Epiphany Sunday, Epiphany Week

Although the actual feast day is January 6, on January 2, many churches will observe Epiphany, the day when we celebrate the arrival of the magi from the East to see and bring gifts to the baby Jesus. We may or may not remember the rest of the story. This year, even more than other years, I am thinking of the murderous Herod. I am thinking of those travelers, those academics who studied the stars but not human behavior, who inadvertently set a crisis into motion. I am thinking of Herod, unbalanced Herod, so threatened that he killed all those children who might have grown up to be a threat to him.

Literalists may protest that there's no shred of evidence that this massacre actually happened. Surely history would have recorded this slaughter, this genocide. The story about Herod's murder of toddlers and babies may not be literally true, but it wouldn't be behavior that would be out of the realm of possibility for Herod.

Like many stories in the Bible, even if it isn't factually true, the story points to a larger truth.

But even if we don't think that Herod's story speaks to us, it offers a powerful testimony to the corrosive effects of power. We would be wise to think of our own power, our own feelings of inadequacy, how we attempt to control the elements of our lives or how we don't. We would be wise to think about how these stories play out on larger stages.

These past decades, many of us have had a closer look at the behavior of rulers who have felt threatened, and it's not a pretty sight. We see many people killed in the crossfire and killed by the fall out. We see lives diminished and potential stamped out.

We see the truth of that proverb that warns us that without imagination, the people will perish.

We would be wise to think about all the strangers who show up to tell us of a different way, a different paradigm.

We would be wise to keep our eyes trained to larger vistas. Sometimes the Good News comes in ways we can't ignore, like those angel choirs in the sky, but for some of us, the message is more subtle.

Now is also a good time to think about wisdom, about gifts, about staying alert and watchful. Let us not forget these important Advent and Christmas messages. Most of us have already bid good-bye to Christmas and returned to our every day lives. Today is a good day to take one last Epiphany moment, to recover our capacity for wonder, to delight in the miraculous, to look for the unexpected, and to rejoice in the amazing Good News of a God who loves us so much that the Divine One comes to live with us.