I thought I’d say something today about the run-up to the Epiphany. There have been in the times of the Bible – and also throughout the history of the Christian church – manifestations of the divine, often to individuals, sometimes to groups of people. A manifestation of the divine is quite literally an epiphany. In our ordinary language, an epiphany is a moment of realisation of some significant truth, and when we Christians speak of an epiphany that realisation is connected with some great truth about God, His revelation to us, and what the import of that is for the Christian life.
We all wander through life as men and women, asking ourselves in particular what life is all about, and (if we happen to be somehow religious) what God has planned for us here below. Some of us may have an epiphany, such as when we meet our eventual spouse, or have our first child, or begin a work of some sort that just feels right. The rest of us will spend our lives discerning, wondering if we have ever gotten it right. We are in a way like those wise men of Persia, astronomers and probably astrologers, fumbling about for the legendary King of the Jews, Whom they knew about from the Hebrew Scriptures, and Whose star they were sure they were following, as it led them out of their homes and into the north of Syria, and then down into Palestine. Their expedition could not have been a small one, if indeed they were kings.
Like Abraham, the great patriarch of the Hebrew nation, who also had to make a similar trek from Babylon to Palestine, the wise men of the East had to make a leap of faith. They had to take a risk on an expensive and possibly hopeless adventure into the newly expanding Roman Empire, and into the territory of the wretched vassal king Herod. Let us ask ourselves – we who have the benefit of hindsight, and who know Whom it was they did eventually find in that manger in Bethlehem – let us ask ourselves what drove them… We do not know if they were Jews themselves, from a distant diaspora community in Persia. The Church has always seen this episode in the infancy stories of Christ as the beginnings of the entry of non-Jews into belief in the God of Israel – we can hear that in some of the Mass texts for the feast day.
We see the wise men as Gentiles – like ourselves – fixing our distant gaze upon the Jewish Messiah, directing our camel trains at this time of year to the little stable in Bethlehem. In our often bleak and seemingly hopeless secular lives – described so dramatically by the evangelists and priest-writers of the New Testament as darkness – we eagerly reach for flashes of light, streaks of colour, the smiling face of angels, and the loving embrace of the Creator God, Whom we know as our loving Father. These things are our own star, leading us over the desert sands to the Child in the manger.
“Hear now how wisdom speaks in her own regard, of the honour God has given her, of the boast she utters among the nation that is hers. In the court of the most High, in the presence of all his host, she makes her boast aloud, and here, amid the holy gathering of her own people, that high renown of hers is echoed; praise is hers from God’s chosen, blessing from blessed lips. ‘I am that word,’ she says, ‘that was uttered by the mouth of the most High, the primal birth before ever creation began. Through me light rose in the heavens, inexhaustible; it was I that covered, as with a mist, the earth. In high heaven was my dwelling-place, my throne a pillar of cloud; none but I might span the sky’s vault, pierce the depth of the abyss, walk on the sea’s waves; no part of earth but gave a resting-place to my feet. People was none, nor any race of men, but I had dominion there; high and low, my power ruled over men’s hearts. Yet with all these I sought rest in vain; it is among the Lord’s people that I mean to dwell. He who fashioned me, he, my own Creator, has found me a dwelling-place…'”
Book of Ecclesiasticus (aka. Sirach), 24: 1-12 [link]
This our first reading on this Sunday before Epiphany is a discourse from the book of Ecclesiasticus (aka. Sirach) about divine Wisdom, and we must note that this divine Wisdom is not simply a set of directions and guidance for moral life in this world, or the Ten Commandments of God, etc. The concept of Wisdom in the Hebrew understanding is linked closely to union with God. This is said time and again in the Gospels, and in the letter of the New Testament. We become truly wise not because we obey every commandment of God, but because we love Him so much as to live our lives according to His will for us – so that, as S. Paul would say, those commandments need not be sought out, because they are ‘written upon our hearts.’
So Wisdom in our reading is a person, whom we are to embrace. This person in the Christian reading would be Christ Himself, Who could rightly say that it is He Who is Wisdom incarnate – divine Wisdom in the flesh. So, Christianity is not a legalistic religion of letters and words in some book, but a religion of union with God through Christ. It’s nice to have a Bible, but if we were illiterate and unable to read, our priests and teachers could still lead us properly to God. As they certainly have our ancestors for generations! So Paul talks in the second reading about our faith in Christ – union with Him – as the very object of his (Paul’s) labours for the Church.
“Blessed be that God, that Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who has blessed us, in Christ, with every spiritual blessing, higher than heaven itself. He has chosen us out, in Christ, before the foundation of the world, to be saints, to be blameless in His sight, for love of Him; marking us out beforehand (so His will decreed) to be His adopted children through Jesus Christ. Thus He would manifest the splendour of that grace by which He has taken us into His favour in the person of His beloved Son. It is in Him and through His blood that we enjoy redemption, the forgiveness of our sins. So rich is God’s grace, that has overflowed upon us in a full stream of wisdom and discernment, to make known to us the hidden purpose of His will. It was His loving design, centred in Christ, to give history its fulfilment by resuming everything in Him, all that is in heaven, all that is on earth, summed up in Him. In Him it was our lot to be called, singled out beforehand to suit His purpose (for it is He Who is at work everywhere, carrying out the designs of His will); we were to manifest His glory, we who were the first to set our hope in Christ; in Him you too were called, when you listened to the preaching of the truth, that gospel which is your salvation. In Him you too learned to believe, and had the seal set on your faith by the promised gift of the Holy Spirit; a pledge of the inheritance which is ours, to redeem it for us and bring us into possession of it, and so manifest God’s glory. Well then, I too play my part; I have been told of your faith in the Lord Jesus, of the love you shew towards all the saints, and I never cease to offer thanks on your behalf, or to remember you in my prayers. So may He Who is the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father to whom glory belongs, grant you a spirit of wisdom and insight, to give you fuller knowledge of Himself. May your inward eye be enlightened, so that you may understand to what hopes He has called you, how rich in glory is that inheritance of His found among the saints…”
Letter of S. Paul to the Ephesians, 1: 3-18 [link]
Well, Paul’s hearers probably had some limited access to the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures that scholars call the Septuagint, but it is unlikely that many of them could read it, and yet they were able to take up their inheritance with the saints, their belonging to God their adopted Father in Christ, and they were thus able to manifest God’s glory in their everyday lives.
The Bible and the further history of the Church furnishes us with a love story between God and mankind, and as with every love story, the lovers must needs learn more and more about each other. The Apostle S. John at the beginning of his Gospel, which we have had at Mass this weekend, labours to teach us about this Object of our devotion, about the Light that shines in the darkness, a Light which the darkness will never conquer.
“At the beginning of time the Word already was; and God had the Word abiding with Him, and the Word was God. He abode, at the beginning of time, with God. It was through Him that all things came into being, and without Him came nothing that has come to be. In Him there was life, and that life was the Light of men. And the Light shines in darkness, a darkness which was not able to master it. A man appeared, sent from God, whose name was John. He came for a witness, to bear witness of the light, so that through him all men might learn to believe. He was not the Light; he was sent to bear witness to the Light. There is One Who enlightens every soul born into the world; He was the true Light. He, through Whom the world was made, was in the world, and the world treated Him as a stranger. He came to what was His own, and they who were His own gave Him no welcome. But all those who did welcome Him, He empowered to become the children of God, all those who believe in His Name; their birth came, not from human stock, not from nature’s will or man’s, but from God. And the Word was made flesh, and came to dwell among us; and we had sight of His glory, glory such as belongs to the Father’s only-begotten Son, full of grace and truth. We have John’s witness to Him; ‘I told you,’ cried John, ‘there was One coming after me Who takes rank before me; He was when I was not.’ We have all received something out of His abundance, grace answering to grace. Through Moses the law was given to us; through Jesus Christ grace came to us, and truth. No man has ever seen God; but now His only-begotten Son, Who abides in the bosom of the Father, has Himself become our interpreter…”
Gospel of S. John, 1: 1-18 [link]
Catholic Louth and Mablethorpe 