1st Epiphany 2022, Hidden Ladder

1^st Epiphany

Matthew 2:1-12 

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea—during the time of King Herod—behold: wise priest-kings from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, "Where is the one born here, King of the Jews? We have seen his star rise in the east and have come to worship him."               

When King Herod heard this, he was deeply disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. And he assembled all the high priests and scribes of the people and inquired of them in what place the Christ was to be born. And they said to him, "In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it was written by the prophet: 

Gertraud Kiedaisch

And you Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

Are by no means the least among the rulers of Judah;

For out of you shall come forth the ruler

Who will be shepherd over my people, the true Israel." 

Then Herod, secretly calling the Magi together again, inquired from them the exact time when the star had appeared. He directed them to Bethlehem and said, "Go there and search carefully for the child, and when you find him, report to me, that I too may go and bow down before him." 

After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and behold, the star that they had seen rising went before them and led them in its course over the cities until it stood over the place where the child was. Seeing the star, they were filled with [or, there awakened in them] an exceedingly great and holy joy. 

Entering the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother; they fell down before him and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and offered him their gifts: gold and frankincense and myrrh. 

And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their country by another way.

1^st Epiphany Sunday

January 9, 2022

Matthew 2:1-12 

Humankind has always seen the stars as grouped together in constellations. Especially in ancient times, mighty pictures arose in people's souls when they gazed into the night sky.

 

For every child, there is a star in the heavens. It is the place from whence the child comes, a place that safeguards the soul's true name. The child brings it to earth, a shining thing in the treasure chest of the heart. Sometimes parents catch a glimpse of this true name, even before the child is born. 

In the gospel reading, a Child is born; a great star appears in the heavens. Upon this star are written His many names: Wonderful, Counselor, the everlasting Lord, the Prince of Peace. In legend, traveling day and night for thirteen days, the three Magi constellate themselves like slow-moving planets around the Child and His Mother. They cross paths with Herod's death star. But in constant devotion the One whose name is also Truth, they themselves, along with the Child, are safe. 

We, too, led by our hearts, have chosen to gather ourselves around the Christ star. St. John of the Cross writes:

 

Of a dark night, kindled in love…

I went out without being observed….

In darkness and confident, I laid hold

of the hidden ladder…..

I moved sightless without light or guide,

save that which burned in my heart.

Heartlight guided me more surely

than the light of glaring day to the place

where He—yes, I knew— was awaiting me.* 

Each human heart moves toward Christ. We have come together on earth, guided by heartlight, to form his community. Together we are an earthly reflection of His star in the heavens. For our true names, carried in our hearts, are connected with Christ, the star of love.

 www.thechristiancommunity.org 

---

* St. John of the Cross, “Dark Night”, in Love’s Immensity, Mystics on the Endless Life, Scott Cairns, p. 128.

 

 

1st Epiphany 2021, Uses of the Stars

1^st Epiphany

Matthew 2:1-12

Tissot

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea—during the time of King Herod—
behold: wise priest-kings from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, "Where is the one born here, King of the Jews? We have seen his star rise in the east and have come to worship him."

When King Herod heard this, he was deeply disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. And he assembled all the high priests and scribes of the people and inquired of them in what place the Christ was to be born. And they said to him, "In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it was written by the prophet: 

And you Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

Are by no means the least among the rulers of Judah;

For out of you shall come forth the ruler

Who will be shepherd over my people, the true Israel." 

Then Herod, secretly calling the Magi together again, inquired from them the exact time when the star had appeared. He directed them to Bethlehem and said, "Go there and search carefully for the child, and when you find him, report to me, that I too may go and bow down before him."

After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and behold, the star that they had seen rising went before them and led them in its course over the cities until it stood over the place where the child was. Seeing the star, they were filled with [or, there awakened in them] an exceedingly great and holy joy. 

Entering the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother; they fell down before him and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and offered him their gifts: gold and frankincense and myrrh. 

And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their country by another way.

1st Epiphany

January 10, 2021

Matthew 2:1–12 

"In the beginning,. . . darkness was on the face of the deep. . . and God said, 'Let there be light.' " Thus the very pattern of the world was stamped with one of the primal pairings—light and dark—like day and night, life and death.

It lives on in us as the pattern of our souls, which swing between love and hate, hope and fear, good and evil. Herod represents that dark capacity in all of us, which fears a loss of position, a darkness that instigates our capacity for calculating secretiveness and destructiveness. 

Yet, we also have the Three Wise Kings in us to balance out our inner darkness. They are the soul's capacity to see the starlight of higher wisdom; to be devoted to God's guidance; to willingly acknowledge the necessity of sacrifice.

The wise guidance of the star leads the Kings first to Herod, then to the Christ Child. It prompts the gift of gold.

Their devotion to God's guidance, sent to them also through the words of their warning dream, accompanies the gift of frankincense.

Their willingness to recognize the Child's coming sacrifice prompts the gift of myrrh.

The darkness of fear contends with God's light in all of us. Darkness leads us to destruction. But God's light leads to a great and holy joy. In the words of the poet Max Ehrmann we pray:

Lift up my eyes

from the earth, and let me not

forget the uses of the stars.

….Let me not follow the clamor of

the world, but walk calmly

in my path.*

 

*Max Ehrmann, "A Prayer," in The Desiderata of Happiness

Epiphany 2020, Birth or Death?

1^st Epiphany

Matthew 2:1-12

Basilica of St. Mary Major

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea—during the time of King Herod—behold: wise priest-kings from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying,

           

“Where is the one born here King of the Jews? We have seen his star rise in the east and have come to worship him.”

           

When King Herod heard this, he was deeply disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. And he assembled all the high priests and scribes of the people and inquired of them in what place the Christ was to be born.

And they said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it was written by the prophet:

And you Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

Are by no means the least among the rulers of Judah;

For out of you shall come forth the ruler

Who will be shepherd over my people, the true Israel.”

Then Herod, secretly calling the Magi together again, inquired from them the exact time when the star had appeared. He directed them to Bethlehem and said, “Go there and search carefully for the child, and when you find him, report to me, that I too may go and bow down before him.”

Gentile da Fabriano

After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and behold, the star that they had seen rising went before them, and led them in its course over the cities until it stood over the place where the child was.

Seeing the star, they were filled with [there awakened in them] an exceedingly great and holy joy.

Entering the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother; they fell down before him and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and offered him their gifts: gold and frankincense and myrrh.

And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their country by another way.

           

Epiphany

January 12, 2020

Matthew 2:1–12

The wise priest-kings from the east, as they come closer to the child, stop in the royal city of Jerusalem, asking to see the newborn king. Why were they not led directly to the child? Why were they allowed to alert the Child’s enemies of His presence?

It would seem that this child is, from the beginning, connected with death. A poem by T.S. Eliot hints at this; in it, one of the wise men says,

…were we led all that way for

Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,

We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,

But had thought they were different…*

The arrival of the Life that is the Light calls forth the shadowy oppositional

Nikolej Koshelev

forces of death. Herod is threatened by the real heir to the throne that he occupies. He is even willing to kill innocent children to keep possession of it. Yet the destructive power of evil also activates the angels. They will come to Joseph in a dream. They will urge him to take the Child to the city of the sun in Egypt until it is safe to return. They will also offer the Magi the advice to alter their route, leaving Herod uninformed while the child slips away.

Evil finds its match. And the death force that rises up at the Child’s birth will finally be overcome, even in its ‘proper place’ at the end of His life. For in Him, death itself will become the birth of something new, a new human form.

…were we led all that way for

Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,

We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,

But had thought they were different…*

---

*T. S. Eliot, ”Journey of the Magi”

* Ibid.

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1st Epiphany 2019, The World's Ills

Egbert Codex

1^st Epiphany

Matthew 2: 1-12 (adapted from RSV)

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea—during the time of King Herod—behold: wise priest-kings from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying,

           

“Where is the one born here King of the Jews? We have seen his star rise in the east and have come to worship him.”

           

When King Herod heard this, he was deeply disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. And he assembled all the high priests and scribes of the people and inquired of them in what place the Christ was to be born.

And they said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it was written by the prophet:

And you Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

Are by no means the least among the rulers of Judah;

For out of you shall come forth the ruler

Who will be shepherd over my people, the true Israel.”

Leyendecker

Then Herod, secretly calling the Magi together again, inquired from them the exact time when the star had appeared. He directed them to Bethlehem and said, “Go there and search carefully for the child, and when you find him, report to me, that I too may go and bow down before him.”

After they had heard the King, they went on their way, and behold, the star that they had seen rising went before them, and led them in its course over the cities until it stood over the place where the child was.

Seeing the star, they were filled with [there awakened in them] an exceedingly great and holy joy.

Entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; they fell down before him and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and offered him their gifts: gold and frankincense and myrrh.

And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their country by another way.

Epiphany

January 6, 2019

Matthew 2:1-12

Cogniet, Slaughter of the Innocents

Evil seeks to destroy. Herod tries to destroy the Child and cuts a wide swath. Although the bodies of the innocent children had died, their souls and spirits form a living crown of supportive life. They form a living sacrificial crown around this one Child who will one day sacrifice himself in service.

Today Christ wants to be born and operate within every human being. He wants to be seen working in the world. And today, evil still seeks to destroy the innocent. Recent deaths of innocent people are a prompt to us. They prompt us to fulfill the conditions within ourselves that allow Christ’s work to be seen and experienced in the world.

Those innocent souls want to encourage our open reverence before the mysteries of the world.

They want to encourage our empathy and compassion for all who suffer,

Christ as Good Samaritan, Codex Rossanensis

including those caught up in evil through their own illness.

They want to stimulate our conscience, that is, our knowing and acting on our part to play in the remedying of the world’s ills, starting with ourselves.

The world cries out for redemption. It needs men and women of selfless selfhood, men and women of good will so that Christ can work His salvation through them. Only thus can His Being of Love operate on the earth.

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1st Epiphany 2018, Innocence Grown

Tissot

1^st Epiphany
Matthew 2: 1-12 
 
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea—during the time of King Herod—behold: wise priest-kings from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying,
           
“Where is the one born here King of the Jews? We have seen his star rise in the east and have come to worship him.”
           
When King Herod heard this, he was deeply disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. And he assembled all the high priests and scribes of the people and inquired of them in what place the Christ was to be born.
 
And they said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it was written by the prophet:
 
And you Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
Are by no means the least among the rulers of Judah;
For out of you shall come forth the ruler
Who will be shepherd over my people, the true Israel.”
 
Then Herod, secretly calling the Magi together again, inquired from them the exact time when the star had appeared. He directed them to Bethlehem and said, “Go there and search carefully for the child, and when you find him, report to me, that I too may go and bow down before him.”
 
After they had heard the King, they went on their way, and behold, the star that they had

seen rising went before them, and led them in its course over the cities until it stood over the place where the child was.
 
Seeing the star, they were filled with [there awakened in them] an exceedingly great and holy joy.
 
Entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; they fell down before him and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and offered him their gifts: gold and frankincense and myrrh.
 
And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their country by another way.
           
1st Epiphany
January 7, 2018
Matthew 2: 1-12
 
There is an archetypal polarity in the world: whenever innocence, goodness, beauty or purity appear, there, immediately, is the predator. The one attracts the other. It is as though innocence and destruction are paired, as though they are destined to wed.
 
So it is no wonder that the innocent child Jesus attracts the attention of Herod. The child will escape death this time. It is protected by the angels, for its time has not yet come. But Innocence Grown will be murdered by the same predatory pride and fear that expressed itself in Herod.
 

Tissot, Brooklyn Museum

Yet that won’t be the end of the story. It will be just the beginning. For Innocence will not be utterly destroyed. Innocence Grown will wed itself to the destroyer Death. It will take the predator by the hand and lead it through hell into the light of love. It will die, but it will rise again as New Life.
 
When Herod says, “…search carefully for the child, and when you find him, report to me, that I too may go and bow down before him,’ we hear the lie, the irony in his words. Yet Herod was speaking an unconscious truth. For what the destroyer really wants is redemption. And it will happen, because Innocence Grown loves all—Herod, the Pharisees, all human souls.
 
The Destroyer lives inside each of us. It is the necessary partner to our innocent, untouchable spiritual core. It challenges us to find the pathway to Innocence Grown, to the one who shines in the darkness as our own New Life.

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1st Epiphany

Matthew 2: 1-12

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea—during the time of King Herod—behold: wise priest-kings from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying,

               

Albani Psalter

“Where is the one born here King of the Jews? We have seen his star rise in the east and have come to worship him.”

               

When King Herod heard this, he was deeply disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. And he assembled all the high priests and scribes of the people and inquired of them in what place the Christ was to be born.

And they said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it was written by the prophet:

And you Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

Are by no means the least among the rulers of Judah;

For out of you shall come forth the ruler

Who will be shepherd over my people, the true Israel.”

Then Herod, secretly calling the Magi together again, inquired from them the

Herod consulting the Three Kings, Tissot

exact time when the star had appeared. He directed them to Bethlehem and said, “Go there and search carefully for the child, and when you find him, report to me, that I too may go and bow down before him.”

After they had heard the King, they went on their way, and behold, the star that they had seen rising went before them, and led them in its course over the cities until it stood over the place where the child was.

Evangeliar Altomünster

Seeing the star, they were filled with [there awakened in them] an exceedingly great and holy joy.

Entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; they fell down before him and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and offered him their gifts: gold and frankincense and myrrh.

And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their country by another way.

1st Epiphany

January 6, 8, 2017

Matthew 2: 1-12

The three priest kings are on the watch for the appearance of a new kingly

artist unknown

being. And this kingly being shows himself to them at a distance. He appears in the realm above the earthly in the form of a star, which guides them to himself. They are overjoyed when the star of the one they love and revere leads them to a house with a mother and child.

They offer him the durable and radiant gold of their wisdom, the sweet frankincense of their devotion, and the bitter myrrh of healing. The child absorbs these spiritual components, which he then in turn, later, offers to the salvation of humankind.

We each have a star of destiny guidance. It shines above our heads at birth. It dives down into us at maturity, working from within, as inklings and intimations, as dreams and conscience.

artist unknown

Can we develop an eye for the destiny guidance, the star that lives in another? Do we feel a reverent joy when we glimpse it? Are we willing to offer our wisdom, our reverence, our capacity for healing in support of their path?

A traditional prayer from another part of the world says:

Journeying god,

pitch your tent with mine

so that I may not become deterred

by hardship, strangeness, doubt.

Show me the movement I must make

toward a wealth not dependent on possessions,

toward a wisdom not based on books,

toward a strength not bolstered by might,

toward a god not confined to heaven.

Help me to find myself as I walk in other's shoes.*

*Prayer song from Ghana, traditional, translator unknown

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1st Epiphany 2016, First Ancestor

1st Epiphany

Matthew 2: 1-12

Herod and the Magi, Tissot (Brooklyn Museum)

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea—during the time of King Herod—behold: wise priest-kings from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying,

               

“Where is the one born here King of the Jews? We have seen his star rise in the east and have come to worship him.”

               

When King Herod heard this, he was deeply disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. And he assembled all the high priests and scribes of the people and inquired of them in what place the Christ was to be born.

And they said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it was written by the prophet:

And you Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

Are by no means the least among the rulers of Judah;

For out of you shall come forth the ruler

Who will be shepherd over my people, the true Israel.”

Then Herod, secretly calling the Magi together again, inquired from them the exact time when the star had appeared. He directed them to Bethlehem and said, “Go there and search carefully for the child, and when you find him, report to me, that I too may go and bow down before him.”

After they had heard the King, they went on their way, and behold, the star that they had seen rising went before them, and led them in its course over the cities until it stood over the place where the child was.

Tapestry by Burne-Jones

Seeing the star, they were filled with [there awakened in them] an exceedingly great and holy joy.

Entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; they fell down before him and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and offered him their gifts: gold and frankincense and myrrh.

And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their country by another way.

1st Epiphany

January 10, 2016

Matthew 2: 1-12

To be a king means to rule over a place with a boundary. The king administers, defends, and maintains it. In ancient times kings were souls pre-ordained by the spiritual world, who were sent into a particular bloodline, a bloodline that offered the kingly soul the necessary attributes.

King Herod was no divinely appointed king; he was a political appointee. When emissaries from other lands come looking for the great soul born into the hereditary bloodline, Herod becomes anxious to maintain his position. But the emissaries, priest-kings themselves, are led by the higher guidance of the soul-star. It leads them to the child who will become, not a ruler, but a ‘shepherd of all nations.’

Later Herod’s son Antipas will also be a King Herod curious about this man of whom he has heard so much. He will play his part in the deaths of both John the Baptist, the old Adam, and Jesus, the New Adam. The irony is that neither Herod actually had anything to fear from Jesus, for although he was born into the kingly line, he was not destined to become an earthly ruler. His kingdom would be the whole earth, conquered by the shedding of his own blood, a kingdom beyond time.

Something of eternal nature of Christ’s kingship wafts through the encounter with the priest-kings. They make the child offerings symbolizing their wisdom, their devotion, their forces of healing.

They laid their offerings at his feet:

The gold was their tribute to a King,

The frankincense, with its odor sweet,

Was for the Priest, the Paraclete,

The myrrh for the body's burying.*

The child they worship in joy will die a sacrificial death. But Christ will make possible the healing of humankind and of the earth. He will rise as the first ancestor of a new bloodline, the line of the Christened humans.

*Longfellow, “The Three Kings”

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Epiphany, January 6 and 11, 2025, Uses of the Stars

1st Epiphany

Adoration of the Magi, Burne-Jones

Matthew 2: 1-12

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea—during the time of King Herod—behold: wise priest-kings from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying,

“Where is the one born here King of the Jews? We have seen his star rise in the east and have come to worship him.”

When King Herod heard this, he was deeply disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. And he assembled all the high priests and scribes of the people and inquired of them in what place the Christ was to be born.

And they said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it was written by the prophet:

And you Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

Are by no means the least among the rulers of Judah;

For out of you shall come forth the ruler

Who will be shepherd over my people, the true Israel.”

Then Herod, secretly calling the Magi together again, inquired from them the exact time when the star had appeared. He directed them to Bethlehem and said, “Go there and search carefully for the child, and when you find him, report to me, that I too may go and bow down before him.”

After they had heard the King, they went on their way, and behold, the star that they had seen rising went before them, and led them in its course over the cities until it stood over the place where the child was.

Seeing the star, they were filled with [there awakened in them] an exceedingly great and holy joy.

Entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; they fell down before him and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and offered him their gifts: gold and frankincense and myrrh.

And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their country by another way.

1st Epiphany

January 6 and 11, 2015

Matthew 2: 1-12

“In the beginning… darkness was on the face of the deep…. And God said, ‘Let there be light’. Thus the very pattern of the world was stamped with primal pairings, pairings of light and dark – day and night, life and death.

These pairings live on in as the pattern of our souls, which swing between love and hate, hope and fear, good and evil. Herod represents that dark capacity in all of us which fears loss of position, which instigates our capacity for calculating secretiveness, for destructiveness. Yet we also have the three kings in us to balance out our inner darkness. They are the soul’s capacity to see the starlight of higher wisdom; to be devoted to God’s guidance; to willingly acknowledge the necessity of sacrifice.

It is the wise guidance of the star that leads them first to Herod, then to the Christ Child that prompts the gift of gold. It is their devotion to God’s guidance, sent to them also through the words of their dream of warning, that accompanies the gift of frankincense. It is their willingness to recognize the Child’s coming sacrifice that prompts the gift of myrrh.

The darkness of fear contends with God’s light in all of us. Darkness leads us to destruction. But God’s light leads to a great and holy joy. In the words of the poet we pray:

Lift up my eyes

Three Kings' Dream, David Newbatt

from the earth, and let me not

forget the uses of the stars.

….Let me not follow the clamor of

the world, but walk calmly

in my path.[1]

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---

[1] Max Ehrmann, “ A Prayer” in The Desiderata of Happiness