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January 5, 2020St. Therese Church, Abu Dhabi
Epiphany means manifestation or appearance of an Emperor or King. In our case it refers to Christ, the Son of God appearing to the gentiles. The Magi represent the peoples heading for Jerusalem in order to find and to adore the true God. They stand for our own journey of faith.
This journey happens during the night. During the day, you cannot see the stars. The light is shining for “those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide (their) feet into the way of peace” (Benedictus). Who wants to follow the star has to look heavenwards. However, it is not enough to look at the star, we have to follow it.
The journey of faith requires mobility and high visibility! We have to move, and we have to keep open our eyes – otherwise we shall lose the star. Generally, we prefer stability and clarity. However, as we can see with the scribes in Jerusalem, it is not enough to know the Bible and to be able to instruct others in the right way. We have to set out ourselves and to hit the road. It might be a long way, leading through the desert and solitude, through trials and errors.
The Magi were longing for the mystery and remained curious . However, curiosity is not enough. We see it in Herod , who was curious and anxious to get hold of Jesus, but with wrong motives and bad intentions. We have to purify carefully our mind and our intentions when we are following the star in search for Jesus. Otherwise we can easily be led astray.
The big question is therefore: Are we honest God-seekers like the wise men? Or are we similar to the chief priests and the scribes who knew a lot about the coming Messiah but were not interested to look after the one who had come? Or we could be like Herod whose concern was only to follow his own interest and to secure his power, even ready to eliminate the one whom he perceived as the rival?
The chief priests and scribes, Herod and his staff, the wise men: All of them heard the Word of God. But only the Wise men did, what we too have to do: Listen humbly to the Word of God, set out for the Saviour, having found Him fall on our knees, give Him homage, and open our heart in surrendering ourselves.
Following the wise men, we come with our gifts. Our gold is the sharing with the poor and needy. Our frankincense is prayer and adoration as we sing in the Christmas carol: “O come, let us adore him!” Our myrrh is the summary of our sufferings, frustrations and disappointments. We do not need to be super-men and super-women. Jesus will accept us in our poverty and humility – be we shepherds or magi, priests or lay people, young or elderly, poor or rich, healthy or sick. He only wants our heart. I am always touched by the legend of “The fourth king” who on his way to Jerusalem had given away everything, passed through poverty and slavery and finally reached Jerusalem too late, i.e. on the Friday when the king he wanted to see died on the cross. There he fell down at the bottom of the cross offering him his loving heart.
At the end of today’s gospel we heard that the wise men “were warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, and returned to their own country by a different way”. Whoever has found Jesus, adored him and offered him his life, can no more go back the old way. He has to change the direction and to continue his life “by a different way!” This is true for every journey of faith: To meet Jesus Christ and to believe in him, means to choose another way.
We all are migrants like the wise men, we may ask ourselves: Do we return in our countries “by a different way”, that means as people who have changed in a positive way? Or are we going back by the old ways, the ways of Herod? Going back, we should be able to say: We have discovered Jesus here in the Gulf because we were constantly in search of him, others helped us to find the way to him and to deepen our knowledge of him; we saw him, adored him and committed ourselves to him. He was the one to change my live. I believe in him and I trust him. Amen.