Watch out! Against all odds, contrary to prediction, a Happy New Year is heading our way. True joy, genuine inspiration, and real fulfillment lie ahead. Having doubts? Then let the Epiphany be your guide. I think there is more than coincidence at work when we find the beginning of our secular calendar year concurring with this season of Church’s life and worship.
"Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage" (Matthew 2:2). The key that opens our own happy new year is in a simple phrase. It describes what that Magi were doing in their day. All around them, the world was in its kind of turmoil. The Roman Empire was spreading its influence and enforcing it pax Romana. Peace? Yes, of a sort. But beneath the absence of overt disturbance that was effected by Rome’s combination of aggressive enforcement of oppressive law and the literal purchase of superficial loyalty, there churned serious discontent.
The Empire is battling on its borders with Germania (present-day Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands) and Pannonia (present-day Hungary, Lichtenstein, and the Balkan nations). In the east, Judea is a constant irritant of unrest, assassination, and rising revolt. Further East, the Empire again fails to conquer Arabia. Only the provinces of eastern-most provinces of Assyria and Mesopotamia enjoy a relative prosperity as custodians of major trade routes passing through them, connecting East to West. It is a simple phrase: “We observed the star at its rising.” Free from the preoccupations of war, dissension, and poverty, the magi from the east are able to tend to more subtle signals.
From the immediacy of their surrounding circumstances the magi lift their gaze high enough to notice a heavenly assurance that God still reigns. “We observed the star.” The manifestation of Christ in the world continues to be a sign that God still reigns. It is a sign much needed in our world today. I suggest that a happy new year depends on it. It would be naïve to believe that we will not continue to experience the hardships of our suffering economy and the wounds of war and terrorism. We will, everyone will, until peace, justice, and mercy become more important to humanity than quick profits and ideological victories.
In the meantime, God reigns, God reigns, still God reigns. This is the message of Epiphany. This is the hope and promise of Christ’s manifestation. In this new year, the Epiphany is God’s call to us to lift our gaze. It is also God’s blessing in giving us Christ to help us do so. God is present with us today, tomorrow, always, in Christ Jesus; first in the baby born in Bethlehem, now in one another and in those around us. And God is helping us to train our sight on signs higher and subtler than our immediate circumstance.
It is a reminder that the present hardships will pass, and an assurance that when they do, our eyes and ears and hearts will still be focused where they have always been: on God’s Love brought near and manifest in the person of Jesus. Contrary to prediction and against all odds, this new year will remind us that the struggles of our present circumstance are lessened, and new joys discovered, with an epiphanous perspective. We may not always be able to lift our eyes to so subtle a sign as a single star, to tune our ears to the quiet assurance of Divine Love, to remain sensitive to God’s gentle embrace. And neither will the people around us. But we, like they, will be able to meet a human gaze in yours or mine, to hear a human voice in yours or mine, to know that here in this community of ECR someone is listening, and someone cares. They will be able to feel our embrace and we theirs. In this way, all year long and against all odds, we will all greet the sign of Jesus Christ and meet God’s Love in person. Watch; listen; a happy new year is heading our way.
God’s Peace.
Jim +
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