Sunday Readings: Isaiah 60.1-6; Ephesians 3.2-3, 5-6; Matthew 2.1-12
After their audience with the Herod, the magi set out. The star went ahead of them until it came to a standstill over the place where the child was. They were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house, found the child with Mary, his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their coffers and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. They received a message in a dream not to return to Herod, so they went back to their own country by another route (Matthew 2.9-12).
The magi follow a star. They search for God in the visible, natural world, the world we see, hear, taste, smell, and touch. This is the world that engages our affections and nightly turns our hearts toward morning and waking anew. We live in its rhythms and by its lights.
Creation reveals God’s life-giving and sustaining presence, the first source of revelation. Today we follow the stars with the Hubble telescope, which has confirmed Einstein’s theory that we live in an expanding universe. Physics has taken us within the atom. Biology has decoded the human gnome and learned how molecules splice and proteins fold. Yet we are seekers still like the magi.
In our world God acts not only in the beginning but in all 13.8 billion years of our unfolding evolution. The God of our cosmic story is not fixed and static but dynamic and life-giving. God comes to us from the future as we experience the lure within us to become all we can be. In our relationships with each other and our partnerships with Earth, evolution continues. In Jesus God shows us all we can become.
When has the mystery in which we live astounded you?