Epiphany:
Living by a Light We Do Not Own
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Trouble and the Instinct to Control
The Gospel begins today with
trouble.
And when we are in trouble, most of
us want to fix it quickly—fast, efficiently, without delay. In our
technological world, we click “HELP,” we look for the troubleshooting section,
we search for the fix.
Herod is also trying to
troubleshoot—but without restraint. He is disturbed, irritated, unsettled. And
his anxiety spreads. Matthew tells us that all Jerusalem is troubled with him.
And doesn’t that happen in our own
lives? When we don’t feel grounded in God’s grace—when we forget that we are
loved—our troubles can spill over and become everyone else’s troubles too. And
sometimes the reverse is true: other people’s anxieties spill over onto us.
Epiphany begins in that
uncomfortable place: a troubled heart, a threatened ruler, a city that feels
off-balance.
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The Gospel: A Light That Disturbs
Wise men arrive in Jerusalem asking
a simple question:
“Where is the newborn king of the
Jews? We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage.”
Herod is deeply troubled—and not
only him, but all of Jerusalem with him. A new light has appeared, and it does
not answer to him.
Herod understands power. He
understands governance. What he cannot tolerate is authority beyond his
control. The star announces not merely a birth, but a rival claim—a Savior
whose authority does not come from political office, military force, or human
succession.
Herod does not object to light
itself. He objects to light he cannot manage.
A star shines without his
permission.
A child is named Savior without his consent.
This is why Epiphany unsettles us.
It reveals not only that Christ is born, but who governs the light by which
the world is ordered.
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The Magi: Sign and Source
The Magi respond very differently.
They do not try to suppress the
light or interrogate it. They follow it. The star—part of the created
order—guides them. But when they arrive in Bethlehem, they do not bow to the
star. They bow to the child.
This distinction matters.
The star is a sign.
Christ is the source.
Epiphany teaches us that the lights
of this world—political authority, knowledge, wealth, technology—can guide us.
They can help us navigate. But they cannot save us. They govern within limits.
They do not originate meaning.
So the question Epiphany asks is not
whether we will live by light—we will—but whether we will confuse signs with
the source.
And it’s not just “out there.” It
happens in here. Sometimes the truth is spoken to us by someone who loves us,
someone trying to help us—and we want to switch that light off, because it
challenges our control.
[3]
Gift Before Governance
Scripture makes this distinction
very early.
An early Christian writer,
Victorinus of Poetovio, noticed something easily overlooked in Genesis. On the
first day, God creates light: “Let there be light.” Only later, on the fourth
day, are the sun, moon, and stars created—the governors of light.
First comes the gift.
Then come the governors.
Light itself does not belong to what
regulates it. It belongs to God.
And that helps us understand Herod’s
fear. He is not dealing with a new governor. He is confronted with a source—a
light he cannot turn on and off.
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A Familiar Human Instinct
We see this instinct in ordinary
life.
Years ago at a small family
gathering, we joked about winter mornings growing up. My brother and I teased
our father that the house felt so cold when we woke up—like living in a cave.
We all laughed.
There was heat in the house. The
question was not whether heat existed, but how much of it there should be.
And we recognize that debate. How
high should the heat be set? Should it stay on all night? The same is true of
lights: how bright, how dim, when to turn them on, when to turn them off.
These decisions are normal. But they
reveal something deeper. Heat and light are gifts we depend on—yet almost
immediately we start to regulate them, measure them, argue over their use.
The instinct isn’t completely wrong.
We do have to govern things. But Scripture reminds us: what we govern is
always something we first receive.
And Herod forgets that. He wants to
govern the light as if he owns it.
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The Gifts of the Magi: Human Powers Reordered
This is why the Magi bring gifts.
Pope Benedict XVI observed that the
Magi represent not only distant lands, but different spheres of human life.
Their gifts—gold, frankincense, and myrrh—symbolize the whole of human
existence offered back to God.
[Click Here for 2007 Epiphany Homily, Benedict XVI]
(https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/homilies/2007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20070106_epifania.html)
Gold represents human skill, wealth, and ingenuity: science,
technology, economic power. These are real goods. They save lives and shape the
world. But they do not generate their own authority. Gold shines, but it
reflects light it does not produce.
And this is where we have to be
honest: sometimes our “gold” isn’t pristine. Sometimes it’s tarnished.
Sometimes our gifts have been used poorly, or our hearts have become divided,
or our priorities have become disordered.
Frankincense represents worship and authority. Leadership matters.
Governance is necessary. But no leader is a savior. No office-holder is divine.
What leaders need from us is not worship, but prayer—for wisdom, humility, and
the courage to protect the vulnerable. Even kings kneel.
And even our prayer can feel
imperfect. People sometimes say, “I’m not holy enough to come back to church,”
or “I’m not good enough to pray.” But if you are here today, you are already
doing what the Magi did: you came. Keep coming. Keep praying. Even imperfect
prayer, offered sincerely, rises to God.
Myrrh points to human finitude (limitation). Our lives are
limited. Our worth does not come from productivity, health, or strength, but
from belonging to God. In Christ, we discover that no life is disposable—not in
weakness, not in suffering, not even in death.
Each gift is good. Each becomes
disordered when treated as a source rather than a gift.
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Reconciliation: When the Gift Is Restored
And here is the mercy at the heart
of all of this:
If our gifts can be tarnished, they
can also be restored.
This is not just a nice thought.
This is why Christ gives his Church the sacrament of penance and
reconciliation.
Because sin does not merely break
rules. Sin disorders love. It makes us clutch, control, hide, manipulate—like
Herod. It makes us treat gifts as possessions, and people as instruments, and
God as a rival.
But in confession, Christ does not
discard us. He restores us.
We come bringing what is not
pristine: what is cracked, what is heavy, what we regret, what we fear to name.
And the Lord does not say, “You are no longer a gift.” He says, “Let me restore
you as gift.”
That is why the sacrament is not
humiliation—it is healing. It is a kind of spiritual resurrection. It is how we
learn to die to sin, and live again in mercy.
And if Epiphany is about finding the
source, then reconciliation is one of the ways we return to the source—so that
the light is not only seen, but received.
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Conclusion: Living by a Light We Do Not Own
Epiphany does not ask whether we
will have light in our lives. We will.
It asks whether we will receive
light as gift—or attempt to control it as though it originated with us.
Herod chooses control.
The Magi choose trust.
They return home by another way,
because once the source is recognized, the path necessarily changes.
The Church does not produce light of
her own. She receives it and keeps it visible.
Christ does not compete with the
lights of this world. He orders them. He governs without diminishing what is
truly good.
And when Christ is recognized not as
a rival but as the source—when gift replaces fear—trouble gives way to worship.
And like the Magi, we return by
another way.
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