Sunday, January 3, 2021 [Epiphany] Is 60:1-6; Eph 3:2-3a, 5-6; Mt 2:1-12 (20)

I imagine that most of us, if not all, have heard the phrase, “The Light at the end of the tunnel”. Well, the year 2020 was a very long dark tunnel and we are just now getting a glimpse of a light of hope that seems to be coming, along with some vaccines, to help us with the Covid 19 pandemic.

In our modern times with so many miraculous scientific and medical achievements, we would never have imagined that a virus could plunge our modern world into such great darkness.

This past year has been a nightmare.

So, can you imagine what things must have been like in the primitive times that Jesus was born into?
Can you imagine the darkness that filled the hearts of the people and that overshadowed them on a daily basis with little to no sign of relief and, seemingly, no light at the end of the tunnel?

I can’t imagine that! It must have truly been horrible.

If what we have faced in 2020 could do what it did to our modern, highly advanced, world, what must the people of Jesus’ day, with little to no real understanding of the world around them, have felt when they faced sickness and disease, famine, natural disasters, wars, genocide, slavery, and poverty?

How could they endure all of that? Where was their hope? How could they go on? Was there a light at the end of the tunnel for them?

In the Gospel, today, we hear that Magi from the east saw a light, a star in the sky, which they understood to be a sign that a newborn king had been born for the Jewish people.

They were right. A king had been born but not just for the Jewish people. A king, a messiah, a Savior had to be been born for us all. The star was, in a way, a light shining in the darkness but it was not the light that the world really needed, Jesus was that light.

As we heard in the Gospel of John on Christmas Day: what came to be through Jesus was life and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Darkness of any kind will never overcome the Light of Christ. As terrible and tragic as 2020 was the Light of Christ was still there and so our hope remained, and it strengthened us to endure our trials, and it gave us mercy and compassion to bring us comfort in our loss, and it empowered us to lift up others and be Christ to them, in their time of need too.

We are only days into the new year of 2021 and there still may be more dark tunnels ahead but we don’t have to look for a light at the end of the tunnel. You see, we always take the Light of Christ with us as a beacon of hope for ourselves and for the world.