Today is January 6, the twelfth day of Christmas, which is celebrated as Epiphany in the Church. It commemorates the visit of the Magi (“wise men”) from the East to the infant Jesus and the Holy Family. The major theme is light, as the learned easterners saw and followed the light of a star in the sky which led them to the newborn Savior of the world. We are told in Matthew that they were warned in a dream to return to their home by “another way” to avoid the treachery of the narcissistic king. We don’t hear from the magi again.
Every year on Epiphany I find and play the YouTube recording of T. S. Eliot reading his own poem in his own voice, the famous “Journey of the Magi.” It is quite remarkable! Near the end of the poem, the narrator says,
“We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.”
The traveling magi were not someone you would ordinarily write into a Hebrew (or Christian) religious origin story. They didn’t belong. They were outsiders in every way – they were the wrong race, the wrong religion, from the wrong country. They were “incompatible” with Judaism in almost every way. Yet here they were – being led by the Light. They were the enlightened ones (hence, “Epiphany”). You might even say they were “woke.”
They were so enlightened that when they returned home by “another way,” they felt themselves not as much at home as before.
This year’s Epiphany coincides with the Full Wolf Moon, as the first full moon in January is known by some who give name to their moons. The Full Wolf Moon gets its name from the sound of the wolves who can be heard often this time of year, to broadcast their presence, to call to others, or to express something that is known only to the wolves themselves. Some say the long, upward, mournful sound tells us it is a time to turn inward, to “trust your gut,” to get in touch with your feelings, and then to rear your head back and let ‘er rip.
When you go home and it no longer feels like home, it’s how I feel when the church spends so much of its time squabbling over buildings and bureaucrats and who gets to decide who’s in and who’s out and how to squirm out of a trust clause rather than how to be more like Jesus. Tonight, I go outside and lift my voice and pour out my heart to God with all the intensity and passion of the call-of-the-wild.
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome the light” – John 1:5
