Feast of the Epiphany: The wise still seek him

Today is the Feast of the Epiphany. An ‘epiphany’ is a revelation, a moment of sudden insight. This feast celebrates the revelation of God to a group of astrologers, the magi. Astrologers used to study how the movement of stars and planets determine human lives. I suspect most people today read astrology for amusement, but, aside from the truly superstitious, they don’t make life decisions based on it. If you have ever read your horoscope or a placemat in a Chinese restaurant, did you notice that more than one zodiac sign fits your personality.
 
Astrology as an ancient Signpost
Until fairly recently, westerners used to take astrology seriously. The belief was that the stars and their configurations could give guidance to our choices. Now, when you read your horoscope in the paper, they can describe any number of people. Why can we see ourselves in any number of horoscopes? Which do you place more trust in, horoscopes or science? If you are sick, do you read your horoscope or go to a doctor? The way we look at the world has changed. The magi in today’s gospel thought stars would lead them to a newborn king. Do you think that faith and science can lead you to the Creator?
 
The Epiphany, the magi and us
The magi in the Epiphany story didn’t think that astrology was ridiculous. For them, stars were not big fusion fired bags of gas floating in space across unfathomable distances. Instead, the stars were principalities and powers and dominions that, if you had the proper understanding, would lead you to truth. The wise men lived in a pre-scientific time, but they trusted that natural reality would lead them to a newborn king. They didn’t think stars were meaningless. St. Paul told the Greek philosophers in Athens,

 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands.  And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.  From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.   God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.” Acts 17:24-28

 
For the wise men and for St. Paul, creation lead to the Creator. The prophet Isaiah foretold that all nations would be drawn to God by Israel and their way of life.

“Nations shall walk by your light, and kings by your shining radiance. Raise your eyes and look about; they all gather and come to you…” Is. 60

Signposts of faith and creation still lead us back to God
St. Paul, a Jew, wrote that “the Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same body,
and copartners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” Eph. 3 So, in today’s gospel the gentile magi followed the star to the place where the newborn Jewish king lay. 
 
Mostly people do not believe in astrology anymore. Some astronomers who study the stars think that they are magnificent, but ultimately meaningless. For them, nature does not point towards anything beyond itself. For Christians, the natural world is pregnant with meaning. For us water and baptism brings us into the divine life. Confirmation is a participation in the wisdom of God, not graduation from religious education. The Eucharist is a communion with the life, death and resurrection of the same Son of God the magi sought. The beauty and intelligence of the natural world explained by science can lead us to the Creator. The God who knows us created us to know him and that is why we journey towards God, like the magi. The scientist, it is true, sometimes studies nature as a self-contained reality with no further meaning beyond its mechanics. The astrologer looked for hidden meaning in that same nature. The Christian seeks the God that knows us as well as the stars in the heavens. As with the magi, the wise still seek the God of Creation.