Feast of the Epiphany
By Fr. Chinnappan Pelavendran
Today we celebrate the feast of Epiphany. The word epiphany means revelation or manifestation. This feast is the revelation of God’s love for his people in the birth of Jesus Christ, who is Emmanuel: God is with us. For centuries, the prophets had proclaimed God’s love for his people, and now that love has been revealed to his people. God himself has been born into the world as a human child. He is with us, close to us in each moment, sharing his life with us. Jesus came into our human condition to seek out what was lost, and to bring us back into union with God and to himself. This is the good news for everyone: no one is excluded. Today’s psalm makes this clear. “Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.”
In the gospel, we see two kinds of people. On the one hand, the Gentile ‘Magi from the East’ seek out the newborn king of the Jews to do him homage. On the other hand, Herod and his court seek the Messiah not to do him homage but to destroy him. Let us focus our attention on the Magi; the actions of the Magi in the presence of Jesus give us a beautiful example of divine worship. The Gospel tells us: “They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”
Their first gift was gold. Among ancient people, gold was regarded as the king of metals. It was therefore the ideal gift for a king. The Magi gave Jesus all their love as pure, solid, lasting, and purified from selfish motives. They wanted to love Jesus with all their heart and mind. Their love was sincere. The second gift was frankincense. Ancient people used incense in their religious worship. The aroma and smoke, spiraling upward to heaven, spoke to them of gods and divinity. The gift of incense, therefore, is a symbol of the divinity of Jesus. It tells us that Jesus always had the nature of God but became a man and appeared in human likeness. The magi adored Jesus as God. Even today, we use incense in the liturgy as a sign of worship. We incense the gospel in which Jesus is present, the altar representing Christ, and the gifts of bread and wine on the altar, which will become the Body and Blood of Christ. The third gift was myrrh. Myrrh was used to prepare the dead for burial. Later in the Gospel, we see that the women brought myrrh to the tomb of Jesus. This gift of the Magi made an ideal symbol of human vulnerability and foreshadowed the Lord’s death. Jesus experienced sorrows, joys, fears, frustrations, loneliness, and all human emotions. He was like us in all things but sin.
The Magi also teach us how to proceed on our journey. They do not return the way they came, which would have taken them back to Herod. Their experience of being with Jesus has enlightened them. They have an inner light, a new gift of discernment and wisdom. When we meet Jesus and worship him, we do not have to return to Herod, back to the darkness, fear, and selfishness of our past and our sinful nature. The Lord gives us the grace to walk a new way. It is the way that is love: love of God and love of our neighbor.
Just as the Magi did, let us prostrate ourselves before the Lord, offering him our love, praise, and gratitude. Our “gold” is everything we have, all that we possess, and all that we consider most precious; we offer it all to him. Our “frankincense” is our prayer, devotion, zeal, contrition, thanksgiving, and all our petitions. Our “myrrh” is our sacrifices and sufferings which we offer in union with Jesus’ Passion, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. We know our gifts are imperfect and they certainly seem meager as we set them before him. However, his humility as he reveals himself before us as a poor, helpless infant strengthens our humility, and therefore makes us bold enough to give whatever we have, knowing that our every gift comes from his generosity to us.
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