Epiphany - Jan. 5, 2003

Dear parishioners,

This feast of the Magi  has the effect of being the Christmas for all the people who are not of the 1^st covenant.

In one sense the gift of God’s son is very much the same – a child born of  Mary . Still we celebrate this day with a certainty of God’s love that goes beyond all limits.

In the incarnation –God becoming one of us, Jesus does not come as a superhero. With a superhero all we have to do is watch, enjoy the show, and feel smug as evil gets its due. A movie hero could come at the last minute and by a show of physical force rescue any one who looks as though they are doomed.
The Birth of Jesus is not a movie to be watched, but a real-life event within which we are meant to be players.

God doesn't enter the world as an adult, but as a baby, helpless, needing to be nurtured to come to adulthood. The God who is born into our world at Christmas is not the God of power, but the God of helplessness and vulnerability.

This Wise men are shown to us as people of a faith that took them beyond all that was seen. We too must see the difference between power by worldly standards and power by divine standards. The great mystery is that divine power shows itself as vulnerability and helplessness.  The power of the baby rather than the strong man

We must always know that this power, shown as helplessness and vulnerability is greater that all others because it, and it alone can transform hearts.

The Messianic time predicted by the prophets has arrived with the birth of Christ . However the baby Jesus does not save the world, the adult Christ does and our task is to turn the baby Jesus into the adult Christ . We need to do that with our own bodies and with our own lives.

If we could be at the manger and smile at the child we could see and feel the child born of the Holy Spirit and Mary smiling back at us. The Holy Spirit is defined as charity, joy peace, patience and many other virtues. These will radiate back to us. This is the power of Christmas, a baby’s power to transform a heart. God’s almighty power hidden in the weakness of a baby

Fr. Bruce Schute