Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Matthew 2:9-12

Having listened to what the king had to say, they set out. And suddenly the star they had seen rising went forward and halted over the place where the child was. The sight of the star filled them with delight, and going into the house they saw the child with his mother Mary, and falling to their knees they did him homage. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. But they were give a warming in a dream not to go back to Herod, and returned to their country by a different way.

Our favorite day

The magi followed a star to the place Love was born in human flesh. This is the journey of our lifetime--a pilgrimage to the places where we know Love being born in this world … and in ourselves.

We cease to be human when we turn away from the sparkling angels’ song and ignore light of those stars that shine with the Love of the child born in a manger. 

The Light who is Christmas illumines and warms our souls so that we know the Holy One who seeks us and whose beauty lives also in us. Angel song awakened our souls and starlight guided the way to the places where we knew this Light and were filled with the Love who is from the beginning.

Then the calendar page turns, and the warmth of that Light seems to fade in winter’s cold. We return to ordinary time and the mountain top vision fades. Faith’s pilgrimage continues in the valleys where angels are harder to hear and starlight is less clear.

But like the magi we do well to return to our places by a different road. For, we have seen and felt something more alive and loving than we have ever known. And we have been more alive to the beauty we are than we could have imagined. We know the Love who is and who is also in us.

So we avoid Herod, who is the symbol of all that kills what is new and beautiful … the enemy of the Love who warmed and lifted us to imagine our lives can be lived in great love … filled with the wonder of what we have seen in the manger … and discovered in our hearts.

Our way must lead us back again and again to place where we where Love is known and awakened in our depths that Christmas may be not once upon a time … but today ... our favorite day … every day.

Pr. David L. Miller