B Cycle – Feast of Epiphany 23

Mt. 2:1-12

Rise up for the glory of the Lord is upon you!  You shall be radiant; your heart will throb and overflow because of what we see.  Yet we are blind to the presence of God at work in our midst.  We fail to experience the presence of God in a way that our response is one of praise, giving glory to God.  Oh, we have our moments, those mystical moments where we experience something, but we cannot define it.  We may recognize it as God present to us but since we have not experienced it before we are not sure it is God. 

The Magi knew why they were traveling to that distant land. They had read the prophecies and believed those prophecies had been fulfilled. The promised Messiah was arriving, sent by God to restore the kingdom of Israel.  They also expected that Messiah to be a child, not a warrior ready to do battle but a dependent child born of a virgin. They were going to acknowledge Him and to give Him homage. After their journey was completed, we never hear anything from them again.  Their experience was personal and had to be life changing but perhaps like Mary they pondered all these things in their hearts.   

What we do know is this story is important in salvation history.  There is a message within it for us to grasp and to apply to our lives.  These three risked a great deal as they began this journey.  Their risk was professionally, personally, and physically.  They had the courage to begin, whereas we often like a safe, risk free journey as we seek to grow in our faith.  Do we dare begin an unknown journey to encounter Christ and acknowledge Him as Lord. 

Professionally they were risking their reputation because the star’s appearance confirmed the prophecy.  I believe they knew the Messiah would be a child for they knew the prophecy said He would be born of a virgin.  The popular belief held by the people is that the Messiah would be someone powerful enough to restore the kingdom of King David. Someone strong enough, brave enough to overthrow their oppressors, the Romans.  Do we dare proclaim to others our belief in the transforming power of God can overcome what ever is oppressing us?   

They risked the potential of being assaulted and robbed along the journey by thieves and bandits.  We do not know anything about the length of their journey, but tradition has us believing it was long and difficult. How hard it was to get there did not matter.  They were motivated by a need to see and experience the person of Jesus.  We know they gave Him homage when they did encounter Him.  We know they gave Him gifts, which symbolically tell us they understood the mission of the messiah was different than popular belief.

It is a beautiful tale we hear annually and treat it like a fairy tale. We listen, marvel at the story and the characters but fail to hear God challenging us through the tale.  If Christ came for our salvation, then the story of the Magi is telling us something about ourselves.  It should at a minimum challenge us to reflect on our response to the presence of Jesus.   Is should at a minimum have us ask ourselves if we are like the people of Bethlehem who did not even leave their homes to see what was going on.  Are we too preoccupied with living our lives to seek a deeper relationship with Jesus?  Are we too comfortable with our image of God and not open to seek to discover more of what God promised us?  Do we have any curiosity at all to begin a journey to encounter the reality of a personal relationship with Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit? 

These readings today are God speaking to us about His plan for our restoration.  Our hearts are to throb and overflow with joy because the mission of Jesus is to restore what is broken within us.  Not was the mission but remains the mission.  Jesus will go out of His way to achieve that end. Coming to us as a child shows us far, He will go to remove the barrier of sin between us and God.   

If God is our Father, then His love is on full display in the person of Jesus.  Like Jesus we need to be nurtured into a spiritual life by the work of that Father and the Holy Spirit.  We are to grow in our trust and dependency on God for the ability to overcome an enemy who seeks to separate us from God.  The lessons we can learn during this period of Christmas is how to depend on what God has given us for our holiness. The gift of Jesus Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit.  We can never become holy through our own efforts.  However, we can grow in holiness by allowing the death of Jesus Christ and the infilling of the Holy Spirit to heal us and restore us.   

We can be reborn, become new creations in Christ and have our hearts changed by allowing the fruit of their presence into our lives.  First, we need to begin a journey of our own to encounter Him and to allow His presence to infuse us with new life and desires.  Then we need to allow the Spirit to take us on a journey where we are alone with Him.  During that journey we need to allow the Spirit to help us grow in holiness and equip us as disciples.  Like the Magi we need to be singularly fixed in our determination to encounter Jesus.  We need to believe that God will accomplish within us what He has promised if we embrace the person of Jesus and allow His glory to touch us. 

Once that happens the rest of the journey is one of allowing Jesus to come into our hearts and allow us to feel God’s love washing us clean and renewing us. We need to see ourselves as God sees us; created for love and to give love.  We need to experience how the perfect love of God is thousands of miles apart from our human ability to love. For we love with a selfish love, a needy love, a cautious love.

God’s love is like standing under an endless cleansing stream of unconditional grace.  Standing before Jesus the Magi were bathed in that grace.

Today take a moment, stand before Jesus, look into His eyes, and allow that grace to fill you with unconditional love moving your heart to throb with joy.