As the Twelve Days of Christmas come to an end, I offer here, first, a multiple choice question, and then a poem.
First, the question – human flesh is: a) a commodity to trade and sell for profit; b) ineligible for food, housing, or medical care if it’s the wrong color; c) unworthy of basic civil rights and dignity if it’s involved in same-sex sex; or d) a divine revelation.
The Feast of the Epiphany, which we mark tomorrow on the Christian calendar, celebrates option “D.” That still qualifies as an epiphany after all these many centuries since the birth of Christ precisely because options “A,” “B,” and “C” seem quite reasonable for far too many people today.
The ancient sages (those “wise guys,” as I like to call them), who traveled from their home country while following a star, did not make their journey in search of an institution, a text, or even an idea. They went in search of a flesh-and-blood infant.
The magi may not have understood precisely who it was they found (frankly, I don’t either – do you?) but that doesn’t matter. The star’s light declared the wonderfully and amazingly peculiar, something that can, even today, spark a revolution: human flesh is divine.
If more of us actually believed what Epiphany declares, I dare say the world would change. The world would change not just because of what people might perceive about Jesus but also and even more because of what all of us would perceive about each other: In our flesh, in yours and mine, the holy shines forth.
And now the poem. This is another of my attempts to bring some of this into verse. (This particular poem also appeared a wonderful little collection of Advent and Christmas poetry edited by L. William Countryman, Run, Shepherds, Run!) A blessed Epiphany to all, and may it change the world!
A Silent Promise
Light comes back
as it always does
just before Christmas Day
like finding a treasured keepsake
forgotten in attic recesses
and I start to think about Hoovering up
brittle evergreen needles,
fingering the stubborn ones
out from a wooly carpet’s fibers.
Light comes back slowly
tracing an ancient arc
across the winter sky
and I kneel on hardwood
straining to scoop up
a stray ornament
from a dusty corner
just out of reach
with sunlight
dappling my vision.
Light comes back
with a promise
silent as the stars –
This simple, tender flesh
covering our hands
wrinkling our knees
layering our faces
shall be seen
revealed as a divine gift
for this world
indeed, an epiphany.