There’s something about growth to today. We’ve passed the winter solstice and, imperceptibly, the days are growing in length. In the soil, despite the snow, the seeds can sense the growing light. Between Jesus’ birth and today’s visit of the Magi, the child Jesus must have grown enough, however little, for his mother to sense it and see it. Think of all the intense, unstoppable energy at work in a growing baby.
And there was other growth afoot. Mary and Joseph and the child seem, from today’s Gospel, to have moved from the stable into a house, and we imagine the wise men as tall, stately figures, approaching the house, having to stoop to get through the door. But when they came in and saw and fell down and offered their gifts, something happened that was vast. These guys, from Arabia or Persia or wherever it was, these thoughtful, scholarly, pure-hearted men, Gentiles (non-Jews), coming with gifts in search of the King of the Jews:- these mysterious figures were anticipating all the believers who would succeed them over the course of time, all the way on to us and beyond to eternity. They were a prophecy in person. They were pioneering another growth – that of the Church of Christ, a great, unstoppable growth of which we are part. Now there are multiple Bethlehems, multiple “houses” which people enter day after day, coming with their burden of sin and their treasury of personal gifts; churches, chapels, shrines, parishes, dioceses, families, homes, communities where Mary shows us her Son, where Joseph stands guarding, and worship is shown the incarnate Lord. Today’s wise men presage all this. Today, the growth of the Church through space and time is foreshadowed. Today, as Isaiah prophesied, Jerusalem’s heart expands at the sight of new children. Today, in St Paul’s imagery, the Gentiles are grafted on to the ancient olive tree of Israel and she grows towards the fulfilment of her vocation. On Christmas Day, we remember how Christ was born and so began to grow into his human life. Today, at Epiphany, we celebrate how he begins to grow in us who believe in him; we celebrate the birth of the Church which, says St Paul, “is the fullness of him who fills all things.”
All that, we may say, is outward, external, the birth of a new social entity, the Church, the expansion of the Lord’s incarnation, the mystical body that extends his physical body: the reality we see at every Mass, however few we are. The Church is the Body of Christ growing through space and time, giving birth to saints, having children for heaven. But we all know that we can grow inwardly too, in the scope of our minds and hearts, in wisdom and good qualities, with the growth of grace in our souls. And the wise men guide us here too. They show us how to grow – by worshipping. They grew by acknowledging, adoring, Christ as our Lord and our God. We are made to worship. And the paradox is that when we do, when we worship rightly, when we fall down, not before an infatuation or a celebrity or someone using power to entrap us, when we fall down before Someone truly greater than ourselves, we become greater too. We are opened up. What’s in us turns to the light and comes to its flowering. The Sun of justice rises over our life and like plants we grow in response. The gifts we have can blossom. Liturgy, adoration, worship! In church with others, in church alone or in our private spaces, we can do this, becoming humble and great at the same time.
Then, like the wise men, avoiding snares, we go home “by another way”, that is, other in ourselves. Greater than our gifts even, not just carrying gold, frankincense or myrrh, but Him whom they proclaim.
Brothers and Sisters, I suggest “growth” is the grace of this feast: outwardly, the growth of the Church, Christ’s Body, in her mission, her catholicity, her reach and, inwardly, the growth of Christ in each of us, his members, our growth in holiness, in faith, hope and charity. It’s all one really.
May this be our Jubilee Year, 2025!
St Mary’s Cathedral, Aberdeen, 5 January 2025
