Matthew 2: 1-12
In
the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men
from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born
king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay
him homage.’ When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem
with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people,
he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, ‘In
Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: “And you, Bethlehem,
in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for
from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.” ’ Then
Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time
when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, ‘Go and
search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so
that I may also go and pay him homage.’ When they had heard the king, they set
out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising,
until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the
star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they
saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage.
Then, opening their treasure-chests, they offered him gifts of gold,
frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to
Herod, they left for their own country by another road.
Epiphany can
be beautiful but in the end it must be disturbing. If our pilgrimage towards
the manifestation of the light raises no blisters or perturbing questions and
doesn’t fill us with an awareness of our own distorted shadows, we may not have
been moving toward the light at all – or moving period.
This
well-known poem by T.S. Eliot may seem a somewhat gloomy way to kick off the
New Year but we need to know it’s all right to acknowledge openly that our
spiritual journeys rarely emulate the neat and tidy, success oriented images the
world presents as ‘the norm’.
We will carry
on this pilgrimage together, encouraging one another through the sharp winds of
cold reality.
We are all Magi on a disturbing journey.
Journey
Of The Magi
by T. S.
Eliot
'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed,
refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the
terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and
grumbling
And running away, and wanting their
liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the
lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns
unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high
prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all
night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears,
saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a
temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of
vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill
beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped in
away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with
vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for
pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so
we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment
too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say)
satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I
remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth,
certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had
seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different;
this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like
Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these
Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old
dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their
gods.
I should be glad of another death.
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed,
refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the
terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and
grumbling
And running away, and wanting their
liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the
lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns
unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high
prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all
night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears,
saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a
temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of
vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill
beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped in
away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with
vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for
pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so
we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment
too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say)
satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I
remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth,
certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had
seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different;
this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like
Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these
Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old
dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their
gods.
I should be glad of another death.
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