ORATORIAN COMMUNITY IN FORMATION - SOLEMNITY OF THE EPIPHANY 2017

How many of us remember the 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, starring Richard Dreyfuss?  In it, a “close encounter of the third kind” is described as an actual meeting with extra-terrestrials. During the course of the film, people from all over experience strange phenomena and signs which draw them to an odd-shaped mountain. There, pulsating with light, a massive spaceship descends and takes a number of chosen humans away to a new and, we presume, more perfect existence.

It is strange how cultures which have rejected God, like modern secular culture, nevertheless seek transcendent experiences, long for a new world where evil does not exist. This film could have been inspired by today’s First Reading. The film is a poor, fifth-rate, watered-down vision, to be sure, but it is probably the best that human beings without God can conjure up. How very different is the transcendent glory of the Christian reality!

Christian tradition has always associated the words, “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you” with the Star of Bethlehem. A light that shines brightly in the darkness of night; and what a scene it reveals! “Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. Lift up your eyes and look around; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from far away, and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses’ arms. A multitude of camels shall cover you. They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.” The camels, the gifts of gold and frankincense, call to mind the journey of the Magi. It is a vision of an uncountable number of people, all converging on a single point; and for a Christian, that single point can only be the Manger in Bethlehem.

For centuries, the prophets had foretold the coming of the Messiah, the Saviour. There were the dreams in which God spoke to Joseph. There was the sign of the Star in the heavens, of angels appearing to the shepherds. All of these bear down inexorably on the child in the Manger at Bethlehem. What appears on earth is not some tawdry vision of an extra-terrestrial visitation, but a vision of heaven itself, in the concrete form of the baby Jesus with Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, wise men, donkeys, cattle, camels; all the elements that make up the crib we so love to see at Christmas.

Not bug-eyed aliens, but a child, God-with-us, in whom, as Jesus tells Philip on the night before he died, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” Not a machine to convey us to another planet, but God descended to earth; the path to heaven itself opening before us! At Christmas, we have a “close encounter” with God face-to-face in the person of Jesus, and after that encounter, we can never be the same again.

It is a powerful vision; but this vision is also a powerful reality. Bethlehem means “House of Bread.” And out of the House of Bread, comes the Bread of Life. The baby in the Manger is the same Jesus who promised us, “I am the Bread of Life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and I will raise him up on the Last Day.” Next to this, all other visions fade into nothing. If only we can encounter the living Lord Jesus, this promise will become a reality for us. There can be no greater gift, and in the Christmas season we have just celebrated, it is ours, if we really want it with all our hearts.

Fr Phillip.