Star of Bethlehem, Magi – wise men, Etching, 1885

I LOVE THAT “AHA!” MOMENTS are epiphanies. Manifestations. Revelations. Disparate thoughts and ideas beginning to knit together. New wholeness. New vision. Suddenly “clicking”.  And the biblical story of the Magi (a body of people who were, Syriac translation reminds us, known for being “silent pray-ers”) presents an account of humility in both sage visitors and visited. There’s a quietness, a reverent awe about the little scene at the manger. Very different cultures come together in silence before Mystery.

And today’s epiphanies make manifest the fact that

We now face a great new opportunity. Whereas in the past within the West the privilege of learning from the wisdom of indigenous people and from the traditions of the South and East Asia was limited to a few scholars, now it is available to masses. A Christian faith that, for good and evil, was indigenized primarily in a Hellenistic (Greek) culture is encountering the religious traditions of India and China and discovering the great wisdom of indigenous people. It can gain in this encounter just as much as it gained earlier from Hellenism and science. If it does so, it will be as deeply transformed.

Christian Faith and Religious Diversity
Mobilisation for the Human Family
Edited by John B. Cobb Jr