“Nations shall walk by your light, and kings in your shining radiance.”
Today’s Feast of the Epiphany is the feast of the manifestation, as we know, of Jesus—of God, the Christ child—to all the nations, all the nations walking in the light. And in the Gospel that we read, that Father read this morning, the visit of the Magi is filled with symbols. But I’d like to focus on just three of them: the wise men themselves, the gifts that they bring, and the star that they follow.
I learned some interesting things from Matthew’s Gospel—that there really is no place in the Scriptures where the wise men are named or numbered. And so we assume that there were three of them because there are three gifts mentioned in the Scriptures. The three gifts, of course, are gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
They do say that the wise men came from the East. They came from Gentile land, not the land of the Jews. They came, and they were Gentiles like us. And so that’s where we get this celebration of Jesus the Christ for all peoples, all nations.
They go to Jerusalem, and in Jerusalem, as Father read, Herod is there. They inquire of Herod where this new ruler is to be born. And Herod tells them that the prophet has written that the new ruler would come from Bethlehem. And when they find this child in Bethlehem, they are to come back and tell him so that he can also do him homage—which we know is not quite accurate.
The Magi leave Herod, and they follow again the star. The star leads them not to a stable—this is another thing I found out—but to a house. A house is mentioned. I imagine that Mary and Joseph and the child have moved from the stable into a house, and that’s where the star leads them. So they go in, and they offer their gifts. Now, some of you might have heard this little aside or comment that if they had been wise women, they would have brought practical gifts, like baby formula or diapers or blankets. But anyway, the wise men brought beautiful, symbolic gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
The gold that they offered is a symbol of his royalty—that he was king. Frankincense is symbolic of his divinity, his holiness. And then the myrrh—the myrrh is symbolic of his humanity. He was human like us, and his humanity led him to suffering and death for us.
After they had offered these gifts, the wise men were to return home. And you heard that in a dream, of course, they were warned, told not to go back to Herod, but to go back a different way. And that is what they did. They followed again the star.
The star guides them on this next part of their long journey, the journey that has taken them from their homes to this foreign land. And it made me think that all of us here, too, are on a journey—our life’s journey. For some of us, it’s been quite long and sometimes difficult. But we have God’s starlight to follow.
And God is leading all of us, I believe, on the next step of our life’s journey. It’s probably an inward step, something within us that we’re taking—another step. Well, we don’t have to worry, because God has been there before us. God is there, waiting for us.
Each of us has the spark of the divine within us. The mystic Julian of Norwich taught that we are made by God, but we are also made of God—and so that is the divine in us. And then our own Catherine of Siena—I found her quote—which says, “You, God, became human, and we have been made divine.”
But wherever God’s light is leading us, let’s trust it. Let’s take our gifts. And we can—as in those beautiful lines in that responsorial psalm (I love that one)—use our gifts to help bring forth the justice that will flower in God’s time. We can, as the psalmist also says, comfort the afflicted and rescue the lowly ones and the poor.
So anyway, let’s now, wise women, go forth on this beautiful feast day and make the world a brighter place—not just for ourselves, but for all God’s people.
Sister Mary Jo Heman, OP
Sister Mary Jo is deeply committed to dismantling racism, advocating for peace,
and criminal justice reform. She preaches by word and deed.