Well, all good things come to an end… and today we begin to wrap up the Christmas season. But unlike most finales, the liturgical season ends in the sending of the people of God into the world on mission and that is what The Epiphany the Lord is about.

An epiphany in biblical language was the manifestation of a divine being. Now, from his birth to his crucifixion, people did not know that Jesus is God, that is something that is revealed after the resurrection. But, they did have a sense that the birth of Jesus was some form of manifestation of the power of God in history, and at the center of this epiphany are the magi. They appear only in Matthew’s gospel because he is helping his Jewish Christian community understand that the birth of Jesus is a continuation of God’s action from the Old Testament and that it signifies God acting in the present in a new way.

In the Old Testament, there is an important moment found in 1 Kings 10 where the queen of Sheba makes a pilgrimage to Israel to visit king Solomon. Here is what is says:

She arrived in Jerusalem with a very numerous retinue, and with camels bearing spices, a large amount of gold, and precious stones. She came to Solomon and spoke to him about everything that she had on her mind.

King Solomon explained everything she asked about, and there was nothing so obscure that the king could not explain it to her.

When the queen of Sheba witnessed Solomon’s great wisdom, the house he had built, the food at his table, the seating of his ministers, the attendance and dress of his waiters, his servers, and the burnt offerings he offered in the house of the LORD, it took her breath away.

Has the way you live your faith ever taken someone’ breath away? This was a visit loaded with meaning. God had promised Abraham that all peoples of the earth would be blessed through his descendants. The queen of Sheba was not a descendant of Abraham, and yet she was drawn to the wisdom of God, so her visit was a sign of what was to come, God’s power drawing in people from all over the world. It was supposed to have motivated the descendants of Abraham continue striving to be the light to all nations.

But, after that visit, things went downhill. Instead of focusing on this promise, the kings of Israel became focused inward, on their own power, leading to competition with leaders of other nations. Instead of being a place of pilgrimage where people could come and have their breath taken away by the presence of God in the community, they went to war until they lose badly and are conquered by Babylon. That’s when they realized they had messed up big time, and something had to change.

The reading from Isaiah today was written centuries after the Babylonian exile when the people of God were now in the process of rebuilding, getting back on track. Isaiah is looking at a future where Jerusalem will once again be a place of pilgrimage for all nations, and so he writes a motivational speech:

rise up in splendor Jerusalem! Darkness covers the earth, thick clouds cover the peoples, but upon you the Lord shines and over you appears his glory. Nations shall walk by your light, kings by your shining radiance, camels shall come to you, all from Sheba shall come bearing gold and frankincense and proclaiming the praises of the Lord.

Isaiah is reminding them of the important mission that they have and how the manifestation, epiphany, of the power of God will be made evident through them for all.

This is what Matthew has in mind when he writes this event of the magi:

And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them, 
until it came and stopped over the place where the child was.
They were overjoyed (breathnless?) at seeing the star, 
and on entering the house
they saw the child with Mary his mother.
They prostrated themselves and did him homage.
Then they opened their treasures 
and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Like the queen of Sheba, the magi were not of Abraham’s descendants. They were astrologers, modern-day astronomer, scientists. They represented all peoples from all the ends of the earth and all human knowledge. Matthew is saying that this epiphany, the birth of Jesus, is the beginning of the manifestation of God’s power that the world was waiting for; the promise given to Abraham, prefigured by the queen of Sheba and hoped for by Isaiah was now here, epiphany.

This power was different. Even before he could walk or speak, this child was already drawing people in, bring humanity together. It was a manifestation of the only form of power that could do such a thing: not political, not religious, not philosophical, not through wealth, but the power of God’s love. We heard at Christmas that to all who did accept this child, they too receive the power of being children of God, which would give rise to a new mission oriented people of God. It was a great restart for salvation history, what my Christology professor calls The beginning of the people of God 2.0, the Church. iPhone 16 is no match to The People of God 2.0.

 St. Paul calls this epiphany the mystery made known by revelation, not known to people in other generations, but now revealed by the Spirit. The mission of the church as you might remember from last year is to be a sign and source of unity between humanity and God, aka: we are tasked with the mission of taking people’s breath away.

Has the way you live your faith ever taken someone’ breath away?

Paul says all believers are copartners in this mission. That means that the task of every generation of the people of God 2.0 is to be an epiphany of the power of the love of God in the context of their historicity. Every generation has to find new ways to do this, to hit the restart button, because one; conditions change from generation to generation, and two; we always have to fight the tendency to drift into focusing inward on our own power.

As a universal Church, we had a major restart 60 years ago with the II Vatican Council. It was a time for the People of God 2.0 to reflect on how they can be a sign of God’s love in a new modern world, a world experiencing the new challenges that came with developing technology.

Every pope since then have done their part to mediate a Church in the process of restarting and that is difficult, sometimes we don’t realize that is where we are at right now, we are still in restart mode, and each pope since then has had their critics. Some criticize the popes for going too far, others for not going far enough. 60 years of implementation is not a long time, it will take maybe a couple hundred years for the Church to really understand and implement what the Holy Spirit is asking of us through Vatican II. So as the people of God 2.0, be patient and understanding because if all we are doing is in-fighting, nations will not see the Church as a sign of unity, they will not have their breath be taken away.

We are in restart mode locally too with the process of Partners in the Gospel. Things have changed radically in the culture these last 100 years since as less people claim Christianity as a valid way of life. The fastest growing group, in surveys of religious practice in the US, are those who say they practice no religion the NONES. We used to have nuns and now we have nones. As we have heard for over a year now, Partners is our missionary response to this challenge, and as the People of God 2.0 we have the mission to find new ways to attract people to Jesus, so that they can look at the Church and be left breathless and fill our worship spaces and have more young men realize their call to priestly ministry. How are going to do that? Simply posting a Mass schedule and waiting for them to come won’t do it. Simply praying that God may send us more vocations from somewhere won’t do it.

This summer we enter into phase 2 of Partners in the Gospel, where we identify what needs to change and begin to implement those changes. Start asking the Holy Spirit to inspire you so you can be an integral part of this restart, of what you can do with the power you yourself have received.

We need new ways of inviting people to be part of the Christian community that go beyond scare tactics. Threatening people with hell might have worked in the Middle Ages, but not today. Pope Benedict is an example of a modern theologian that did just that by ending the idea of limbo. An idea was born out of fear that, because baptism is necessary for salvation, babies who died before baptism ended up in a place called limbo, the first circle of hell. This was promoted to get people scared and get their babies baptized right away. Pope Benedict finally said that this is inconsistent with the bible’s teaching on the love of God and limbo is no longer a thing. We need to get out children baptized as early as possible, not because we fear they will go to hell, but because we want them to live in the grace of God’s love as early as possible.

Same thing for coming to Mass. We are so used to saying that not coming to Mass is a mortal sin, and if you die with moral sin on your soul you go to hell. People then come to Mass out of fear. If you tell that to someone who does not come to Mass, it doesn’t sound very inviting, it’s threatening. Instead, we need to adopt different language: at Mass we have an epiphany, a manifestation of the love of God, so why would we not want to be here? People will be attracted to the Church when they see the power of Jesus working in positive ways, through love.

To be sent on mission calls for new expressions of Christianity. Many young people struggle with the big questions raised by science that seems to put their faith to the test. Many people are trying to figure out how Christianity relates to other religions. How do we make the space for people with these kinds of questions to be able to ask them and have a conversation.

To be sent on mission calls for the fostering of a new generations of servant leaders within the Church. There was a time where there where many volunteers, but that generation is now in the 70’s and 80’s. Many of our older folk did all sorts of things; from youth ministry to marriage encounter, and not many have stepped up to replace them. We put out a call – we need more eucharistic ministers, live-stream help, lectors… nothing. Is that going to take anyone’s breath away when they come into the parish and see that the same announcement is being made week after week, and no one feels convicted to give a little bit of their time? Not impressed.

What does that say to our young people about the important of service in the Church when the adults in their community themselves not stepping up and putting the example? People’s breath is taken away when they see the level of service and commitment by a people that loves the Church.

Family, the end of our Christmas season is our send off to mission, to restart. We are all members the Church 2.0, partners in the promises of God. Last week I gave you your first new year’s resolution: do not take God’s name in vain. Today I give your second: live your faith in a way that takes someone’s breath away.

Fr. Carlos