The Rev. Austin K. Rios
8 January 2023: Epiphany
For years I have been fascinated at the intimate connections between the great expanse of the universe and the microscopic cellular world.
The concept that cells—the intimate nuclear building blocks of life and tiny members of our human bodies are connected with the galactic realm fills me with awe and wonder.
When the James Webb Telescope began releasing new, detailed images last year of the star-beds known as the Pillars of Creation, and featured never before seen views of The Carina and Southern Ring Nebulae, I leapt with joy like a kid at Christmastime.
To see the stars captured in their billion-year dance with one another, and to reflect on how this extremely macro environment is not so different from the micro environment of human, animal, and plant life on earth is both astounding and humbling.
In my amazement, I can’t help but feel that the mystery hidden for ages is written into the very substance of all creation, if we have but the eyes, will, and perseverance to witness it.
The astrologers from the East did not have the James Webb telescope at their disposal when they saw the rising star that led them to journey toward Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
What they did have was a desire to connect with the mystery to which their expertise and curiosity pointed—a stirring in the cells that made up their minds, their hearts, and their hands and feet.
And when they acted on that stirring, the human divisions between the people of God and the nations began to close—as did the gap between the stars of heaven and the life of the earth.
Epiphany is a time in which we remember that God is always shining a light into our lives, encouraging us to move more deeply into the mystery that we explore as a community in faith.
This mystery ranges from the smallest units of creation to the largest, and though it is fascinatingly complex in the myriad ways in which it is expressed, it is likewise simple at its heart.
Everything and everyone is related.
To probe the mystery hidden for ages is to understand that celebrating our differences and diversity can coexist with honoring our fundamental unity.
Jews and Gentiles have distinctive traditions whose differences are worth noting and honoring—and yet our basic connection as humans in relationship with the same Creator yokes our destinies in this lifetime.
The Southern Ring Nebula is not the same as a cell in the body of a newborn—and yet an insistence on denying their connectedness cuts us off from a greater life of wonder and can even lead to unnecessary suffering if defended violently.
The most abundant life arises when we humans value the intricate and far-reaching connections we share with one another, with the earth, and with the heavens.
And consequently, the greatest pain and suffering arises when we deny our connections, go to war over them, and cut ourselves off from the divine mystery and life in favor of selfish, tribal, or simply nationalistic goals.
Our human history, our Christian history, and our various national histories bear the scars from when we’ve failed to follow the mystery together and doubled down on our divisions.
The times in which we’ve so lusted after the shine of gold and the perfume of frankincense that we’ve been willing to make a deal with death to get them.
That’s what that third, non-prophesied gift of the funereal balm of myrrh was about.
A reminder that the babe in Bethlehem would live in such a way as to expose and heal the disconnection between peoples, between God and humanity, and between the warring elements of our very souls.
A reminder that empires and leaders like King Herod are willing to kill to maintain those separations, and that the border between life and death itself is the final divide that Christ conquered.
As we move into this new year as a Church that hopes to follow the light of revelation and be drawn deeper into the mystery of God, let us renew our commitment to shared life in this place.
Let us remember that even as we worship in different languages, hail from different countries of origin, and live out our personal faith in diverse ways, we are always one community drawn together by the Christ who connected Jews and Gentiles, ancient human history and modern, and heaven and earth.
Let us be a light for the rest of the world who has grown weary of the pain of division and the disaster that a disconnected life magnifies and let us serve as God’s instruments of reconciliation through the way we care for one another and our neighbors.
As the cellular world can teach us, when we make small changes in these bodies, larger changes are bound to ensue.
Allow the mystery for the ages—that everyone and everything is related and belongs—to live in you this year, and give yourself to spreading the mystery’s light through concrete acts of love and service.
Not only will you be joined in that journey by God and generations of the faithful who have gone before, but you will begin to experience the gifts that Christ revealed to us and the magi: that life and death are part of a continuum treasured in the heart of God, and that an existence of connection and love is the very substance of eternal life.