The Solemnity of Epiphany of Our Lord

On or about December 8 every year, the procession started.  For some reason I can’t fathom, upstairs was the East, the Orient. For a week I got to march them down the stairs, camels sometimes in the lead, sometimes following, and then for another 2 weeks, across the window sill, and finally, star over the manger in sight, along the mantle. Sometime around now, in the first week of the new year they arrived at the manger. It was a long trek, dodging dachshund, Siamese cat, laundry basket, and vacuum cleaner. My mom was always relieved when Epiphany came.

            The pious legends of the middle ages tell us their names: Melchior, Gaspar, Baltasar. They were sages, wise men, kings; young, middle aged, old; Asian, African, European. They were looking for something, something that kept them up at night, gazing into the darkness. What they were looking for, we don’t know exactly: maybe it was meaning they looked for, or the answers, or maybe just the question itself. What they found was a cosmic sign so dim that most did not recognize it: the light of a new star rising in the heavens.

And they did the unthinkable. They left what they knew, threw together a caravan, gathered gifts, and made a road trip to see what there was to see, learn what there was to learn, worship what there was to worship.

Along the way, they met another king, a fourth king more like the ones we know from the fairy tales. Herod was vain, insecure, conniving. He looked no farther than his own interests, his own realm, his own power. He had no time for celestial visions: he was truly a King of the The World, a manipulator who conned the stargazers from the east with lies and promises. “Go and search diligently for the child. When you have found him, bring me word, that I too may go and do him homage.” 

Yet the story of three kings, four kings, does not end with Herod’s lies.  It begins at the feet of the Fifth King, the infant of Bethlehem, sitting on his mother’s lap, cooing at the baubles these strange visitors brought:  a king who would be a sign of contradiction to the Herods of the world, a revelation of the glory of God to the travelers from far away, a sign of hope and mercy for us. His mother and her husband Joseph—who was smart enough to listen to his dreams—would flee from Herod’s wrath, become refugees themselves, exiles in Egypt, strangers in a strange land. They would care for their child, keep him safe until the hour of his own work began, when he rose like the Sun of Justice out of the darkness of the night.

Another Herod, and Pontius Pilate, and all the powers of the world would find him altogether too much to bear, and they put him to death, the shameful death of an outcast criminal. But a light shines in the darkness, even as a star once rose in the east; even in the darkness of death, a light shines, and darkness cannot overcome it. And in the dawning of the First Day of the week, he rose into life again, to light our way through the darkness, to show us the way home again. 

And what is that way, if not the way of compassion, the way of mercy, the way of peace? And what are we to do, if not to follow him along the way, to sing of his compassion, mercy and peace and then act out of them, act them out in our own lives. That is the way of Jesus, the fifth and final king, God from God, light from light, our refuge and our strength, God’s mercy made flesh for us. It is the way of Christ our hope.

Fr. Tom Lucas, S.J.