January 4, 2015

Epiphany of the Lord

Isaiah 60:1-6; Ephesians 3:2-3, 5-6; Matthew 2: 1-12

Christmas and New Years have come and gone. I, like so many others, have settled back into the same ’old routine.’ No doubt all have dreams and visions of what the new year will bring; perhaps there have been many ‘resolutions’ made to ‘improve’ what is hoped for or needed. How about our “God resolutions”? What should I DO?

I think it would be good to start with another question: What is God doing? We’ve just celebrated what God has done. God the Father created the world and all that was in it. As Genesis tells us, He created our first parents and gave them everything. These two enjoyed all of creation and their intimacy with our Creator. But they wanted more; isn’t this the SIN of all creation? When people, ourselves included, get power—we want more; when we get possessions—we want bigger and better; when we see all that we have and revel in all this pleasure—we want more indulgence into what is pleasurable. Power, possessions, pleasure...Msgr. Chet Michael said that these are the bane of our existence.

(A sidelight…the Thesaurus uses these words to describe ‘bane’: nuisance, misery, pest, blight, curse, bother, irritation, annoyance; the antonym is blessing). How True!

The opposite of these words or better, the positive attributes that are needed to counteract these selfish tendencies are Prayer…Almsgiving…Fasting.

During the Christmas season to date, most have enjoyed the ‘good life’ so to speak. It’s not the time to ‘give up’ on the good life, but to realize what the good life is and what the coming of Jesus has to tell us. The Good News is that the people from the time of Genesis had wandered away from God and been unaware or unresponsive to God’s love. They just didn’t believe that God really loved them. They felt that they had to love themselves ‘more’ by enjoying the good life and the more they enjoyed the less they were aware of God. The Good News is that God has never stopped loving any person ever. Do I let God love me? Am I grateful for God’s love? Do I realize that His loving me first enables me to see ‘my importance’ and specialness before God and this enables me to be a person of love? It is not in what I have or in what I possess or what I do that is important…it is that I am loved. It seems that so often I am running away or avoiding the implications of being loved. If I acknowledge that I am loved by God then I might be asked to change? I might be asked to avoid the ‘play things’ that are so enjoyable in my life? I may be asked to go out of myself and think of others and sharing instead of keeping and enjoying? And God continues to say, “I love you just the way you are! Now can you love others so that they can see My Love?”

Today’s feast of the Epiphany celebrates the magi coming to pay homage to the baby Jesus, presenting gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. But before their coming, Jesus came: Emmanuel—God is with us. And God is with myself and each person each and every single day of our existence because each person is INDIVIDUALLY LOVED AND SPECIAL TO GOD.

I read the following in Living the Word, Scripture Reflections and Commentaries for Sundays and Holy Days:

“The word ‘epiphany,’ which means a shining forth of light, has slipped from its religious use into secular usage to indicate any sudden flash of insight. First used in this sense by the writer James Joyce, the term has degenerated to the point where ‘Epiphany’ is even the name for an integrated suite of customer relations management software. Presumably using this software will give one striking new insights into how to manage one’s customer relations.

The distance between the secular usage of the term ‘epiphany’ and what we celebrate on this feast can be seen in the fact that we do not celebrate a flash of insight, but the shining forth of God’s light in our world through the person of Jesus. Pope Benedict XVI wrote that to be a Christian isn’t merely an ethical choice or a noble idea, but the encounter with an event, a person who gives life a new horizon and a definitive direction. (See the opening paragraph of Deus Caritas Est.) The Epiphany is not about an idea occurring to us but about an encounter with a person: Jesus Christ.

This is at least in part what our Evangelical Protestant brothers and sisters mean when they speak about having a ‘personal relationship’ with Jesus. They do not mean a private relationship, but rather a relationship with a living person—the risen Christ—and not just with an idea. We too should seek to have such a personal relationship with the God who chose to come among us at this time in the form of a little child.”

So have I come to the manger and worshipped my God? Have I spent some time in thanking God for His love? Have I expressed my gratitude for all the gifts and love and interaction with the many people who have touched me with love these last days? Have I seen in their love an image of God’s love in His sending of Jesus? Have I taken time to reflect on many of the different moments during Christmas that I felt ‘touched by love:’ whether it was during the Eucharist; in Scripture; in the Children’s Pageant; in the different traditions celebrated this Christmas; in the cards that I have spent time in reading and digesting; in the faces of the people gathered around our celebrations? Have I realized that each and every one of these reflections starts with the words from God: “I have loved you FIRST?”

Now the response from this comes down to What Am I Going to Do? This is not so much What I Have to Do? But do I ALLOW myself to do? Do I take time from MY BUSY LIFE and GO to the Lord and sit with Him? This is what the Magi did: they travelled long and far and took time from their busy life, their jobs and their families just to come to Jesus…THEY FELT IT WAS THAT IMPORTANT…and they saw LOVE.

So I reflect on:

• When I think about Jesus Do I think of Him as someone who lived way back when or as someone whom I can have an encounter with even now?
• How do I encounter Jesus in my life now: is it in prayer…scripture…in other people? Do I realize He is in all?
• How am I Jesus’ presence in my world today?
• The Magi saw the truth because they were objective ’outsiders’ from Persia. They knew a king when they saw one; they could even recognize the goodness of God when they saw it. But Herod couldn’t. A total self-interest can blind us, even to God. Does this happen to me?

Sacred Space 2015 says:

“The wise men stand for all who are ready to break out of their routine and comfort zone and go in search of what they yearn for. The insignificance of the baby in the crib can draw us on more powerfully even than the majestic night sky.

From every corner of our bustling planet Earth, we are drawn to you, Saviour and Lord, brother and companion, who touch with the healing power of love even the least valued of God’s children.”