Epiphany 6.1.08 Progress to the Light
We always hope with a new year that there will be peace on earth, especially an end to violence and bloodshed. Yet one cannot escape a single news service in which there is not a suicide bombing, a murder, an outburst of killing somewhere or other in the world (lately, Pakistan, Kenya, Iraq...)
These violent events are all the harder to take when so close to Christmas. We feel that something sacred is being violated.
Just when we should be wearing our best aspect (morally, socially) in terms of goodwill and fraternity, the brutal killing seems even more obscene.
So we might despair of the effectiveness of our religion. We preach peace, but we cannot live it, it seems.
Rather than give up, however, it just means we have to go back to the drawing board and keep working on it (like an inventor with a new machine in mind).
We sense that progress can be made even by a minority. If three people in a hundred are determined on peace that might grow to seven or ten over time.
Even if the numbers do not grow we still can see that it is better to work for what is right than to acquiesce in evil. To save one Jewish refugee in the second World War, or one baby at an abortion clinic might not seem much numerically, but one life saved is still worth a lot.
So Epiphany, this feast which puts before us the idea of universal salvation is very much a challenge to our level of hope, but is also a source of hope, reminding us that God has His plans, and what He plans is very likely to happen, despite all our sins and contrary behaviour.
God means to save, and save He will. On this feast we reaffirm this central fact of our faith, that we are all called to salvation.
But how does it work? Is salvation automatic? Does it happen to everyone regardless of what path they take? No, Salvation comes only to those wise enough (like the wise men) to take the path that leads to the Light.
It is a quest (pilgrimage) to be saved because one can be derailed at so many points along the way.
The wise men in their pilgrimage symbolise the rest of us, travelling from far away to the Light.
Far away, in that we begin in darkness; and far away in terms of time, the length of our lives. We could have gone anywhere (and some do) but we have arrived in the right place and have found the Child, the Lord, as those wise men did, and all need to do.
Keep the light in view. Keep alive the hope that all will be saved. Keep alive the hope that things do not have to continue as they have always been. That we do not have to wake up to news of bloodshed in every form.
The Old Testament prophecies speak precisely of the swords being turned into ploughshares, pointing to a time when there will be no more war.
It is a matter of progressing to the final goal. Individually, make sure you are still swimming in safe waters; collectively, try to spread peace about us, the Peace of Christ, which stems from union with Him.
