They saw the child with Mary his mother
They prostrated themselves and did him homage.
They saw the child with Mary his mother
They prostrated themselves and did him homage.
Feast of the Epiphany of the Lord
January 6, 2019
Matthew 2:1-12
Next week we tell a familiar tale with a treasure of wisdom. Not everyone who looked at the sky that night saw what those astrologers from the East saw. Something more is required to recognize what is different and be willing to wonder and follow it. Too many of us look for what is the same; for what is not different, for what is predictable and expected. When something out of the ordinary occurs or someone out of the ordinary moves through our lives, we shy away, are threatened, and avoid the challenge to our predictable existence. Those who avoid what is different may never find Christ Jesus. Blinded by expectations, the people of this story may well have missed the presence of Christ. Their willingness to go to Bethlehem, their wisdom to listen to the Scriptures, and their openness to any possibility brought them to Christ. I suspect that when they returned home, their friends and family were a little amazed and a little amused. “What did you see?” they were probably asked. When their report was so simple, ordinary and humble, they must have been thought of as fools. The “gift” of this story may not be Gold, Frankincense, or Myrrh. The “gift” may be the wisdom to be unthreatened by what is different and unexpected with the willingness to look deeper into darkness. The “gift” they possess may be the ability to discover the presence of God in people and places that seem to have nothing to offer. When that happens, the ones who seem to have the most to offer, the ones bearing gifts, end up being the ones who receive the real Gift of God.
Fr. Tom Boyer