The Epiphany 7 Jan 2024 Discovering God
If Christmas is God's offer to us; Epiphany is our response to Him.
We need God's help to make the right response. There are a number of areas where we could go wrong.
God had so much to teach the human race, and He is still doing that.
The people of that time thought there were many gods. The Jews thought so too, and that the real God who had been looking after them was mainly for them, not for all the nations of the world.
God's plan was to make Himself known to the whole world, but gradually. He worked first with the Jewish race, demonstrating His loyalty to them, forgiving them constantly, teaching them new understandings (such as the need to bless enemies instead of cursing them).
They were the ‘chosen people’, not to the exclusion of others but as a spearhead to make other nations realize that they also could possess this same God.
God loves all people, as we know, but that was not well-known in the Jewish world.
They thought God was there to fight their battles and put down all the other people. The idea of converting their warlike neighbours did not come easily to them.
For us in our time we can see the coming of the wise men as indicating the Gentile world’s acceptance of the one true God. The wise men knelt before one greater than themselves and their offerings were accepted.
Every knee should bow before Jesus Christ, and every tongue confess that He is Lord (Ph 2,10-11). Go and baptize all nations, Jesus said (Mt 28, 19).
Christianity is often criticised for its missionary past, seeking to bring the light of Christ to foreign nations.
There were no doubt many things done wrongly, but in principle it has to be a good thing to offer Christ to others.
He is light to the blind, health to the sick – the answer to every question, the fulfilment of every need.
It would be a crime not to offer this Good News to others, keeping in mind that it is only ‘offered’ not forced.
We can improve on mistakes and sins of the past, but the idea of converting people to Christ is something that Christ Himself wants.
This has extra urgency because, as the Jews had to discover, and so have we – there is only one true God.
Christianity blows apart the idea of various gods looking after different areas or purposes. One God is enough for all places and purposes, and this God is found in Jesus Christ.
That Jesus Christ is God as well as Man has been a stumbling block for many over the ages.
Another problem we face today is belief in NO God, that is, Atheism. Many deny there is any sort of god running the universe. They base this, usually, on the number of things that go wrong in the world.
Things go wrong not because God is absent, but because the human race is absent to Him, that is they do not honour and obey Him.
The Epiphany feast invites us to correct all deviations from the truth, to renew our faith and trust in the true God, found in the baby Jesus, in His identity and His mission - Who He is and What He came to do.
The real God's commands are clear, if difficult; He will help us understand them and put them into operation.
Worshipping the Christ child is one part of this giant pattern in which we are privileged to find ourselves included.
O come let us adore Him.
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