[Pearls Ep 153: Answering atheism Tuesday.]
“They departed by another way.”
That’s how Sunday’s scripture passage closes – with the Wise Men headed along a different path.
That’s how it is with epiphanies.
Yes, the Wise Men when another way in a literal sense to avoid Herod, that snake in the grass. But there was much more to it than that. Tradition has it they experienced a powerful conversion (of course they did!), and went on to proclaim the Gospel in their homeland, even dying as martyrs.
That is why they were Wise Men and not just magicians. They saw the signs, they encountered Christ, and they said “yes.”
An epiphany demands a response exactly because it is an encounter with Christ. If Christ goes out of His way to bring us to an epiphany, it’s not meant to just dazzle us. It’s meant to change us.
Epiphanies demand action. They demand a choice.
That is why the world avoids gazing directly at the great public epiphanies: the Fatima miracle of the dancing sun; the Guadalupe miracle of the tilma; the miraculous image of the Blessed Mother imbued into solid rock at Las Lajas; the Shroud of Turin; the mountain of Eucharistic miracles and miraculous healings and near-death-experiences.
The world will not look directly at these. Oh, there might be a sham scientific poking here and there – enough to make their disdain seem plausible – but no genuine investigation.
Why? Because if the secular world had to admit any of these are truly miraculous, then the secular world would have to make a choice – ignore them despite the scientific evidence … or change.
We don’t like change. Big changes mean something we’re attached to must die away.
And so not everyone says “yes” to an epiphany. Such was the case of the wealthy young man, when he encountered Jesus. His epiphany demanded that he let go of his wealth. He went away sad.
For all of us it is hard to receive an epiphany with a challenging message. Perhaps you’ve experienced that? Praying for a major intention for yourself or others, only to receive an inspiration from God that it wasn’t going to play out the way you hoped (at least not yet…).
This is just one more reason why the key to life is to always be building our relationship with God, and our trust in His goodness. Not only so that we’ll recognize epiphanies when they come our way, but so we’re ready and able to say “yes” to what they ask of us, even if it isn’t what we desire – because we know God desires it for us so much that He delivered it to us personally.
Blessings on your journey with Christ –
Steve and Karen Smith
Interior Life