Over these next few weeks we will be traveling through the season of Epiphany on our way to Lent and Easter. The season takes its name from a Greek word meaning "manifestation, revelation, disclosure." It began on January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany, when we in the Western churches observed the manifestation to the non-Jewish world of the glory of God, seen by the Wise Men in the face of the child. In Greek, the Wise Men are termed magoi or, as we say in English, magi. Most likely the magi were Persian scholars, expert in the stars and the interpretation of dreams. As such, they were drawn beyond the mundane and predictable into something larger, mysterious, beyond the boundaries of the known limits of reality.
The Wise Men, drawn by an unfamiliar star, start out on a journey forsaking the security of their studies and their carefully catalogued certitudes. They leave everything behind and follow the leading of a star to a yet to be determined destination.
Though the Feast of the Epiphany occurs only twelve days after Christmas day, the actual journey of the Magi would have taken considerably longer. In his poem, The Journey of the Magi, T.S. Eliot gives voice to the Wise Men as they reflect upon the rigors of following the star.
…A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Fascinated by the star that insinuated itself into their field of inquiry, the Wise Men are drawn beyond themselves into a process of dispossession. They must jettison all assumptions and tidy expectations in order to be made ready for an encounter with God. This encounter will both undo them and crack them open to a new way of perceiving the immediacy and unboundaried love of a God who leaps down from the heavens, pitches a tent among us, and inhabits our world in all its contradictions and complexities. Comprehending such a leap had to be prepared for, and thus the journey of dispossession and purification of consciousness – without which they might have perceived nothing, cursed the star and returned home with their treasure chests unopened.
Having presented their gifts, the Wise Men, warned in a dream not to return to King Herod, left for their own country "by another road," or in Greek, "by another way." The phrase "by another way" has been interpreted to mean not simply returning by a new route but changed, and now seeing in a new way.
God often works in our own lives by unsettling us and fascinating us. By various routes and by different "stars" God insinuates God’s own self into our consciousness and we are drawn beyond ourselves into a journey of growth and discovery that transcends the boundaries of the known and familiar, safe and predictable, and involves risk and unknowing.
Like the Wise Men all we can do is undertake the journey, unsure of its ultimate destination. And yet, in a curious way, the journey is part of the destination. That is, the journey shapes and forms us and opens us to the deeper mystery and enlargement of truth or new perception and understanding which is the journey’s end. Along the way we may become footsore or disconsolate. We may hear "voices singing in our ears, saying that this was all folly."
Such are the crooked and wily ways of a God who is expert in irony and indirection: a God who, out of love for us and a passionate desire for our full flourishing, places a star on the horizon of our consciousness. Something is planted within us: an awareness, a yearning, a question and we are drawn out of ourselves and our self-constructed world into something larger and unknown. And thus begins our journey. We leave the safety of home, being drawn forth by God’s love.
If such love could reveal itself to the Wise Men in the form of a child, it can reveal itself to us in any form and by any means. A God who is no stranger to the flesh and the vagaries of our humanity can show up anywhere, leap over any boundaries we might set and say, with disconcerting immediacy, "Here I am."
While our journeys are personal they are seldom undertaken alone. Doubtless along the way, when the journey became difficult, the Wise Men had to encourage one another to remain faithful. Possibly one of them was ready to abandon the journey, and only through the solicitude and urging of his companions was he able to travel on.
As members of Christ’s risen body, we are called to bear one another’s burdens and exercise a ministry of encouragement. Seldom do we find ourselves all in the same place. Our perceptions of God’s ways and the routes we must take vary greatly. And yet, there is only one destination, one Truth toward which we are all drawn, and before whom we kneel in self offering.
May we in this season of Epiphany, and all the seasons of our life in Christ that we pass through together, strengthen and support one another. And may we keep our eyes fixed upon the star.
