The Holy Family
1994 (Year B), 2 January / Christmas 2
St Peter de Beauvoir Town
Thursday is the twelfth day of Christmas. A day when, as well as hopefully getting, some 40 gold rings, 42 swans a swimming, just what I want, and 36 pipers piping amongst a host of other goodies that my true love is preparing to shower on me, Christians celebrate the journey of three strange people. They too brought gifts although not in the same quantities, to offer the Christ child. The story of their journey was set for today’s gospel reading as well so we’ll hear it twice this week.
For a vast part of Christendom of course the feast, when we celebrate the arrival of these men is much more important than Christmas. Many children will not have even received presents yet, that too will happen on Thursday. For us though, their coming traditionally marks the end of Christmas. The crib is complete, mother, child, father, shepherds and animals. Now these three strangers.
Tradition and legend play a significant part in the story. You might know these three men as kings, but you didn’t get that information from the one gospel in the bible to have an account of them. You might know their names, but you didn’t get that from the bible either. You might even think that one was black and two were white and that they went to the child immediately after his birth – well one of those stories isn’t in the Bible and the other is only hinted at. You might wonder why the star, so easily seen by them, went undetected by others or why it led them first to Jerusalem when the baby was in Bethlehem. Many things have been added to our Christmas story and a tremendous number of questions, I guess will remain forever unanswered.
Tradition also has it that these three people were the first non-Jews to visit Jesus. Their arrival marked the end of a pilgrimage, made by them, to honour a king and worship before him. Apparently it was to be, what we would describe today as allow-key visit. No fanfares, no great crowds, just the three people and the immediate family.
But the visit, even though it was a personal pilgrimage, made by these three men in relative secrecy, could not remain unknown for long. The fact that they came at all would be found out. Soon the reason would be known.
The journey is not simply one of self-discovery, made by these three men for their own benefit, although maybe it started out like that. Maybe even these men thought of it in those terms. Whatever the start, it ends up very differently. They become public witnesses to the birth of a child, born they say to be king of the Jews. So the journey isn’t simply an interior one – it points beyond them to Jesus and to God. For those with eyes to see it’s a revelation.
And their journey is a parable for us. We often treat our religion as something which is intensely personal, the carols we’ve sung over the past few days work together to help recall powerful memories for us all. I cannot for instance, sing ‘See Amid the Winter’s Snow’, without a lump coming to my throat and recalling Evelyn Smith standing just there singing it. Mostly these memories do remain private for me or you and they have little or no consequence for anybody else. And for the most part our faith is conducted in quiet and secrecy with our own feelings being paramount. The end of course is shared, it’s God, but the journey often involves nobody else but him.
Well maybe that’s how these three men saw it. Yet even if they didn’t realise it, they were revealing the presence of God to those who they met. Even to Herod. The same is true for us. It’s impossible for us to worship the Christ child, and for it not to have effect on those we live amongst and meet. It’s something which just can’t be kept hidden and secret. To be the followers of Christ means that we must be pilgrims in search of those his presence in this world.
The light of the star led these men to worship Jesus. The light of faith will lead us, if we let it. It will lead us in our dealings with our sisters and brothers, be they unbelievers, indifferent or believers in another faith. It will lead us, not to bring God to them – that’s the other lesson these men have to teach us – God is already there. It will leads us to new discoveries, new revelations.
We must make an identical journey to these strange men. Their travels didn’t bring God into the world. They revealed where he already was. We are called to make this same pilgrimage – to become witnesses for our brothers and sisters, that Jesus, born two thousand years ago, is present today, mysteriously living in the lives of his creation.
Every Christian’s journey is made in order that this love may be revealed and named. To bring gifts and honour it. Once we have seen it. Once we have acknowledged it – it cannot remain hidden from our fellow human beings for it changes us. It makes us children of God. AMEN