The story of bringing gifts to the Christ child has tickled the imaginations of many creative people. Carlo Menotti wrote an opera about a poor boy who goes with the magi to bring his gift to the Christ child — Amahl and the Night Visitors.
Christmas carolers love to sing “The Little Drummer Boy.” Some singers imitate the drum while others sing his story. Like the magi the little drummer boy wants to give his gift to the king — “I’ll play my drum for him, pah rum pah pum pum.”
The word epiphany, the name of Sunday’s feast, means revelation or manifestation. This is a story that shows forth or reveals who Jesus is. The magi come from the East. They are not Jews but Gentiles. Their action acknowledges Jesus is a light of revelation to all the nations of the world.
“The desire for God is written in the human heart,” says the Catechism of the Catholic Church (#27). Human beings are created by and for God. Our experience of the natural world draws us toward its Creator.
What motivates the magi to set off on their journey is a star, a phenomenon in the night sky of the natural world. Magi means someone who studies the stars. The magi seek to understand the meaning of what they see. The world and its wonders invite us to seek their source.
In our time photos and new, amazing data about the universe appear online almost every week. Our telescopes peer at planets forming. We have being in an evolutionary process in which everything that is wants to be all it can be, tends toward diversity and toward consciousness. Our wonder expands with our understanding of our cosmos.
Studying is a way of praying. Studying the evolving cosmos can lead to adoration of God’s amazing creativity. Science discovers all being evolves out of the energy of the big bang. We live in one vast interrelated web of life. We are its conscious face. We have the gifts to be cocreators with God.
In Jesus’ ministry we, his followers, find the mission we continue. Jesus’ ministry calls us to preach God’s love for all people, to heal, to liberate people from addictions and injustice, to forgive, to include the outcast, and to build up the Christian community of Jesus’ disciples today. We bring our gifts to the Christ child today by using our gifts in ministry.