“The Journey to Epiphany”
Epiphany Sunday
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Isaiah
60:1-6
Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14
Ephesians 3:1-12
Matthew 2:1-12
"A cold coming we had of
it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:”
So begins T. S. Eliot’s wonderful poem, ‘The Journey of the Magi’. The poem, which recounts both the physical and spiritual struggles of the wisemen, offers a wonderful reflection on today’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew. By the end of the poem, the long journey that the wisemen took had changed their lives forever.
We returned
to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
In Eliot’s poem, the magi had been transformed because of that journey to epiphany in the presence of Christ.
In the Christian calendar, January 6 – today – is Epiphany. Epiphany is the day on which the church has traditionally read the story of the coming of the wisemen to present their gifts to the Christ child.
The word ‘epiphany’ comes from a Greek word which means an appearance or a manifestation, often involving an encounter with the divine. We also use the term, more broadly, to describe moments of insight, of realization, and of illumination. One of my favourite works by the Irish author James Joyce is his book called Dubliners, which offers a set of unusual short stories, each of which involves a character coming to a moment of deeper insight, an epiphany about their lives.
And it was just such an experience that the magi had. “When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage.”
So often, as with James Joyce’s characters, we think of epiphanies in terms of moments of sudden realization. A person has some moment of insight, and they speak of having had an ‘epiphany’.
This idea that epiphanies are primarily moments of sudden enlightenment has found a parallel in a number of religious and spiritual traditions in the past few centuries. Particularly since the time of the evangelical revivals – and certainly through the twentieth century – there has been a tendency to celebrate moments of sudden spiritual awakening, many of which lead to some dramatic form of conversion. Some of our brothers and sisters in other traditions even include, in their times of worship, regular ‘testimonies’ about the ways that such epiphanies have radically changed people’s lives.
While I have no doubt of the sincerity of such unexpected and glorious moments of insight -- and though such experiences offer wonderful evidence of the transforming power of God’s grace in people’s lives -- such sudden experiences of enlightenment, such epiphanies, are not the common experience of all of us.
Rather, what is interesting for us to ponder, today, is that the type of epiphany that the magi experienced, in today’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew, took place at the end of what Eliot described as ‘such a long journey’.
"A cold coming we had of
it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:”
And so it is with many of us.
For many of us, epiphanies do not come in moments of sudden and dramatic illumination so much as they come at the end of much longer journeys of faith.
And, on this Epiphany Sunday, even as we ponder the magi’s long journey to lay their gifts before Christ, it is interesting to notice that the magi have left us a number of gifts which can help us on our own long journeys towards epiphany.
Their first gift, to us, is the gift of their doubts and questions.
We seldom pause to notice that the first words that the wisemen speak, in this passage, are the words of a question. “Where is the child who has been born King of the Jews?”
Clearly, they did not know who they should be looking for, nor where he was to be found. They had to ask questions in order to find Christ. To put it another way, the wisemen did not have all of the answers before they began that fateful journey.
Which offers a wonderful encouragement to all of us.
After all, there are times when we act as if we are supposed to have all of the answers before we set out on our own journeys towards Christ. There are times when we act as if questions – and even doubts – are contrary to ‘true’ faith.
But such is never the case. Doubts and questions – whether our own or others -- should never be discouraged. After all, if we have no questions about God, then it is likely that we have far too small a conception of God. A God who can be fully and completed comprehended by the human mind, a God about whom we have all the answers, is far too small a god for us to worship.
And to hesitate in setting out on the journey of faith until all our questions find answers would be analogous to the magi not setting out to find the newborn King until they had first called ahead to establish the exact destination for their journey. But they did no such thing. They set out, and asked questions on the way.
And so it is with all of us. Whether we have already been on the journey for a long period of time, or whether our journeys have been quite short, we all have questions.
Questions such as:
Where is God in the midst of suffering?
Or, how can we speak of God as Trinity in a world of different faiths?
Or, how do we stay in communion with those with whom we have profound disagreements about matters of life and faith?
Or, like the magi, where is Christ to be found today?
When we have doubts and questions, it is always worthwhile for us to remember that had the magi, in this story, not been willing to ask questions, they never would have found Christ. The doubts and questions that they raised -- while they were on the journey – did not result in uncertainty and cynicism. Rather, their doubts and their questions led them to faith and to worship. The presence of their doubts and questions, in this passage, is a gift to all of us – since it was their doubts and questions helped them to find Christ.
A second gift that they have left for us is their example of discernment.
That discernment was demonstrated by the magi in a number of ways in this passage.
They had to discern that the star that they saw represented something more than a tiny pinprick of light in the dark night sky. It was not their ability to see the star – after all, many others would have seen the same star – but it was the magi’s ability to discern deeper meanings in that seemingly random and normal event that allowed them to realize that something important was happening.
They had to discern the meaning of their dreams. It was in a dream that they were warned not to go back to Herod.
But their discernment was not only demonstrated in following stars and interpreting dreams. In verse 12, we read, “and having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road”. By listening to their dreams, they discerned that Herod’s intentions were murderous.
Although we do not speak about discernment very often in the modern church, it is, nonetheless, a necessary tool on the journey of the spiritual life. We may not see stars, or interpret dreams, or have to avoid murderous tyrants, but that does not mean that we can neglect the exercise of discernment during our long journeys to epiphany.
What is discernment, in the Christian life? Discernment is a gift of the Holy Spirit which enables us to distinguish what is noble, true and good from what is destructive, unhealthy and futile.
There are many influences, in our modern world, which seem to undermine the call of discernment. On the one hand, there is a tendency, at times, to accept anything and everything that is presented to us, without any need to discern what is truly noble or worthwhile.
In such a situation, a lack of discernment leads to an inability to distinguish between which ideas, beliefs and actions have intellectual, rational or spiritual merit, and which are void of any such value. Which does not mean that we become unloving and intolerant towards those who believe differently than we do; far from it. Rather, the presence of a diversity of thought and belief should be the basis for engagement, for conversation and for dialogue in the common quest for truth. Unfortunately, and too often, it seems, our reluctance to exercise discernment leads to an empty tolerance in which we never articulate our differences. . In so doing, we elevate an empty tolerance for misguided ideologies and mistaken ideas over the shared journey towards enlightenment, compassion and truth.
However, the corollary to this tendency towards an empty tolerance is equally troubling. That is, there is a dangerous tendency to confuse discernment with judgementalism. Under the guise of being ‘discerning’, some close their minds from any level of new insight that might come to them from others. In so doing, they never expose themselves to the possibility that they might not have all of the answers; and in so doing become closeminded and harshly judgemental. Had the magi closed their minds to anything new or foreign to their experience, they never would have set out in search of a ‘new’ king in a foreign land. Their exercise of discernment did not lead them to closemindedness.
And so it is on our journeys. Neither empty tolerance nor closeminded judgementalism needs to be the way that we exercise discernment in the spiritual life.
Rather, discernment is about seeking to exercise all of our faculties in the pursuit of truth, in the establishment of peace and justice, and in the progress of human intellectual and spiritual understanding – all the while remaining open to others as we seek to sift what is good and noble from what is destructive and petty.
And throughout Christian history, discernment has been a mark of a mature spirit. In the Letter to the Hebrews, the author speaks of those higher pursuits as the solid food that he longed for his readers to eat. “But,” he writes, “solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.” In other translations, the word ‘distinguish’ is translated as ‘discern’ – that is, the author speaks of the need to be able to discern good from evil.
And why is discernment important? Because a lack of discernment can lead to terrible violence and destruction. After all, had the magi not exercised any level of discernment, Herod would have killed the Christ child. Discernment is a gift that must be embraced.
A third gift that the magi offer to us is the example of discipline and dedication. Quite simply, it was, as T. S. Eliot put, a difficult journey that they undertook.
They had left their comfort zones; they were in a country far from home; they were, no doubt, weary from their long trek; and yet, they did not give up.
Too often, we do not embrace the Christian life with a comparable degree of dedication or discipline. We get lazy or neglectful in prayer; we forego the reading of Scripture in favour of some completely forgettable television programme; we do not make it a priority to offer time and energy in the service of others; we turn the gathered worship of God in the community of faith into a commendable pastime if there is nothing else on the weekend schedule – and then we wonder why our faith seems lifeless and our spirits seem stagnant. We view ‘discipline’ as a summons to harsh and joyless existence, and then wonder why we do not seem to experience too many epiphanies.
When we find our dedication waning, it is good for us to remember that, in English, the word ‘disciple’ shares a common root with the word ‘discipline’. To be a disciple of Jesus Christ requires that we embrace a life of spiritual discipline. When Jesus called his first disciples, he asked them to leave everything behind and to make following him the first priority in their lives.
And so it is today. A dedication to prayer, to study, to service and to worship continue to be disciplines which need to be embraced as we continue on our own journeys towards epiphany. To forego any level of spiritual discipline leads us to an emaciation of our spirits and deters us from progress on our own journeys towards epiphany.
And so, we have these tools, these gifts for the journey. Doubt and questions; discernment; discipline and dedication.
But even as we accept and embrace these gifts, there is an important dimension of this story which we cannot overlook.
It is this.
The reason that the wisemen found the child was not because of their hard work or their long journey. Rather, the reason that they found the child was because God wanted them to find the child. All through this story, grace was at work.
God sent a star; God helped them to find the answers to their questions; God had spoken through the prophets about where the child was to be found; God spoke to them in dreams; God directed their footsteps to the feet of Christ.
God’s grace was at work, albeit in strange and mysterious ways, leading them to Christ.
And so it is with us. Our own journeys towards epiphany can be strengthened by these gifts of the magi, but what we should never forget is that God is the One who guides us, who directs us, who invites us, who feeds us for the journey, and who leads us into the presence of Christ.
Why? Because God wants us to encounter Christ.
For when the long journey of faith leads us into the presence of God’s grace, in Jesus Christ, we experience the salvation of God.