As a kid I loved watching the three kings – or astrologers or magi or whatever – getting placed at the crib. Exotic, colorful, mystical… and now the crib set was complete.
But a few weeks ago someone told me there was someone very important missing from almost every crib set. “Who,” I asked.
She said, “Herod should be in every crib set because darkness is never far away in the Christmas story. Darkness is part of how many people experience Christmas in their homes. And over 2000 years ago there was the darkness of Christmas Eve, with the shepherds keeping night watch over their flock, and the appalling dangerous darkness of King Herod. It was because of darkness and love for those in darkness that the Light came.”
“Wow,” I thought. She’s right.
Herod started off so good. Brilliant and charming he knew many languages. He was a high-powered achiever, and his kingdom was filled with many projects that created wealth. But he had a dark side too, and his dark side, towards the end of his life, seems to have completely taken over. He killed his favorite wife and at least two of his children (he was suspicious and paranoid), he is mentioned in connection with the horrible slaughter of the holy innocents, and when he died he left instructions that many leading citizens in Jerusalem be slaughtered, so the population would weep at his passing.
Herod became the proverbial poster boy for cruelty, paranoia, corrupt living and family grief. What happened to him?
He would not, and then maybe later he could not, do two really important things with his neck. He couldn’t lift his eyes and look about. He could not sense the grandeur of the world and of the God, and take his place as a valued and treasured part of the whole. He had to be everything, the center of everything. He couldn’t lift his head higher than what he thought, he felt, and what he wanted to do.
And second, unlike the magi who prostrated themselves, he couldn’t bow his head and worship something more holy than himself.
When you don’t have time to wonder at the extreme largeness of the world, the universe, human life, other human lives – and the One who created them all – you get obsessed with your tasks and your way and yourself – and that’s a recipe for darkness.
And when you don’t spend some time bending, prostrating, and consciously adoring the One who is greater than you – that is a recipe for darkness.
And at its worse you turn into a tyrant. Maybe not like King Herod, but you can be a tyrant in the kitchen, in the home, in the office, on the road, in church.
We rightly call these Magi the wise men, and maybe wise women. They took time to lift their eyes and wonder – they saw the star and Herod didn’t. And they prostrated themselves and did him homage, offering gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. I hope we will do the same. Epiphany 2011!
Archive for the ‘Epiphany’ Category
Epiphany 1-2-2011
Sunday, January 2nd, 2011Epiphany (I am Joseph your brother) 1-3-2010
Sunday, January 3rd, 2010Some years ago the Catholic community of Chicago lost one of its greatest leaders and ministers in Cardinal Joseph Bernardin.
Cardinal Bernardin will always be remembered for his great gifts as a reconciler. In some of the Church’s most controversial and divisive moments, he was able, in his humble, sensitive and compassionate way, to earn the trust of liberal and conservative alike, to bring all sides together, to keep everyone focused on the common call to be disciples of Christ. A leader among America’s bishops, he steered the bishops’ conference through debates ranging from the Vietnam War to birth control. When he was wrongly accused of sexual assault by a former seminarian who later recanted his story, Cardinal Bernardin did not react with anger at the pain and humiliation he endured, but reached out to his young accuser, forgiving him and praying for and with him. To everyone in Chicago—Catholic and non-Catholic, believer and nonbeliever—he would introduce himself simply as “I am Joseph, your brother”.
Within 48 hours of learning he was dying of liver cancer, Cardinal Bernardin shared his ordeal with the people of his archdiocese. He spent much of the last year of his life personally ministering to people with cancer—his “parish” of cancer patients and their families numbered over 700 people.
“Yes, I’m sacred,” he said, “but I’m a man of faith. I can look at death in two ways: as an enemy or a friend. I choose to view it as a friend. I know that there will be tears, but I am at peace…I have come to believe in a new way that the Lord would walk with me through this journey of illness.”
In his life, ministry and final days, Cardinal Bernardin approached life as a journey to God and with God; reconciliation, compassion and justice—the very things of God—were the “stars” that guided him. Cardinal Bernardin, like the magi in today’s Gospel, is a model for us in our own search for God. On this special Feast of Epiphany I believe we are all challenged to slow down and check our own bearings on our life’s journey. Are we headed in the right direction? What stars are guiding us? I pray that we all will be guided by the stars that guided Cardinal Joseph Bernardin. The stars of peace, compassion, mercy, justice and forgiveness that are the unmistakable signs of God within our hearts.
