The Feast of the Epiphany 2011
Isaiah 60:1-6
Ephesians 3:2-6
Matthew 2:1-12
This past September, a team of astronomers at the Keck optical telescope observatory in Hawaii, discovered Gliese 581g. It is a planet is 20 light years away. It would be of no significant consequence, EXCEPT for the fact; it is the planet which theoretically could sustain life.
I can envision what might very well happen in the next decade. Three of the greatest nations on earth – USA –Peoples Republic of China – Japan – agree to combine their wealth, technology and intelligence, to devise a space vehicle capable of traveling to Gliese 581g – to see if there is human life, and to see if we can learn something about the mystery of our origin.
They succeeded in doing so. Traveling at speeds up to warp 5 in their space vehicle called Star trap, they manage to reach this planet.
The world anxiously awaits the first astronaut to step out to learn what the great mystery they had discovered is. All the major networks are covering this phenomenal event. From a media perspective, it makes the New Years day bowl games look like a non-event. Why had we spent all that money, taken such great risks with human lives?
He opens the hatch on the Star Trap and says: “A mother and child”!
As Ann Coury and Brian Williams simultaneously shout: WHAT? The astronaut repeats: The secret of Gliese 581g, indeed the secret of the universe is to be found a mother and infant child”
And the American public screams: “we’ve spent billions of our tax dollars to send some nut like this? He is crazy!”
Oddly enough, the astronaut and the Magi are right. They have found the secret of the universe, the secret that all human being searches for in the depth of their hearts and through out their entire lives.
Where do we come from?
Why are we here?
Where are we going?
The whole secret is in a mother and child.
We are here because of love.
We are created to love God and others.
We are destined to return to the One St. John describes as Love itself.
So simple, yet so profound. Our God loves us as a mother loves her child.
Because of its simplicity, some have laughed. But we, who know something of the mystery, have seen at least a glimpse of the Light.
It is the mystery, which we celebrate at this table each Sunday. For it is here that we commemorate a God so incredibly in love with us that the Divine takes our live, even to the point of accepting death. Pouring out his life for us.
Rev. Everett Hemann
RevEv@SaintPatrickcf.org