting life. This is why the world is now upside down for everyone. Even more, topsy-turvy for us Christians because God’s salvation isn’t just for you and me. It is for all peoples: yes, the pagans but also for every sinner, for everyone who’s hurt us, for everyone we disagree with, ignore or hate. Today’s feast celebrates this Christmas joy.
We cannot truly grasp the profound depth, breadth and height of this joy unless we understand how different our journey to Jesus could possibly have been if we had dared to choose to let God guide us like those wise men. It means we would have travelled “by another road.” One on which we might have recognised our limited ways of appreciating Christmas, including our lamentable attitude towards Jesus. Perhaps, then God could have pushed us beyond them to dream what more Jesus’ coming could be in our lives. If this wasn’t our journey to Jesus this Christmas, don’t worry; there’s always the next Advent and the new journey it offers.
Till then, we have to journey through this year. Let’s ask for the grace to do this with renewed faith. We can because Christ has come; with him, we can more clearly see God in all things. So like those shepherds who adored him and those wise mind who prostrated themselves before him, let’s journey onwards into 2025 singing praise, even more, by a different route, for Christ is with us and we are better for Him. Shall we?
Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart, Singapore
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