SUMMARY: If you want to find God, stop searching in worldly ways, and, instead, imitate not the searching by the wise men but imitate their recognition that God revealed himself. When we follow His Revelation in our Church today, we, like the wise men, will see God.
Epiphany Homily - Matthew 2:1-12
Saint John the Baptist Parish, Newburgh, Indiana
January 8, 2017
-->For an audio file of this homily, click here.
We are so good at going after what we want. We are great seekers, strivers, finders, achievers. We see a light in the sky and follow it, and we hope that our searching brings us to God.
Well, today we celebrate the wise men who have sought and found the Lord. We celebrate the gifts they brought to him.
Or we think we do.
We readily interpret today’s celebration—Epiphany (which means manifestation) —as the moment where we finally find God, where three wise men, who were likely astronomers (meaning they studied stars which means they were smart) and astrologers (which means they interpreted what the Heavens were trying to reveal in the stars and which means they were spiritual men)—today we celebrate when they got to Jesus. When they, after decades, decades of exhausting learning and practice and trying and failing and searching finally see the face of the God Who’s Heaven’s they have been trying to attain on their own for so long.
We look at the Epiphany—the manifestation—and we want to celebrate our human ability to long for God, our quest to find Him, to hear Him, to see His face in our lives and in our world. To celebrate what we have made manifest.
Yea—we look at the Epiphany and, sadly, we want to celebrate ourselves.
Look, Lord! We found you. I found you! I actually came to Mass this weekend! I finally think I felt your grace in my marriage, my children, my work, my vocation, my volunteering and my charity! See, Lord! See, WORLD. It’s an epiphany! A manifestation of what I have done.And we don’t get it! Today isn’t a day to celebrate how three old men—however wise or unwise they were—finally found the God they were seeking even before they realized they were seeking a God. No! Today is not a day to celebrate finding God. Today… today is a day to celebrate that God found us and how He will find us again!
These wise men weren’t Christians. These astrologists, these horoscopic interpreters, probably weren’t even looking for 'a messiah'. If the Heaven’s descended to Earth in flesh, they would have been out of a job. And we don’t celebrate their manifestation to the newborn King, but the newborn King’s manifestation, his Epiphany, to these men who finally let go of their own pursuit of God and instead followed the shining star, the light of God’s lead.
And if we want to celebrate the Epiphany, if we want to be “wise” men and women, if we want to find the Christ child manifesting himself to us, then we too must let go of our own devices. We must stop thinking that we can find him by doing what we think will find him.
He’s already shown us, told us, dare I even say commanded us to “love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind… [and] your neighbor as yourself” (Mt 22:37,39). He has already told us “This is my body… do this in memory of me” (Lk 22:19), and to go to Confession (Jn 20:21-23).
And even before he came on that first Christmas, he spoke through the mouths of his prophets, his patriarchs—our prophets, our patriarchs:
- Have no other gods
- Take not my name in vain
- Go to Mass on Sunday
- Respect your parents and elders
- Don’t kill
- Keep yourself only for your spouse
- Take not what is not yours
- Do not lie. Let not your presence even smack of a false witness.
- Keep your eyes and mind chaste, and that means your iPhone and computer screen and Instagram searches, too.
- And forget about what other people have. You don’t need it.
He gave us saints to guide us in holiness in every place and in every age (Heb 12:1-2).
He gives us shepherds, guarantors of the sustained work of the Holy Spirit in our local and universal Church (Mt 16:19; Acts 1:21-26). Let's follow their lead!
Do you want to find God? What else do we need but to do what He has commanded us, to follow those He gives to lead us, to recognize how God himself has manifested himself to us.
We look at the Epiphany and our world, our culture tells us to celebrate the pursuit of our God, to celebrate those who seem to find God after unique or creative or tireless hours, years, or avenues of searching.
But not us. Today is the Lord’s day. His epiphany; not ours. And we do well to leave our own schemes for finding God 'in the east', in 'the native countries' we left just minutes ago, and instead to prostrate ourselves, to do him homage—to wonder at the manifestation of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, who stands before us—in Word and in Sacrament—today.
Image: Adoration of the Magi, a Beuronese painting by the monks of Conception Abbey in Missouri
