Carols
were still being played at a nearby Mall on 1st January. A pleasant
surprise because one would have expected the outlets to trot out commodities
all crimson and red so as to reap the Lunar New Year retail wave. So, carols
being played should be the way because the 12 days of Christmas should end on
the 6th of January—the proper date for the Epiphany. However, for
the sake of convenience, we have transferred ours to the Sunday between 2nd
and 8th January.
What
Epiphany means for the Latin-rite Church is that Jesus, the Son of God has been
revealed primarily to the Magi. However, His baptism at the Jordan where a
voice was heard declaring Him to be the beloved Son and the Wedding at Cana
where He transformed water into wine, are also both epiphanic moments because the
glory of His Divinity was manifested. For the Eastern Rite Church, the
Theophany is focused more on the revelation of His divinity at the Baptism in
the River Jordan.
Christmas
without either the Epiphany which in Greek is a revelation from above or the
Theophany a revelation from God does not make sense. From a certain perspective,
the event of Christmas is a kind of looking back at the life of Jesus to make
sense of it. Just like John did with the Prologue. Compared to Luke and Matthew
who both gave an account of the circumstances surrounding the birth of the
Christ, John entered right into the heart of the mystery to announce that before
the advent of human history, the Word pre-existed time and the Word was God. In
fact, the early Christians, notably those from the East, lumped the Nativity
together with the Visitation of the Magi, the Baptism and also the Wedding at
Cana as one celebration on 6th Jan because for them, each one of these
feasts is but a manifestation of the Divinity of the Christ child. It was only
with the passage of time that these events separated to become different
feasts. It was the Council of Tours in AD567 that set both Christmas and
Epiphany apart by the 12 days we know as the season of Christmas.
It
is not surprising that Christmas takes centre-stage so much that we do not
fully appreciate the impact of the Epiphany. This is possibly because we have
been myopically blind-sided by the commercialisation of a theological truth—the
birth of the Saviour of mankind. This is the irony of it. In a globalised
economy, where speed and scale reign supreme, ironically, the truth of Jesus
Christ, the Saviour of the world, has been narrowly relegated to the fringes of
the local, provincial or sectarian. For example, fashion now dictates that
Merry Christmas be replaced by Happy Holidays or Season’s Greetings so that we
do not offend those who do not believe in Jesus Christ. Furthermore, sensitivity
seems to demand that we do not impose Christianity’s world view on others. The paradoxical
point being that this theological truth should be relative to time and place, whereas
the commands of consumeristic capitalism do not seem to share the same
humility. Everything must serve the might of the market economy but not Christ
the Lord.
But
the Epiphany is proof of Christ’s universality. The corners of the world have
come to pay homage to the King of kings. There is a song which is old, as some
of us are, but it a reminder that there is a search which is primordially human
and which the Wise Men submitted themselves to. The title of the song is rather
inappropriate, “Looking for love in the all wrong places”.
Let
us consider this innate search or latent longing. We all long to be loved. We
all want to be needed. We all yearn to live forever. Having these desires may
help explain our inclination to sin. Firstly, man was created to love, serve
and the revere God. Somehow, this interior orientation of man towards God been
damaged and weakened by Original Sin. Man has a bent or a propensity to sin
because his desires have become disordered. Hence, sin is analogous or
comparable to looking for love in all the wrong places. As our moral compass
has been compromised by Original Sin, our search often ends up short because we
mistake that which is not good, not true and not beautiful as the Good, the
True and the Beautiful. In our quest for the one thing that can satisfy us
fully, that is, God Himself, we often settle on that which leaves us longing
for more. Now you understand why drugs—not just narcotics drugs but power, sex,
money, technology—are so captivating. They promise us fulfilment but end up
enslaving us.
Today
we celebrate not just any truth but the Truth. And, it is not local or confined
to a specific geographical location. Instead, this is Truth in cosmic
proportion. The Magi who had been searching, have now found the Truth their
hearts have been aching for. The name Jesus means God saves. Presumably, the
one who saves is also the one who created. To think that God saves only
Christians is to reduce the Creator of all that is, to merely a deity amongst
deity, thereby negating everything we believe about this God. God saves and the
Saviour is the Saviour of all. Whether we want to be saved or not is altogether
another matter but the point here is that we who believe in this universal
Saviour somehow live as if He were just the Saviour of Christians—betraying a
tribal mentality that we do not really know our God or believe in Him as we
should. Perhaps it explains why some of us turn to bomohs so easily…
It
is said that the Epiphany is a manifestation to the Gentiles. But upon deeper
reflexion it should lead to the conclusion that it is more than just a showing
forth to the Gentiles. In the visitation of the Magi, we recognise that everyone,
Gentiles or otherwise, is looking for the One who created us, the One who has saved
us and the One who will satisfy us completely. God has put a God-size hunger in
our hearts for Him. Whilst the Epiphany is acknowledgement that God came and
revealed Himself to us, the Magi symbolise our search for our Creator, our
Redeemer and our Sanctifier. Hence, the Epiphany is not just any revelation but
THE revelation which answers all our questions about who our Saviour is and how
He has entered human history in order to save each one of us. God wants to save
everyone, not just Christians. Whilst Jesus the Head labours to save mankind, each
one of us has profound duty to ensure as many as possible are incorporated into
His Body, the Church.
