Month: January 2017

“Wist ye not that I must be about my father’s business?”

Jerusalem and Bethlehem. They are the twin poles of Christian contemplation, the twofold centre around which, as in an ellipse, we move in thought and prayer, in love and devotion, in service and sacrifice. Each is bound up with the other – distinct and yet inseparable. Christmas focuses, of course, on Bethlehem as the place of Christ’s birth. Yet his birth is itself a kind of epiphany, a making known in the flesh of our humanity of the things of God. Christmas at once concludes and continues with the Epiphany. And with the Epiphany there is, we might say, the break-out from Bethlehem and suddenly Jerusalem begins to come more and more into the picture.

Epiphany means manifestation. It signals the idea of something that is made known to us as opposed to something that is invented by us. Like Advent, it is a season of revelation, a season of teaching. That is what is so wonderfully and clearly set before us on this day, The First Sunday after Epiphany which often falls within The Octave of the Epiphany. What is the Epiphany? It is the celebration of the coming of the Magi-Kings to Bethlehem and so it connects to Christmas and belongs to the Christmas imaginary. But it is also about going from Bethlehem, “depart[ing] into their own country another way”, as Matthew puts it, after having fallen down in worship before the child, “present[ing] unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh”.

The gifts are symbolic and meaningful. They are gifts which teach; “sacred gifts of mystic meaning” as one of the Epiphany hymns puts it. And that in a way is the point of Epiphany. It is about the making known of the things of God in the world of our humanity. The light of God shines out from within the world to teach us about our life with God and with one another. The emphasis is upon the divinity of Christ made visible through his humanity. Christ is King and God and Sacrifice.

It is not by accident that the Gospel for The First Sunday after The Epiphany focuses on Christ as teacher. Jesus is found in the Temple in Jerusalem at the age of twelve. We go from Bethlehem to Jerusalem in the mystery of the Epiphany. It is, we might say, his bar mitzvah, his coming of age and entry into adulthood. He is found “in the midst of the doctors” of the law, the wise ones of Israel, as it were, “both hearing them, and asking them questions”, Luke tells us for just as the story of the Magi-Kings is told only by Matthew, so this story of the boyhood of Jesus is told to us only by Luke. “And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers”. There is a sense of wonder. Epiphany is the season of wonders and the wonders begin with teaching and learning.

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“They departed into their own country another way”

Unlike Caesar who famously said, “veni, vidi, vici” – “I came, I saw, I conquered” – the Magi-Kings of Anatolia, “viderant, venerunt, et adoraverunt” – “they saw, they came and they adored”. It makes all the difference. Instead of conquest, there is adoration. They saw a star which they followed. They came on a long journey, it seems, to Bethlehem. They worshipped – adored – the child Christ and “they presented unto him gifts; gold, frankincense, and myrrh”.

It is all part of the Christmas pageant, part of the rich tableau of images that confronts us and amazes us at Christmas. For some, Christmas is too much: too much fuss and bother, too much stress and worry. Some are only too glad that it is over and gone. For others there is never too much Christmas, even Christmas in July! But the real spiritual wonder of Christmas is that it lasts for more than a day, more than a week. There are the proverbial twelve days of Christmas! There are even the festivities in parts of the western world of “twelfth night” – not to mention Shakespeare’s play by that name. For the vast world of Eastern Christian Orthodoxy – for Russian, Greek, and Coptic churches, for example – Christmas really only begins with the coming of the Magi-Kings, the Wise Men to Bethlehem. Why? Because with the coming of the Magi-Kings from Anatolia (from the East), Christmas is omni populo, for all people. There is a rich fullness to the Christmas mystery and to the forms of its imaginary. So much is clustered into that simple scene in Bethlehem. A rich fullness in the midst of human poverty.

Only Matthew tells us about the coming of the Magi and yet his simple story has inspired a wealth of other things belonging to the work of holy imagination. The Magi, quite literally, have captured the imaginations of artists and poets from the carol “We Three Kings of Orient Are” to the Huron Carol, from simple crèche scenes to elaborate Baroque-style crèche displays. The Magi-Kings are a major part of the Christmas story. And yet we really know precious little about them. We don’t really know how many. Were there three? The tradition of three is based simply upon the three gifts. But holy imagination builds wonderfully and significantly upon the sparse details of Matthew’s account to provide them even with names – Casper, Balthazar, and Melchior, for example – and addresses in terms of different cultures and races from exotic places. No doubt they would be nowadays equipped in our imaginaries with GPS and cell-phones (in the hopes that they might get there on time, perhaps!).

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The seven homilies delivered during Christmastide by Fr. Curry have been collected into one pdf document, available for downloading here.

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“But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart”

There is a rich fullness to all of the celebrations of Christmas; a kaleidoscope of images in a whirl of sounds and light surrounds us. How do we make sense of it all or indeed of any of it all? It may seem like a whirlwind of things that serve to distract us either to amuse us or destroy us. How are to make sense of the rich fullness of Christmas especially on this The Octave Day of Christmas? It is a day, to be sure, which is also designated in other terms at once secular and sacred. It is The Octave Day of Christmas which brings us home and into the eternal mystery of Christ’s nativity, gathering into one all of the particulars of our Christmas celebrations. It is The Circumcision of Christ which marks another aspect of the mystery of the Incarnation. And to top it off, it is also New Year’s Day so as to bring the secular ordering of time into the mystery of God with us. A rich fullness indeed. How are we to make sense of it all?

We are to be like Mary who having heard “those things which were told them by the shepherds”, “kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.” She doesn’t just hold onto these things zealously clinging to them as we might to our favourite gifts. No, she keeps them “and ponder[s] them in her heart”. It is a very rich phrase. The things that have been said and heard are weighed and considered; they are thought upon. To ponder is to give something serious consideration. It is to be attentive to the meaning of what has been said and heard, seen and done.

For what are “all these things” which she keeps in her heart? They are all the things which cluster around the angelic announcement to the shepherds about “a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger”, a child who is “born this day in the city of David [as] a Saviour, Christ the Lord”. It is “good tidings of great joy”, to be sure, but even more a mystery to be considered. The shepherds say one to another, “Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass,” this thing “which the Lord hath made known to us”. They are themselves evangelists, the bearers of good news. They do not keep this to themselves but “made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child”. All who heard it “wondered at those things which were told them”. Mary, too, it seems, but even more she “kept all these things and pondered them in her heart”. That is the mystery of the Church and her purpose and being. We are to be like Mary.

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