Calling today Epiphany Sunday has always seemed incredibly appropriate to me. In our Gospel today we hear of a realization by the wise men upon seeing the star that something unique is taking place, and that they are spiritually attuned enough to recognize its significance and act upon it, even going so far as to journey from their homeland to Bethlehem to behold what the star had foretold. We also hear of how they were initially manipulated by Herod to try to get them to use their search for his own worldly purposes, they were thankfully warned of this and guided to take action to avoid being complicit with his plans. There is quite a bit for us to learn from what took place.
First of all, when we hear this narrative, it should strike us as remarkable how they acted upon what they saw in such a direct fashion. It is widely acknowledged that these men likely from the Saba region in ancient Persia, which is in modern day Iran – from Bethlehem, a distance of over a thousand miles through harsh desert climates and along paths that were subject to thieves, hostile tribal factions, and poor trail conditions. Yet this did not deter them, such was their attunement to search for a king they did not yet know, but who they innately sensed was worth any risk they might encounter in their journey. They went so far as to bring him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. These were not ordinary gifts, but really a profession of who and what they sensed this child was. The gold represented royalty, frankincense divinity, and myrrh humanity. Even their words before Herod boldly proclaimed the importance of this child – “we have come in search of the newborn King of the Jews”. All of this was revealed to them through their openness to the spirit at work, and their subsequent action they took was their own willingness to follow what the spirit had placed within their hearts. This same spirit is still very much alive and active today for those who are willing to listen for the message.
The trouble is, there is much that competes with the words of the Spirit, just as Herod and his court tried to manipulate these wise men to their own worldly purposes, so too today there is a cacophony of noise that the world points at each of us every single day to try to derail both our attunement, but also our willingness to act upon Gods message. The motives for this remain the same – greed, envy, insecurity, hatred are all unchanged both in their prevalence and intensity. I think that what has gotten worse is the means of conveying these negative agendas to us. Their assault at times seems inescapable. Even our Lord when he had grown, and begun His ministry felt the need to consistently withdraw for periods of time to find stillness and quiet so that He could digest and dismiss all of the onslaught of those same agendas in His days here on earth. If we think that we don’t need to do the same, if we think that we can somehow deal with these things that even our Lord needed to withdraw from at times, I honestly think we are kidding ourselves. As we close the Christmas Season today, I think that we need to look ahead to the coming year and plan some time for fostering our own spiritual attunement, so that we too may perceive and act when the Spirit calls us.
The Deacons Bench 