JOHN DEMPSTER: Small moments are able to reveal bigger truth
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In many Nativity scenes, the Wise Men show up at Christmas. But traditionally it was not until January 6, Epiphany, that these Magi reached Bethlehem.
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There they met an apparently ordinary family, yet in the ordinariness of Mary, Joseph and baby something wonderful was revealed. Jesus had come not just for one nation but for the whole world, for each individual. For them.
According to the blurb, Scottish poet Kenneth Steven’s new collection of poems Seeing the Light celebrates “small moments of revelation or epiphanies that come unexpectedly as gifts amid the ordinary”.
Kenneth has a profound sense of connection with the natural world. For example, he describes his sense of wonder at catching sight of a kingfisher, his realisation “that something greater than all this had made it beautiful, had breathed it into being.”
The Magi’s long, arduous journey following the star reflects the human search for God or for meaning, following the pin-prick of longing which pulses deep in us.
They first sought the Christ child at King Herod’s palace. So we too seek to quench our thirst for the divine in ways which do not satisfy.
Kenneth is aware of this, writing of our “searching through the things we try to thrill us”.
He acknowledges our destruction of the very places where wonder is found in our “bulldozing the woods and building a road to get somewhere we’ve still never reached”.
He describes our attempts to incarcerate the wild God of nature in “a neat box”.
The Magi remind us that at the end of all our seeking is found not simply in the wonders of nature, but in the God they point us to.
Encounter with God is not ultimately received through deep thinking, or pilgrimage, or penance. It is a gift given.
“Let the ordinary be in your hand,” writes Kenneth.
Imagine a bird landing in your palm.
“Learn to look for the little things that weigh nothing at all, but fill the heart with such light that can never be measured.” God comes to us as that gentle bird.
Kenneth describes standing on a headland in winter, looking out across a stormy sea to where rays of sunlight caress distant islands, and feels envious of those warmed by its outpouring.
But there is no need for envy, he reflects.
“It is enough to wait for light to fall and in the waiting know that one day it will fill your hands, your heart.”
As we journey with the Magi we are not so much seeking as being sought by the God we seek, a God of tender, loving, determined pursuit.
Following the star of love, King Jesus comes to the Bethlehem of our ordinariness, bearing precious gifts.
