The Feasts of the Epiphany and the Baptism of the Lord explain how Jesus Christ will save humanity
Posted on January 10th 2010 in Weekly messages
Throughout this post Christmas period, the advertisers on Heart FM have been promising an extra twelve days of festivities to their ageing listeners, as an additional chance to win some indispensible holiday bargain. What they, and so many others, have quickly forgotten is that the Christmas season was originally twelve days of celebration that began at midnight on Christmas Eve, and which made a sharp contrast to the Lent-like rigours of Advent. Now everything is back to front and, by Boxing Day, the season is over. This is a shame because the Church in these now quiet weeks presents three ‘showings’ of Jesus, the Epiphany and the Baptism of the Lord, to be followed a week later by the Marriage Feast of Cana, that will determine the manner of His public life, and the way in which Jesus Christ will offer His universal gift of salvation. These showings are the intended outcomes from Jesus’ birth in the stable at Bethlehem and form part of the Church’s traditional Christmas season.
Each event exhibits a great pathos in that the end of Jesus’ life is implied in the beginning. The three gifts of the wise men, gold frankincense and myrrh symbolise some key aspect of being a king, priest and prophet. The infant will become all those, but why should something as good as new born life itself require the herbs of burial? The future mission of Jesus will not take place in a contented world, but in a world of violence, poverty and social isolation. No reason given in the Gospel as to why these gifts were chosen but the third, myrrh shows that the wise men understood the relationship between goodness and martyrdom. Real goodness draws out violence, which is something Plato saw in the death of Socrates. Someone really good would just have to be put to death, so intolerable would he be to those who lived evil and ill-informed lives. The wise men demonstrated that it is possible to grasp both the fracture in the world, the contrast between the reality of evil and the grammar of created goodness, the beautiful natural order that the world possesses.
This natural search for wisdom finds its answer, not in an intellectual form but through the solidarity exhibited by Jesus Christ that His submission to John the Baptist’s actions in the River Jordan that began His public life. This act of solidarity of lining up with sinners shows that Jesus, though aware of the power of evil, does not want to ‘crush the bruised reed, nor quench the wavering flax’. Jesus wants to give life, not to destroy or condemn it. The focus of His mission is on what humanity can become in the light of His triumph over evil, and not just on humanity’s current condition. Therefore the Christian has to fix his or her gaze towards the future, rather than to dwell on the past. The Christian does not reject out of hand his or her past history, because the past, despite all its ambiguities and tragedies, has brought each one to this moment at least.
The answer Jesus gives through His own conduct is the content of faith and also the source of hope. It opens a new vista since Jesus purifies and heals our own relationships with Him, with ourselves and with each other. This healing will allow the shoots of a real human flourishing to take root in our lives. This will not be without its sacrifices or hardships as the gift of myrrh symbolises. Jesus will die on the Cross, accepting that only His ability to love to the end, in His act of solidarity with humanity, will unseal the fountain of grace that is poured upon the Church and into the hearts of all believers.