Magi Musings

A couple, married for 45 years, was engaged in a lively conversation when the husband stopped and pulled out a handkerchief from his back pocket. He carefully unfolded it and enthusiastically blew his nose.  After several honks he meticulously refolded the hanky exactly along the original creases, until it formed again a perfect square.  He then returned it to his pocket. Noticing this ritual the wife inquired, “Dear, do you always fold your hanky like that after you blow your nose?”                                                                         

“Of course I do,” the husband insisted.  “I’ve always done it that way?  Is that a problem?  

 “Well, no, I guess not.  But after 45 years I had no idea.”

“So what?” the husband grunted.                      

“Well, I don’t know how to tell you this,” the wife responded, “but when I’m doing laundry and I find your hankies neatly folded, I assume they haven’t been used and I simply put them back in your drawer without washing them.”                                                                  

The husband reflected on this for a moment and replied, “No wonder I’ve always had so much trouble getting my glasses clean.” 

Happy Epiphany!   The season that the church calls epiphany, occupies the calendar from this day, which is twelve days after Christmas right up to the Sunday before Ash Wednesday which begins the season of Lent.  Epiphany is about seeing clearly, cleaning our glasses.  The word epiphany literally means “to make manifest, to reveal” so that others will see clearly. Like light, like a candle’s light reflected in a mirror, Bethlehem’s child is revealed and made known to not only to Judean shepherds, but also to foreigners from the East; not only to those abiding in the land of promise but to those in other lands too; not only to the few, but to the many.  Epiphany is the season when Jesus goes public, revealing who he is and what he is called to do.    

The first to acknowledge him after the shepherds left were the Magi, the wise ones from the East.  The fact that they were wise doesn’t imply that they had Ph.d’s behind their names, but they knew a lot about the stars and prophetic utterances.  Some say they were astrologers or sorcerers, magicians and charlatans.  We don’t know.  I imagine, though, they had an ear and an eye for things on a cosmic scale. So strong was this premonition that they felt compelled to leave the comfort of familiar surroundings.  From homelands we now call Iran and Iraq and they headed out in search of this thing, this person, this event that they suspected being bigger than themselves. These wise ones were the first to realize that in this child resided something special, something unique, something we might even say was a one-of-a-kind.                       

Maybe that’s what the One whose birth we celebrated does for us.  As he grows into his own maturity and sense of mission, he cleans the glasses of our own understanding.  This One of God, uniquely reveals the character and heart of the Divine.  And this same One, is not only the window through whom we see the Divine, he is also the mirror that reflects best our own humanity.  In other words, he shows us how to live and how to give.  He shows us how to serve and models for us true sacrifice.

John Buchanan, the editor the Christian Century magazine, and pastor at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago recently wrote, “Almost anybody can be touched emotionally by the birth of a baby. But the church knows and remembers that the baby grew up and became a man who taught a revolutionary message of unconditional love and practical forgiveness, and who overturned cultural conventions by welcoming the marginalized and excluded.“The church remembers that the baby grew up and got into trouble with the authorities for living out his notion that... that all are loved and welcomed at the banquet table. The church remembers that the baby grew up and challenged social convention by forgiving enemies, turning the other cheek, and responding to violence not with violence but with love.” 

No wonder he was not welcomed by his own. No wonder he was misunderstood.  No wonder he was executed.  No wonder he was feared by the Herods of the world.

So much lies ahead of us on this the sixth day of a new year.  Who knows what good things await?  Who knows what misfortunes lurk?  Will your star in the East rise or will it fall?  Will this year offer you more minuses or more pluses?  More light or more darkness?  Will you dare to risk the journey or will you pass up the adventure?  Will you love more or less?  Will your heart grow warm or cold?  Will you dwell on your defeats or dream new dreams? Will you let the wound heal or will you reopen it?  Will you worship him like the wise men did or will you find ways Herod to snuff him out like Herod?  So much of life comes down to choices made.   

“Truth is,” Richard Rohr says, “if God can be manifest in a baby [born] in a poor stable for the unwanted, then we better be ready for God just about anywhere and in anybody.”