“THE EPIPHANY — GOD'S GREAT MANIFESTATION”
Greetings from Father Bob ...
On
January 8th we celebrated the Feast of the Epiphany. We call them the
three Wise Men or Three Kings, but there is one important fact about
them that we often overlook. They were outsiders and not people of the
covenant, not sons of Abraham. Yet they were among the first to come to
the stable.
They are like the Samaritan leper in the New Testament who was cured and
came back to give thanks. He was an outsider. Or the Syrian woman, a
pagan, who bantered with Jesus for her daughter's health and got it. She
was an outsider. The Samaritan woman at the well who had five husbands
and the Roman Centurion who testified on Calvary that "surely this was
God's son," were outsiders.
They are all biblical foreigners just like the Magi. So what do they all
tell us, these outsiders? They tell us simply and profoundly that no
one is excluded from the love of God. In a sense, we are all foreigners.
Some consider themselves out of the social loop or sinful. Some are
addicted and carry shameful deeds and betrayals.
Some are unforgiving, vengeful or alienated in a hundred different ways
and consider themselves moral outsiders. But the Magi story tells us
there is room for all of us - male, female, addicted or free, faithful
or faithless, saint or sinner.
James Joyce sums it up best when he says – "Here comes everybody."
Because it is everybody. Outsiders of all sorts are welcomed to the
grace and love found in Jesus Christ.
The Epiphany is God's great manifestation. The light of the world is
here deep inside of you, around you, above you and below you. God is
here and we must reveal that startling fact in our lives. God is here.
Let your life announce it.
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Yours in Christ,
Father Bob Warren, SA
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