Today we celebrate the Epiphany of the Lord, and our Gospel message lays bare for us some insights that we should take to heart from its lessons.

The first of these is the stark contrast in those who sought the Christ Child. We have on the one hand a powerful earthly ruler who seeks the ruination and death of the child to ensure his own continued place of power. On the other side of things, we have three men who have travelled far from all they know, because they are open to the message of hope that they innately know comes with the signs they have observed.

Even the approach to communicating speaks volumes of the two separate approaches that are being pursued to seek out the Christ Child. Herod seeks to shield his words by calling the Magi secretly, the way all people who practice deceit do. Not because he was actually afraid of others being able to do something about them, but simply because all those who speak words of deceit are innately afraid of their own words because of what they harbor. They know their guilt. In contrast, the Magi approach the king publicly and proclaim what they know to be true, and state their intentions plainly. Their hearts are free of any guilt or fear of their own message because it is one of peace and honesty. They have no need of being shielded from fear of what their own words contain.

When we approach Jesus, we need to ask ourselves, how true and open is our own message that we bring before Him. Are we being honest with Him in our thoughts, our words, and our prayers? Or are we going through the motions, and presenting a carefully sanitized version of what we really need to be talking to Him about because our own situations scare us. Do our actions and words stand up to the scrutiny of being stated in the light and in open discourse? If the answer to these questions is no, we need  to think about what it is that we fear, and is causing our conversations with our Lord to be left incomplete.

It is my hope for each one of us, that in this coming year, we are open and brave enough to be willing to pursue His star, so that when we see it at it’s rising, we too will seek to do Him homage. To pray and to worship Him in the completeness and honesty that He deserves. It is more than just a reckoning of our own actions, it is the path to peace, and interior contentment that so many of us seek, and that seems to be so rarely found these days. The fact is, there is only one path, and it leads us over sometimes rocky ground, to a gate that is very narrow, but that also opens into the vastness of Gods kingdom and love. It is worth any trials, pains, and work that it takes to achieve an open and honest relationship with Jesus Christ and to only then place the gift of ourselves before Him.