3rd January, 2010. FEAST OF THE EPIPHANY
I may have mentioned before that, although tradition holds that there were three wise men… it actually doesn’t say in the bible how many wise men there are…. It only mentions that three types of present were given….. in the eastern church, there is an alternate tradition that there were twelve wise men…. But really it doesn’t matter how many….
What does matter is that… people from a foreign country, who were not members of the Jewish faith realised that a King had been born… a special King.. and they cam to give him homage… while others.. who were part of the religious tradition of Jesus did not and missed the opportunity….
One of the great messages from the readings of today’s mass is that the light of divinity is revealed in Jesus, God made flesh, and shining through the humanity of Christ and that this light has been seen and accepted by others. This is a challenging theme because lots of the time we humans do not recognize the divine light in the events and people of our daily life……... We don’t recognize that light in Jesus Christ and we don’t always recognize it in one another. We pray that we will recognise the light of Christ in each-other and in the events of our lives…. And cooperate with what God is doing there.
The gifts brought by the wise men are significant…
Gold, frankincense and myrrh
Gold… for a King….
Frankincense … a beautiful perfume… symbol of holiness
Myrrh…... a bitter perfume…. Used in anointing the dead… a symbol of Christ’s humanity.. his suffering and his death for us…
The Wise men recognised that Jesus was the revelation of God’s glory… a priest, a prophet and a King….. They worshipped him as King of all creation, they recognised his holiness… and they they forshadowed that he would save us by his suffering and death on the cross… by his giving of his life for us…..
Let us, in our prayer, in our actions and our priorities.. always recognise Jesus as our King, let us worship his holiness… and let us join him in his self sacrificing love… his loving service of others for the sake of the Good news…
Another year has begun… I do pray that this has been a joyful and beautiful time for you and a time for rest, for family and for friends….
It’s been a nice time for me to catch up with family … my brother David, my sister-in-law Liz and their children … are up visiting this week… and it’s always nice to have family with me…..
New Year is always a nice time to reflect on priorities and I think its also a wonderful time to make new year’s resolutions… I find that not only a timely thing… I think it’s a very religious thing to do too…. It’s so important that we take stock and check to see that the direction we are on is consistent with the mission of Jesus’ good news in our lives… and that our plans and priorities are also consistent with Jesus who is our King, our God, and our salvation….
Like the three wise men, we are here today to worship our Lord, revealed in the Lord Jesus…
But unlike the wise men, we have no gold…. But we give our love….
We have no frankinsense….but we give the lord our prayers….
We have no myrrh… but we give our work… and ourselves.. at the service of our Lord…
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