Wise Men Still Seek Him

 

By: Paul Murano , January, 2011

On December 29th on WHAV radio I wished the host of Paying Attention a Merry Christmas. Tom Duggan, the host, immediately informed me Christmas was over.

So I took the opportunity to clarify this common misconception. While the secular world celebrates Christmas from the last bite of turkey on Thanksgiving until Christmas day at noon, Christmas is actually a celebration that begins on Christmas day and lasts almost two weeks to Epiphany. Epiphany, or “little Christmas” as some eastern Christians call it, commemorates the three wise men also called kings who followed a star from the east to give homage to a newborn baby who was to be the world’s special king.

Did the wise men understand this baby to be God who took on a human nature? Did they claim they knew this baby was to be the new Adam who came into the world to undo what the old Adam had done, by conquering the consequences of sin and death for humanity? We don’t know how fully they understood the mystery but these wise men, who were prompted to interrupt their lives at great peril to make a long journey to Bethlehem, knew of the magnitude of this birth on a world full of darkness and death. An event that would change history. 

There are many things we can say about this event called Epiphany. One is that mankind has always sought ultimate answers to the truth of his existence; and since the dawn of man there have been kings, priests, and prophets of every culture attempting to provide them. The wise men of the Epiphany in bringing the baby Jesus the gifts of gold (king), frankincense (priest), and myrrh (prophet) were proclaiming this baby to be the ultimate authority, mediator of heaven and earth, and harbinger of truth for the world. The three wise men found the Answer. The wise men found Wisdom.

Today we live in a culture that has decided to turn its back on Wisdom and turn to self for the ultimate answers. The fruit of the so-called enlightenment has brought us to its pinnacle, rejecting what the wise men found in Bethlehem, only to proclaim ourselves to be wisdom; crowning ourselves masters of creation and our own destiny and proudly shouting out to heaven that we are our own ultimate authority. This secular-humanist dogma of our time that the “wise men” of the media and academia preach is the same grave mistake both Satan and Adam made before them. It is being codified in the courts and in politically correct language, and illustrates our futile attempts to create the truth rather than discover it. 

As our pride continues to keep us from admitting the disastrous failure this false epiphany has been, which has included by the far the most murderous century in the history of man, we continue to unravel by our own “wisdom” in redefining sex, marriage, human life, and purpose. This would include the false mini-marriages we now call “relationships”; contraception as the way to reject potential children; an abortion culture that has killed one-third of all human beings that have been created since 1973; a divorce culture that kills the one-flesh union that marriage and family is; and a media and marketing culture that creates the illusion that girls are worthless if they are not skinny and beautiful and men are wimps if they’re not using women and making millions. This false epiphany has produced an identity crisis that makes us wonder what it means to be a human being, as well as a man or a woman. When the light of the world is rejected, the light that enables mankind to see through the darkness that Adam had wrought on the world by his disobedience, we are unable to see reality for what it is or to know the eternal destiny for which we were created.

The new “wise men” of our era have decided to remain blind in their pride rather than submit to the Truth and Goodness personified found in Bethlehem two thousand years ago. It is acceptable now to tolerate every variety of expression, religious or otherwise regardless of how vile, with one exception: As long as it is an attempt is to degrade or devalue the number one threat to their new tower of babel, Christianity, intolerance is fair game. 

In this Christmas season it is wise to reject the stars of today that lead us away from the baby in Bethlehem and to remember the simple but priceless saying inscribed on the popular Christmas card: “Wise Men Still Seek Him.”

 

Paul-Murano, The Valley PatriotPaul Murano taught theology and philosophy at Assumption College and Northshore Com. College. He is also former co-host of The Paying Attention! radio program on WHAV and Host “Beneath the Surface” on Burlington Cable Access. You can E-mail Paul at

 

 

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