I need to drive to Tuskaloocha…does anybody here know
directions on how to get there? Where is
that, you say? I don’t know, that ‘s why
I’m asking you. How can I find out? I can google it, pull up mapquest, put it
into my Garmin navigational doohickey, I might even try to watch the stars like
the wise men…four different ways to find out how to get to Tuskaloocha.
Now, what if I need directions for how to get to Jesus? What would you say? Seriously think about that a minute… Can you
tell me how to get to Jesus? Honestly, I
don’t know that I’d have a ready-to-give answer to that question myself
– but I really think we ALL should
have that answer. How could I
find out the best way to find Jesus? If
I google Jesus, I’ll find thousands – literally tens of thousands of churches
who claim that THEY have the one and ONLY way to get to Jesus.
How can that be? How
is it that one guy named Jesus was here – a book called the Bible was written
about him – and now 10’s of thousands of different churches have different
interpretations?
As Catholics, we believe that Jesus started ONE Church – a
church we call the Catholic Church…and within it he gave authority to teach,
baptize, and forgive sins. He endowed it
with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. He
graced it with the seven Sacraments so that he could continue to reach out and
touch his people through the hand of His ministers. He inspired its leaders to write the
Bible…that’s right, the New Testament writers were Catholics! Why would Jesus start a Church? To help people find him. The Church is the Garmin navigational
doohickey for finding Jesus.
Now that doesn’t mean we have a corner on the market for getting
to Jesus – and that’s what today’s feast is about. You see, there were two important groups of
people who came to see Jesus when he was an infant: the shepherds and the magi. We don’t have a special feast for the
shepherds, but today’s Feast of the Epiphany celebrates the fact that three
pagan wise men came to know Jesus.
That should shake us up! These
guys weren’t Catholic, they weren’t Christian, they weren’t even Jewish! They tried to find God by reading the
signs in the stars. Most of us today
don’t use the stars to navigate…– yet, they came to know Jesus through
this method….so is it all bad? The
shepherds, on the other hand, found out about Jesus through direct revelation –
when an angel appeared to them. We don’t
seem to have a problem with that, do we?
And yet, if I stood here and told you that an angel appeared to me last
night, you’d think I was a little off my rocker. Yet, we accept it as perfectly normal for
these guys 2000 years ago to receive a vision from an angel.
But there was a third group who came to know that Jesus was
born. Who? Think through the story:
Ø
The shepherds came to know through a
direct vision of angels.
Ø
The magi knew through a reading of
the stars.
Ø
And King Herod’s scribes came to
know through searching the scriptures.
Visions,
stars, scriptures -- different ways of arriving at the same truth. Of course
this doesn’t mean that ANY method of finding Jesus is just as good as the
other. Notice how Matthew indicates that when the guiding star got to Jerusalem
its light failed and the magi HAD to stop and ask for directions… They were
forced to consult the scriptures to direct them to Bethlehem. Obviously,
since they were not familiar with the prophecies in the Jewish books, they had
to get the help from the scribes in Jerusalem.
That is an important point: Over
and above the natural light of the star the magi still needed the SUPERNATURAL
light of scripture to finally get to Jesus.
Yet
the crucial question in the story remains: Who actually FOUND Jesus? Herod and
his scribes who were the scripture “experts” FAILED to find Jesus, but the magi,
who followed the natural light of the stars, WERE able to find him. Why?
Because the Jewish authorities, even though they possessed the shining truth of
revealed scriptures,…didn’t follow it. They did not walk in the light of the
scriptures. The magi, on the other hand, who enjoyed only star light, followed
its guidance. See - It is not the possession of the truth that matters,
it is how prepared we are to walk in the light of the truth that we DO possess.
It is better to have the dim light of the stars and follow it than to have the
bright light of the holy scriptures and neglect it. Ouch – I’m preaching to myself here – we
can’t just relax knowing that we possess the fullness of truth – we have to
actually act on it in order to find Jesus.
Let
me give you one more example – what if you were having money troubles and somebody
who knows a lot about money told you how to handle money God’s way… that it
would help you get out of debt and to lead a happier life… Would you follow their instructions?
Or
like driving to Tusckaloocha: If I googled
directions and printed them out for you, would you follow them? If we punched it into your Garmin, would you
turn when it tells you to turn? Or –
would you see a road that looks pretty and say – I’ll bet I can still get there
from here….I’ll just go up a ways and see where it takes me. Since we don’t even know where Tusckaloocha
is, wouldn’t that be pretty silly to try to find our own path to get there?
We,
as Catholics, have been given the most direct route to Jesus – in the Church
that He established. But what does that
benefit us if we don’t follow the directions?
Nature worshipers and even non-believers who try to find God through the
dim light of natural reason might actually find Jesus before some of us
Christians who have been given all the revealed truths about God …because we
failed to look at the map… REAL wise men will turn to the scriptures for
directions.
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