I still haven't found what I have been looking for

I always wanted to be a magi.  Mainly, because they had the most elaborate costumes in the church nativity scene.  And they rode on camels.  And they got to carry scented lotion. They also had really cool names.  They had a pretty cool job too.  They counted stars and interpreted dreams.   NASA says it is possible to count all the stars in the universe.  And for those of you counting at home the latest count is 300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. That's 300 sextillion. Just think, the magi were looking for just one.  Just one in 300 sextillion.

Given my love for aromatherapy, I am pretty sure that if I were a magi, I would have been in charge of the gifts, not the counting or looking for a star.  I happen to love the smell of frankisence and myrrh and may have chosen that.  But lavender and rosemary would have been high on the list.  During the Christmas season, I keep frankisense and myrrh soap in my kitchen and bathroom.  I would have raised my hand for packing too.  Melchoir probably would have fussed because I overpacked and we would have probably had to hire another camel just to carry the luggage. 

Looking for that star though, would have frustrated me.  Davis and I thought we would lay out in the backyard and count the meteors on December 13^th and 14^th during the Geminid meteor shower.  According to my NightSky app, we were suppose to see 120 per hour.  It was about 27 degrees that night and we lasted about 14 minutes.  We saw 2.  Davis quickly did the math and informed me that we would only see 32 if we stayed all night.  He decided that seeing one each was plenty.  He reminded me that the wisemen only saw one and the baby Jesus was the payoff. 

I think that is why I love the Feast of the Epiphany.  Epiphany celebrates the searchers.  Epiphany tells us the questions. I find myself at odds with the religious expressions that claim to have it all.  I find myself at odds with the type of spirituality that seems to have all the answers.  If finding Jesus was that easy, would they have had to cross a desert on camelback in the bleak midwinter with only words of dreamers and prophets and one star in 300 sextillion to guide them?  Not to mention that even Herod the Great couldn’t find Jesus and ordered all babies under the age of two killed to squelch an imagined threat on his power.

And that’s the miracle of the Epiphany.  Not that they found Jesus, but that they searched.  The magi didn’t claim to have it all.  They saw their lives as a journey as discovery.   

 And yet, there are times when I find myself uncomfortable with the sort of religious expression that claims to have it all.  Bono and U2 wrote a song, “ I still haven’t found what I am looking for.”   I think it would make a nice anthem on Epiphany.  You see, the example of the Magi was that they were searchers. They didn’t claim to have it all but they saw their lives as a journey of discovery. And in that they are an example to us. We don’t know it all. But if we like them are prepared to be diligent seekers, then like them we may be graced by a vision of God’s light, by our Epiphany. So a message for today, is to dare like them to take the risk of seeking and God may well bless us with our own Epiphanys which transform us as doubtless the Magi were transformed by what must have been a surprising experience for them as they knelt before the infant Jesus.  Because there were always be days, when you still haven’t found what you were looking for.  And it is the grace of diligently seeking that we see the one star in 300 sextillion, the one…