Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Star of Wonder


Today marks the end of the season of Christmas, twelve days in length, and the Day of Epiphany in the Christian year. Some traditions make more of a fuss over Epiphany than others, with worship services honouring the Magi or "Wise Guys" who arrived in Bethlehem in search of an auspicious child. The pope said a mass today in Rome, kissing a few babies for good measure.

The story is only in Matthew of the four gospels and it tells us that they followed a star from somewhere in the east. Scholars figure that these mysterious travellers were an elite group of the Zoroastrian religion, who used a combination of astrology and astronomy to connect with the divine.

Interesting that seekers from one religion, Zoroastrianism, found a child born into the Jewish faith, who become the founder of yet another religion, Christianity. Maybe Epiphany should be a day to reflect on the religious diversity of our world and the importance of the contributions of different traditions. Suspicion and hatred fueled by religion continues to be a major problem.

I wonder why we need to denigrate other religions in order to uphold our own?


2 comments:

Laurie said...

Great picture.

David Mundy said...

The artist's name is He Qi (pronounced Hu Chee)

http://www.heqigallery.com/