Epiphany Continued: Jerusalem Troubled, Not Enlightened
MASS Ecce, advénit
LESSON Isaias 60: 1-6
GOSPEL St Matthew 2: 1-2
HOMILIST Mt Revd Jerome Lloyd OSJV
Beloved in Christ,
The Church, in her wisdom, does not allow the light of Epiphany to blaze and then vanish. She holds it before our eyes for eight days, turning it slowly, that we may see not only Christ revealed, but mankind revealed in the presence of Christ. If the feast day itself exults in the joy of manifestation, the days of the Octave invite us to consider the response—or the refusal—to that manifestation.
The Gospel gives us a line that is as unsettling as it is brief: “King Herod hearing this was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.” The Magi rejoice. Jerusalem trembles. The star brings joy to strangers and anxiety to those who should have recognised it.
This is the first and sobering lesson of the Octave: revelation does not automatically convert. Christ may be shown, and yet not welcomed.
Jerusalem is not ignorant. She possesses the Scriptures, the Temple, the priesthood, and the promises. The scribes can locate Bethlehem without hesitation. They know the prophecy precisely. And yet, when the King is born scarcely six miles away, they do not go. Knowledge remains seated. Truth is consulted but not followed.
How different from the Magi. They possess only a sign and fragments of hope, yet they rise, journey, and adore. Here the Gospel reverses expectations: pagan wisdom moves toward faith, while covenant familiarity hardens into inertia. The Gentiles walk in the light; Jerusalem is “troubled.”
Herod’s fear is easier to understand. He is a usurper, and usurpers always fear rightful kings. Christ threatens his throne, not by force, but by truth. Herod’s false worship—“that I also may come and adore Him”—is a mask for violence. When truth is resisted long enough, it is eventually attacked.
But Jerusalem’s reaction is more frightening still. She is not hostile; she is disturbed. She is unsettled. Christ disrupts her equilibrium. He demands decision. And so she does nothing.
This, beloved in Christ, is the most common form of resistance to God: not rebellion, but paralysis.
The Octave of Epiphany thus places a mirror before the Church in every age. It is not paganism that most endangers the faithful, but familiarity without fervour. The danger is not ignorance, but proximity without adoration. One can live surrounded by holy things and yet remain unmoved by the Holy One.
The Fathers are relentless on this point. The star spoke to the Gentiles; the Scriptures spoke to the Jews. Both were revelations. Only one group rose and went. Truth unacted upon becomes judgment. As Our Lord Himself will later say, “The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment… and behold, a greater than Jonah is here.”
The liturgy quietly reinforces this warning. The Secret reminds us that Christ is not merely symbolised but “sacrificed and received.” Revelation reaches its climax not in information, but in communion. Those who refuse to adore, refuse also to be transformed.
And here the Octave turns directly to us.
We are not asked today whether we know where Christ is. We are asked why, knowing where He is, we so often remain seated. We know the Scriptures. We know the Mass. We know the sacraments. We know the moral law. And yet how easily we grow troubled rather than converted when Christ presses His claim upon our habits, our loyalties, our comforts.
Like Jerusalem, we may prefer a Messiah who confirms our order rather than overturns it. Like Herod, we may speak the language of reverence while guarding our own little kingdoms. Epiphany exposes such compromises. Christ does not come to be fitted into our arrangements. He comes to rule.
The Magi returned home by another way. Jerusalem remained where it was. That contrast runs through history and through every human heart. Epiphany forces the question: have we been illuminated—or merely disturbed?
Beloved in Christ, the light has been given. The prophecy has been fulfilled. The King is present. The tragedy would not be ignorance, but hesitation. Let us not be content to know the way to Bethlehem. Let us go there. Let us adore. And let us allow the revelation of Christ to do what it must—unsettle us, displace us, and finally convert us.
For the light that does not move the heart
will, in the end, only reveal its darkness.
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