Today, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Epiphany.  Often called “Little Christmas,” Epiphany is in fact no less important: for if Christmas focuses primarily on the birth of Jesus, the visit of the shepherds, the revelation of Jesus as Israel’s long-awaited Messiah, then Epiphany celebrates the revelation of Christ to the whole world: Jesus is Lord of all creation, the “Light for every nation.” 

As I sat down to prepare this homily, I realized this is the seventh time in the last eight years I have had the privilege (and challenge) of preaching for this great feast.  As I reviewed some of those homilies, I realized I had used up most of my good Epiphany stories, four film references, and three different poems!  Luckily, thanks to the Internet – and to the fact that Rome still celebrates the Epiphany on January 6^th rather than the nearest Sunday – I had the opportunity to read Pope Francis’ homily, and was so moved by it that I wanted to share it with you (in a slightly edited manner).  After all, he is my boss, and his message is very much worth sharing!

“Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?  For we have observed his star in the East, and have come to worship him” (Mt 2:2).

With these words, the Magi tell us the reason for their long journey: they come to worship the newborn King.  These two actions stand out in the Gospel account.  To see, and to worship.  We have seen his star; we desire to worship.

To see: The Magi saw a star that made them set out.  This discovery of something unusual in the heavens sparked a whole series of events.  The star did not shine just for them, nor did they have special DNA to make them the only ones able to see it.   In the words of St. John Chrysostom, “the Magi did not set out because they had seen the star: they saw the star because they had already set out.”  It was as if they had been waiting for it all their lives.  Their hearts were open to the horizon, and so they could see what the heavens were showing them, for they were guided by an inner restlessness.  They were open to something new.

The Magi thus personify all those who believe, those who long for God, who yearn for their home, their heavenly homeland.  A holy longing for God wells up in the hearts of believers, because we know that the Gospel is not an event of the past but of the present.  This holy longing for God keeps us alert in the face of every attempt to reduce and impoverish our life, inspires us to rebel against the prophets of doom, the Herods of this world.  That longing keeps hope alive in the community of believers, as we continue to plead: “Come, Lord Jesus”.

It was this longing that led the elderly Simeon and Anna to go up each day to the Temple, Simeon certain that his life would not end without holding the Saviour in his arms, Anna ready to tell of his coming to all who longed for the deliverance of Israel.  This longing led the Prodigal Son to abandon his self-destructive lifestyle and to seek his father’s embrace.  This was the longing felt by the shepherd who left the ninety-nine sheep to seek out the one that was lost.  Mary Magdalen experienced the same longing on that Easter morning when she ran to the tomb, and met her risen Master.  Longing for God draws us out of our isolation, our fear that nothing can change.  Longing for God shatters our routines, impels us to make the changes we want and need.   Longing for God has its roots in the past, is experienced in the present, reaches out to the future. 

All who feel this longing are led by faith to seek God, as the Magi did, in the most distant corners of history, for there the Lord awaits them.  They go to the peripheries, to the frontiers, to places not yet evangelized, to encounter their Lord.  They do this not out of a sense of superiority, but as fellow pilgrims, unable to ignore those who for whom the Good News is still uncharted territory.

An entirely different attitude reigned in the palace of Herod, a short distance from Bethlehem, where no one realized what was taking place.  We are told that as the Magi made their way, Jerusalem slept.  It slept in collusion with Herod who, rather than seeking, also slept, anesthetized by a deadened conscience.  He was bewildered; he was afraid.  It was the fear which, faced with something new and beautiful, with the power to change human history, closed in on itself and its own achievements and successes.  It was the fear of one who sits atop his wealth yet cannot see beyond it. It was the fear lodged in the hearts of those who want to control everything and everyone, immersed in the culture of winning at any cost, a world neatly divided between “winners” andv”losers”. It is the fear that rejects anything that challenges us, that calls into question our own certainties and truths, our ways of clinging to the world and this life.  Herod was afraid, and that fear led him to seek security in murder: “You kill the little ones of Bethlehem, because fear is killing you in your heart.”

We come to worship.  The Magi came from the East to worship, and sought first in the place befitting a king: a palace.  Their quest led them there, for it seemed fitting that a king should be born in a palace, amid a court and all his subjects. One might well expect a king to be venerated, feared and adulated: true, but not necessarily loved.  For these are worldly categories, the idols to which we pay homage: the cult of power, outward appearances, superiority. Idols that promise only sorrow and enslavement.

It was in that place, that the Magi would embark upon their longest journey, a more arduous and complex one.  They had to learn that the One they sought was not in a palace, but elsewhere: existentially, as well as geographically.   In Herod’s palace, they did not see the star guiding them to discover a God who is love.  For only under the banner of freedom, is it possible to realize that the gaze of this unknown king does not abase, enslave, or imprison us.  To realize that the gaze of God lifts us up, forgives us, heals us.  To realize that God wanted to be born where we least expected, in a place where we so often refuse him.  To realize that in God’s eyes there is always room for those who are wounded, weary, mistreated and abandoned.  That his strength and his power are called “mercy”.  For some of us, for our world, how far Jerusalem is from Bethlehem!

Herod was unable to worship, because he could not or would not change his own way of looking at things.  He was only interested in worshipping himself, believing that everything revolved around him. 

He was unable to worship, because he expected others to worship him.  Even the chief priests could not worship the newborn King, because although they had great knowledge, and knew the prophecies, they were not ready to make the journey, willing to change their ways.

The Magi were all too familiar with, and weary of, the Herods of their own day. They desired something else, something different. In Bethlehem, they found a promise of newness, of gratuitousness.  Indeed, something new was taking place.  The Magi were able to worship, because they had the courage to set out.  As they fell to their knees before the small, poor and vulnerable Infant, the unexpected and unknown Child of Bethlehem, they discovered the glory of God, the Light of the World.

What about us?  What might this Feast of the Epiphany be saying to our secular, post-Christian world, to this parish community, here and now?  I  think we can begin by emphasizing the universal character of this feast.  The traditional Christmas story, as told by Luke, emphasizes the coming of the promised Messiah to Israel, God’s chosen and covenanted people.  Today, suddenly and mysteriously, we meet three Gentiles – strangers, others – who have intuited that this birth is good news for them too.  This Epiphany, this revelation, is that the birth of Christ is not just one small step for one local religion, but a great leap forward for all humankind.

Traditionally, the three Magi are shown as representing the different races, cultures and languages of the world. They seek with diligence and joy. They were inspired to follow a star, but didn’t stop at the star: they let that star lead them to something beyond itself.  Is this not a pattern for all wise contemplation of nature and beauty: whether in art or science?  A bridge we can build with those who seek God and transcendence in these places?

In a wonderfully evocative sonnet, Anglican poet and mystic Malcolm Guite shows us how the arrival on the scene of the Magi includes us – who are for the most part Gentiles, not direct descendants of the people of Israel – into what has been, up to this point, a primarily Jewish story.  May we be inspired by this sonnet – and by the great mystery of the Solemnity of the Epiphany which we celebrate this day – to follow that Star wherever it may lead us:

It might have been just someone else’s story,
Some chosen people get their special king.
We leave them to their own peculiar glory,
We don’t belong, it doesn’t mean a thing.
But when these three arrive they bring us with them,
Gentiles like us, their wisdom might be ours;
A steady step that finds an inner rhythm,
A  pilgrim’s eye that sees beyond the stars.
They did not know his name, but still they sought him,
They came from elsewhere, but still they found;
In temples they found those who sold and bought him,
But in the filthy stable, hallowed ground.
Their courage gives our questing hearts a voice
To seek, to find, to worship, to rejoice.