A different kind of New Year’s resolution

Homily for January 3, 2016 (Epiphany of the Lord) Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72; Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6; Matthew 2:1-12

As we welcome 2016, I invite you to consider a different kind of New Year’s resolution. Many people this time of year resolve to remake their bodies by losing weight and/or going to the gym. Some resolve to strengthen their minds by committing themselves to various kinds of study. Others resolve to improve their emotional lives by working on some of their relationships or perhaps working out of others. But this year I invite you to join me in a spiritual resolution: to walk more and more in the light of God’s grace and mercy.

Today we celebrate the Epiphany or manifestation of the Lord: how God wondrously became one of us and with us in the person of Jesus Christ. The infancy narratives of the gospels remind us, too, that the Word was not made flesh in a vacuum but in the world as it was. Then as now it was a world that in Isaiah’s words was often shrouded in the darkness of war, poverty, disease, natural disasters, tyranny, terror and divisions of various kinds. In the face of these difficulties and signs of sin, God’s word invites us over and over again to dare to walk in the light of God’s grace and mercy.

In our second reading St. Paul recalls how Jesus took one of the most fundamental divisions in his Jewish faith—the sanctified gulf between Jew and Gentile—and obliterated it. No longer marginalized as “unclean,” in Christ the gentiles had become coheirs to God’s covenant and promises. This revelation didn’t come to Paul easily. At one point in his life he was a dedicated champion of Jewish orthodoxy and a persecutor of the nascent church. It was only through a long and challenging process of conversion, beginning on the road to Damascus and continuing as he became a missionary of the gospel. No longer content to march according to the dictates of the Mosaic Law, he chose instead to walk in the light of God’s grace and mercy.

It’s not as easy as it may sound. The Light of God and the power of God’s grace and mercy is a two-edged sword, comforting and threatening. When he received the news of Jesus’ birth from the magi, Herod was “deeply troubled” by the news that another King of the Jews had been born in Bethlehem. Herod saw this baby as a threat, but he failed to appreciate the real nature and depth of that threat. Jesus would not be a rival to Herod’ throne; but the reign of God he would announce and usher in was definitely a threat to the established order, not just in Jerusalem but everywhere. The gospel he proclaimed was not a political manifesto or an economic plan but rather a call to walk in the light of God’s grace and mercy.

Choosing to live in the light of God’s justice, grace and mercy transforms us—our attitudes, actions, lifestyles, moving from fear to faith. Like Herod, we should allow ourselves to be “deeply troubled” by the presence of Jesus…and moved to follow him more deeply, walking in the light of his grace and mercy. +