Reflection on the Gospel of
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Matthew 2:1-12 |
Today’s Gospel reflects on searching, finding, recognizing and knowing of Jesus. Each of us find ourselves either searching, finding, recognizing or knowing Jesus in some moment of our lives. We most often lose the way and search for love, truth, joy, peace in the ideas of the world, only to find it to be unsustainable. In words of St. Augustine we reminded that “Our hearts were made for the Lord. We will never find rest until our hearts rest in God.”
So, like the wise men we need to begin our search to find and recognize Jesus. The search will be challenging for the soul in the spiritual desert with twists and turns but with faith, hope, help from a few good people and guidance from scripture, the Star over the horizon will point the way ahead.
On finding Jesus, we need to open our hearts to have a life transforming encounter with Him. Unfortunately, like Herod most of us Christians would like to say that we adore Christ and want to worship Him but are deeply uncomfortable to welcome Christ into our lives. We see the Gospel and the teachings of the Church as a threat and often revolt against it. We shut the doors of our hearts and do not permit Jesus to enter. We prefer living in the darkness and hide our dirty secrets, we hate the light.
The story of Christmas is that God has gifted humanity a saviour, baby Jesus out of His pure goodness and love for all of us. Each of us is invited to respond to the love of God gifted in the form of Jesus. The wise men gifted Jesus Gold for the King of Kings, Frankincense for the Priest of all Priests and Myrrh for his ultimate redeeming sacrifice. So, what is our gift to Jesus? Some of us respond to God’s gift of love with hate and rejection while some of us will respond back with gifts of ourselves. Yes, our sinful selves. God doesn’t require us to bring perfection but our brokenness. We gift him all our sins so that He can make us whole and perfect. The spiritual journey doesn’t end with finding the baby Jesus but growing with Him, walking with Him and knowing Him better everyday.
