Feast of the Epiphany 6.1.13
This feast continues the celebration of the Birth of Christ, with a little more emphasis on how His birth is received by others.
The wise men symbolise the gentile nations, thus the rest of the world besides the Jews. Christ has come for the whole world, not just for one race.
There can be only one Saviour once we understand the nature of the salvation that is proposed.
The Jews saw the Messiah in military/political terms. He would save their nation from the dominance of other nations. That would be a kind of salvation and it would make sense to see such a saviour as being only for them, not for other nations.
But if salvation is concerned with the spirit of man, then nationality becomes irrelevant.
The Chinese man and the Portuguese woman and the English child all have to stand before the judgment seat of Christ, the one and only Saviour (and hence Judge) for the whole human race.
Our common humanity is a much stronger link between us than our ‘nationality’. It is often noted how our world is ‘shrinking’ as far as news items are concerned. The massacre of children in the USA; the rape and murder of a woman in India – these things happen so far from us and yet they seem relevant because they involve human beings; and indeed that is enough reason.
Christianity is often described as a ‘western’ or ‘European’ religion. The implication is that outside of certain places Christ is not relevant.
It will further be said that Christians should not take their religion to other places that already have their own gods and their own ways of doing things.
This is absurd if Christ is the only Saviour and only Judge for the whole world. He transcends national borders because He is aiming at the human heart and everyone has one of those.
The wise men are representing all these human hearts, all these people in all these places and times.
Not everyone is so wise as to seek the Christ Child. Many, indeed, avoid Him or try to kill Him.
Herod represents all those who reject the offer of salvation; who prefer to keep their own vested interests; who are happy with the gods they presently have (in Herod’s case, power and prestige).
It might have been easier if Our Lord had made Himself known more obviously but we see on reflection that His relatively secret coming was designed to separate the humble from the proud.
The humble would seek Him no matter how far they had to travel, while the proud and the self-sufficient would stay where they were, if not actually try to kill Him.
Only those who are prepared to kneel before the Christ Child can be admitted to His kingdom.
We kneel before the Crib; we kneel at Mass; especially when we receive Him in Holy Communion.
Humility is vital to the process. The more we recognise our nothingness without Him the more eagerly we will receive Him.
Jew or Gentile, man or woman, slave or free – each has the chance to accept salvation or to reject it.
It is our common humanity that joins us here. Humanity needs to be joined with Divinity and that is precisely what happened when God became Man.
Without losing any of His divinity He enriched humanity. We receive a share in His divinity if we are humble enough to see our need.
We do not assert our importance as against any other person. We are just glad to be included in the merciful plan of God.
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