Epiphany - The Coming of Light for All

Greetings,

      Today is the 12th day of Christmastide.  Tomorrow is Epiphany, the manifestation of the Eternal Christ as Jesus, human just like us.  It is the coming of Light into the darkness of a sinful world.  It is the revealing of Jesus as the Savior of all people in all times.  It is a time rich sensations.  The visuals of Light and stars; the feel of the smooth, soft, heaviness of gold; the smell of frankincense and myrrh; even the bitter taste which inevitably results from contact with myrrh.  It is a time of the expansiveness of God: stars and planets set in motion from the creation for conjunction at precisely the right moment in precisely the right place in the vastness of space; salvation and covenant and fulfillment for the descendants of Abraham and Sarah and also the inclusion of the members of the hereditary priestly class of the ancient Medes and Persians, peoples of other nations and races, and peoples of all classes. 

      In these days I reread the Magi literature—its practicality makes it among my favorite.  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Three Kings Came Riding was perhaps my earliest introduction to the theology of the wise men.  I won’t quote all 14 stanzas, just the last 5.

                        And cradled there in the scented hay,

                        In the air made sweet by the breath of kine,

                        The little child in the manger lay,

                        The child that would be King one day

                        Of a kingdom not human but divine.

                        His mother Mary of Nazareth,

                        Sat watching beside his place of rest,

                        Watching the even flow of his breath,

                        For the joy of life and the terror of death

                        Were mingled together in her breast.

                        They laid their offerings at his feet:

                        The gold was their tribute to a King,

                        The frankincense, with its odour sweet,

                        Was for the Priest, the Paraclete,

                        The myrrh for the body’s burying.

                        And the mother wondered and bowed her head,

                        And sat as still as a stature of stone;

                        Her heart was trouble yet comforted,

                        Remembering what the Angel had said,

                        Of an endless reign and of David’s throne.

                        Then the Kings rode out of the city gate,

                        With a clatter of hoofs in proud array;

                        But they went not back to Herod the Great,

                        For they knew his malice and feared his hate,

                        And returned to their homes by another way.

      I highly recommend burning a little frankincense (let me know if you need some) in the next day or so.  Let its “odour sweet” envelope you and draw you into another reality—the total presence of God.  Listen to the CD or watch Amahl and the Night Visitors.  Re-read O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi.  Or the wonderful T. S. Eliot poem the Journey of the Magi, which foreshadows the crucifixion.  Listen to James Taylor’s Home By Another Way.   

Yours & His,

DED