Solemnity of the Epiphany
Is 60:1-6, Eph 3:2-3a, 5-6, Mt 2:1-12
My sisters and brothers in Christ Jesus,
Years before Christ, Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians. Fifty years later, the Persian (people living in modern day Iran) conquered the Babylonians, and they allowed the Jews to return home. It was difficult time for the Jews, rebuilding their country 50 years after it had been destroyed. Their Temple was gone. Jerusalem, the city that gave them such pride, was in shambles. The prophet in today’s first reading tries to encourage the people and assures them Jerusalem would again be a great city. He sees Jerusalem becoming a light for all the world. People would come from everywhere to visit Jerusalem and to be nourished by the radiant light of God’s presence. St. Matthew sees the vision of the prophet fulfilled in the birth of Jesus and the visit of the Magi.
The second reading is from the Letter to the Ephesians. Saint Paul, a devout Jew, tells us how he became aware that God’s love was for even the Gentiles, the non-Jewish people. God’s love is for everyone. The challenge for us today is to recognize that God’s love is for all peoples, and especially for those peoples and nations and persons who seem most impossible to accept. God wants us all and God is working in all, even when we cannot see it. Once we begin to accept that God is present in all, we will find that speaking of the Lord is not so difficult after all. Instead, we might find that we naturally speak of God to others and that our own love and faithfulness could draw others to God and to our Lord Jesus.
The Gospel today is the story of the Magi from the East, the story of the Three Kings of the Orient, the story of the star drawing and guiding wise men to the Lord. We don’t have a lot of details about how this happened, but our Gospels tell us that God Himself chooses to reveal Himself to all peoples and that God Himself uses various ways to do that. Yes, our witness is important, but so also are the unexplained ways in which God makes Himself know.
Fathers of the church have held that the sages’ gift reveal that they recognized-even if only to a small extent-who this baby was: Gold was tribute for a king; incense was offered as praise to God; and myrrh was ointment used to sooth the sufferings of humanity. Yet all three were presented to Jesus, for as true God and true man, he had been given all authority and dominion as King and Lord. By offering these three gifts, the wise men pointed to Jesus’ authority, his deity, and the fact that the from the long-awaited salvation could only come about through his suffering and death.
What fruit was borne from the journey of these wise men! In their wake, generation after generation of the wise have bowed down before child of Nazareth. Like the wealth of the nations in the prophet’s words (Isaiah 60:5), men and women from every age have laid their treasures before Christ, renouncing the apparent wealth of this world to embrace the real wealth that is found in repentance, faith and humility.
Let us imitate the faith and trust of the wise men. In prayer, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal Christ to you. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you pour out the wealth of your heart before Jesus and to accept his salvation and mercy. Our light has come. Let us arise before him and greet him as he deserves.
Peace and all good!
Fr. Valery Burusu
Parochial Administrator