The Epiphany of the Lord
January 6, 2013
We probably all have friends who fill our inbox with
e-mail spam that they think we can’t possibly live without. Often enough,
they’re mistaken, but once in awhile they hit the mark. Like this little gag
someone sent me: ”Do you know what would have happened if it had been the
three wise women instead of the three wise men?” The answer: if it had
been women, they would have stopped a lot earlier to ask directions, they would
have arrived on time, helped deliver the baby, cleaned the stable, made a
casserole and brought gifts that were a lot more practical!
So much for the “what if’s” of history….
But as long as we’re spinning stories and letting
our imaginations travel a bit, let me share with you an old Epiphany legend (a
serious one) that imagines that the Magi were men of three different ages:
Caspar was young, Balthasar middle-aged, and Melchior an old man. When
they approached the stable at Bethlehem, so the legend goes, they didn’t go in
together. They went in one at a time.
Melchior found an old man like himself with whom he
quickly felt at home. They spoke together of memory and gratitude.
When the middle-aged Balthasar went in, he encountered a man of his own years –
a seasoned teacher. They talked passionately of leadership and
responsibility. When Caspar entered the stable, he met a dynamic young
prophet on fire with great hopes and dreams of reform.
Then, as the legend goes, the three met outside the
stable and marveled at how each had gone in expecting to see a newborn child,
but how each had met someone of his own years. So they decided to go in
again, but this time all together. So they gathered their gifts of gold,
frankincense, and myrrh in their arms and entered the stable a second time.
There, in a manger on a bed of straw, was a tiny child twelve days old.
Only a legend, but like all legends, it uncovers a
truth. In this case, the truth is that Jesus has something to say to us at
each stage of our life’s journey. When we’re young, he sparks our
imagination and ignites in us a desire to build a better world. In our
middle years, he calmly calls us to responsibility, perhaps to leadership, and
to the service of others. In the evening of our lives, wisdom and
integrity are his message, along with gratitude for times past.
This is another way of saying that Jesus accompanies
us each step of our way in life, and to find him is always to find ourselves,
our truest and deepest selves.
But there is more. In the legend, when all
three Magi entered the stable together they found a tiny, helpless child -- as
if to say that no matter where we are in the unfolding journey of our lives, we
are still children, children before God, children of God. We never get
beyond that no matter what airs of sophistication or self-importance we assume
along the way. There is always a sense in which we are newborn from the
hand of God at every moment of our lives right up to the moment of death!
Before God, we are as dependent as a child on its mother’s knees, to quote the
Psalmist.
My friends, I realize there’s a whole lot more that
could be said on this great feast of the Epiphany, but I think you’ll find a
certain virtue in a brief homily today considering the many times we’ve gathered
here for Mass in the past two weeks! But I hope that the little legend has
reminded you of something important: like the Magi of the legend, we come to see
the Christ both separately and together. Separately, we recognize that we
are, each of us, very different people -- in different places and at different
stages along this great journey we call life. And we need to honor that as
God does. But together, we realize that even though we are quite
different, we are also surprisingly the same: we are all God’s children.
The English poet and essayist, G.K. Chesterton, once
wrote a poem called the House of Christmas. Let the final stanza of Chesterton’s
poem conclude these thoughts.
To an open house in the evening
Home shall people come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome,
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all God’s children are at home.
Father Michael G. Ryan
