 |
| Advent Starry Night 5 by Virginia Wieringa |
Tangled in time, we go by hints and guesses, turning the wheel of each returning year. But in the midst of failures and successes we sometimes glimpse the Love that casts out fear ... From the first yearning for a Saviour's birth to the full joy of knowing sins forgiven, we start our journey here on God's good earth to catch an echo of the choirs of heaven. + Malcolm Guite, Sounding the Seasons
The common theme of the season of Epiphany is manifestation or revelation: what has been largely hidden is made more widely known.
Three events in the life of Christ are associated with the Feast of the Epiphany:
1) the visit of the wise men from the East,
2) the baptism in the Jordan River, and
3) the turning of water into wine at Cana.
A star guides Gentiles to a future king, a voice identifies Jesus as the beloved Son, and a set of wine-brimming pots reveals miraculous power. Epiphanies!
Epiphany comes from the Greek verb phainein, which means "to causer to appear" or "to bring to light." Churches in the Orthodox tradition use a slightly different word, theophany, which places even greater emphases on the idea of God shining forth. In these 5-9 weeks (depending on the date of Easter), "we wish to see Jesus" (Jn. 12:21), to which Jesus replies, "Come and see" (Jn. 1:39), and later Jesus will also say, "Go and tell."
The One who summons us to Himself sends us out on His behalf.
The One who shows Himself to us asks us to make Him known to others.
The One who declares, "I Am the Light of the world," says to us, "You are the light of the world."
Epiphany is a time both to inhabit the Story and to tell the Story, for in the telling itself we are further enlightened.
"I look within my own heart and find plenty of darkness. So I am drawn back to Jesus, eager to see Him anew, like the Magi at the crib and John in the Jordan and Mary at the wedding and Simon in the boat and the disciples on the mountain. And each of these set out to tell others what they had seen. Having encountered the Light, they exhibited the Light. ... In Epiphany we renew our willingness to let the Light of Christ within us shine to those around us. Uncover the lamp, as Jesus put it. We want to reflect the luminous beauty of God in Christ so that our friends turn and see the source for themselves."
+ Bobby Gross, Living the Christian Year: Time to Inhabit the Story of God
To capture some more of the beauty and mystery of Epiphany, Malcolm Guite's poem, "The Magi," provides an invitation. Guite's Sounding the Seasons offers the reader a cycle of 70 sonnets, running in sequence from Advent, at the beginning the church year, to the feast of Christ the King. Here's a brief introduction to why a sonnet is such a good choice for writing poems about these seasons in the Christian Year:
"The sonnet, which had its origin in Italian poetry in the thirteenth century, has proved a wonderfully flexible and delicate instrument in the hands of writers in English over the course of many centuries. At the heart of its virtues are brevity, clarity, concentration, and a capacity for paradox. ... Another immense advantage of the sonnet as a form through which to explore the meaning and resonance of the Christian faith, and through which to praise and celebrate a God whose beauty is 'always ancient, always new,' is that the sonnet itself is always ancient, always new."
+ Malcolm Guite
So as a gift to you on this holy day of Epiphany on Friday, January 6, 2023, as well as throughout the season of Epiphany until Lent, below is a sonnet by Guite in honor of those who came looking for Immanuel, God with us, from other cultures, religions, and ethnicities and worshiped Him as "the manifestation of Jesus as Messiah of Israel, Son of God and Savior of the world” (CCC 528; Matthew 2:11).
Epiphany: The Magi Sonnet
It might have been just someone else's story;
Some chosen people get a special king,
We leave them to their own peculiar glory,
We don't belong, it doesn't mean a thing.
But when these three arrive they bring us with them,
Gentiles like us, their wisdom might be ours;
A steady step that finds an inner rhythm,
A pilgrim's eye that sees beyond the stars.
They did not know his name but still they sought him,
They came from otherwhere but still they found;
In palaces, found those who sold and bought him,
But in the filthy stable, hallowed ground.
Their courage gives our questing hearts a voice
To seek, to find, to worship, to rejoice.
Here are links to other recent City Notes (CN) books:
Red Skies; Story of God in a Sanitation Truck; The Artistry of What's Next; Seeds of Hope in the Rain & the Dark; Wrestling with God in Doubt; I've Seen What Hope Can Do; Baptism as the Way of Life; The Cross and Peacemaking Presence; Being with God; Pray As You Can; Knowing and Naming True Friends; Listening Closely & Paying Attention; Living and Loving Curiously with Wonder; Praying with Mary and Jesus; Waiting is the Womb
With wild wonder and hope,
No comments:
Post a Comment