A WARNINGReading: Matthew 2: 1-12
I wonder how long they had been studying the stars, those wise men of long ago; how many calculations they had made, how many painstaking hours, days, weeks, months, years they had worked and watched and waited? I wonder did they ever doubt; did they ever waver; did they question what they were doing and why? I wonder did they ever think that the years were slipping past, and if something didn’t happen soon, then they’d be too old to travel, to follow what they’d been working for and waiting for for so long? I wonder was it hard to keep hope alive, the hope that someday, in their lifetime, a certain constellation would take place that would be the sign that they were waiting for? I wonder did people around them regard them as crazy, harmless but not to be taken seriously? Whatever, they watched and they waited, and they waited and they watched, alert for any change in the map of the sky that had become as familiar to them as the palms of their own hands. I wonder did they ever dare to believe that they were people of destiny? And they were alert, for, when the time came, they recognised it; the moment was seized and they set out. They encountered many dangers along the way, not least the political intrigues and subtleties of Herod, but all the time they kept their eyes focussed on the star. Think what they would have missed if they had never set out. They rejoiced as they encountered life, as they encountered Jesus. Their deep spiritual awareness had prompted them to bring the very symbolic gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh for the King who was their journey’s end and its beginning. It was that same spiritual awareness that kept them alert for the slightest whisper from God. It came in a dream, after their quest was fulfilled. It was a warning not to return to Herod who was plotting to destroy the child and anyone else who posed a threat to his absolute power. They heeded the warning and travelled home by another route. There could be no compromise with evil or with the powers of this world once they had seen Jesus. Their lives would never be the same because of this encounter.
In today’s world often our spiritual awareness appears to be dulled. We are not alert and so we can miss the warnings that God would give us as his church, as those who have ‘seen’ Jesus. Again and again we ‘return to Herod’, to the old ways of thinking and acting, to the captivities of various political intrigues and lesser loyalties and so our presentation of Jesus to a world that so desperately needs him is weak and ineffective. This visit of the wise men to Jesus is celebrated in Christian tradition as the Feast of the Epiphany. Epiphany means showing or manifesting and the wise men represent all the nations of the world whose lives will be forever changed by the coming of this King. Perhaps we need another ‘epiphany moment’ so that we, too, will not be able any more to travel home by the old roads. We will have heeded the warning, and will decide to travel home by another way, a way marked out by God himself, full of hope and promise.