Epiphany Homily - The Search

 

Homily for Epiphany

January 5, 2025

The Search

 

            What are you searching for? These are Jesus’ first words in John’s Gospel – what are you searching for? I think everyone’s looking for the same thing: happiness. But like children playing a maddened game of hide-and-seek, everyone’s looking for the same thing in different locations.

            The Magi and the Chief Priests and Scribes were all looking for the same thing: the Messiah. But they were looking in different locations. The chief priests and scribes were looking for a political messiah to ride in on a stately war-horse with an entourage of soldiers in battle array; the Magi were looking for a humble Baby with working-class parents. The Magi found Him; the Jewish leaders are still waiting for Him.

            I liken this to the fundamental human search: happiness. Everyone’s looking for it, but most people are searching in the wrong place. Perhaps some of us have found a certain amount of happiness in life. Maybe we’ve got a great family, a great career, enough money. That’s awesome – but all of that is a rather fragile foundation. In an instant, it could all be flipped upside down – and then where is our happiness?

            Chuck Colson was a lawyer in the Nixon Administration who had everything his career could offer: free access to the White House, tons of money, prestige and power. Even when he was at the height of his success, he felt restless. He put it this way: “I’d gotten to the top of the mountain, and I couldn’t think of any more mountains to climb.” But that mountaintop wouldn’t last long – he was implicated in the Watergate scandal and faced a jail sentence.

            Where was the happiness now? He would lose it all – what now? A friend of his sent him CS Lewis’ book “Mere Christianity” – desperate to find the inner peace he lacked now that everything else was being taken away, he opened to a random chapter, which happened to be the chapter on pride. All of a sudden his life came into focus – he had been worshipping himself as a god, believing he could provide all of his own happiness. He fell to his knees and invited Jesus Christ to be Lord and Savior – and even though he was convicted and spent almost a year in jail, he found a peace he hadn’t known when he was at the top of the mountain.

            As St. John Vianney said, “The happiness of man on earth consists in praying and loving.” But let’s be honest – here we are, sitting in church on Sunday morning, and perhaps we can think of a hundred things that might make us happier. Eating a cookie, watching a movie, playing soccer. So how can I claim that Jesus Christ is our greatest happiness?

            Aristotle recognized that not all happiness is equal. He elucidated four different levels of happiness. The first is pleasure – it’s a quick happiness when you eat a hamburger, but it also lasts for a very short time. The second is achieving goals – we get that promotion, buy that car, get the A on the test. It feels very good, and the “high” lasts for a bit, but eventually it wears off and we’re back to square one. The third is enjoying family and friends – that is awesome, but eventually we have to go back to our room and be alone, and then what? If our happiness is based on something outside of ourselves, then we’re always going to be striving, searching, grasping at something else.

            So the key is to have happiness within – but being alone by ourselves is, actually, not happiness. In fact, Dante writes in his “Inferno” that Hell is not a party of evil people – rather, it’s the terrible loneliness of being unloved for eternity. We were created in the image and likeness of a God who is Trinity, so we are social beings who were made for a relationship of love. So how can we find happiness within us if it’s actually really terrible to be alone?

            The answer is to find it in a relationship with Someone who lives within us – the grace of Jesus Christ. Only in Him do we find Someone who loves us unconditionally, never abandons us, and dwells with us forever.

            But the Magi teach us an important lesson in our search for God – it is arduous, difficult, and we need to persevere. They came from Persia to Bethlehem, a journey of approximately 700 miles, over desert terrain, facing the burning sun of day and the freezing chill of night. It was not easy to seek the Lord – it cost them a great deal, including the cost of myrrh, which in Biblical times was approximately $4,000 per pound! So don’t let anyone tell you that searching for God is easy or convenient. There are sacrifices that must be made, comforts that must be abandoned, sins that must be repented of, and often it’s dry and difficult to pray or to motivate yourself to cultivate a relationship with Him.

            But isn’t that the case with everything that’s valuable in life? Nothing worth pursuing is ever easy. And if Christ is the pearl of great price, He is worth it all. I can testify with my own life – I began to pursue Christ seriously as a senior in high school, when I was taking classes at a local community college. I started hanging out with new people who were pretty shallow – their lives were all about the next paycheck, the next date with the girlfriend, the next party. There was no happiness or peace in their life, because they needed something outside of themselves to be happy. By contrast, I was getting involved in a Church youth group, and these people radiated a joy that came from deep within themselves. I realized that if I wanted joy, I needed Christ.

            So I began to go to Adoration weekly and pray the Rosary regularly. It was awesome, I felt so alive, so filled with the Spirit! Every time I read the Bible it spoke to me; I had such a hunger for the Eucharist.

            And then, about a year later, during my first year in college, all that came crashing down when I began to suffer from panic attacks, depression, and anxiety. It got so bad I could barely leave my dorm room – and my faith was shaken to the core. God, where is that joy You promised? I would go to pray and feel nothing but emptiness. Distraction, dryness, and doubts assailed me night and day. Some days it was all I could do to just barely hang on to the little scraps of faith I had.

            That lasted for about nine months, but when it ended, I felt joy restored – and more importantly, my faith had been deepened and strengthened through the trial. There would be many more times of darkness in my faith, but it was always temporary and there is an undercurrent of hope and joy even when my relationship with Jesus is difficult. So we must persevere in our search, confident that He Who promised us joy will be faithful to His word.

            So what are you searching for? Happiness. Where are you searching – in things outside of you, or in Jesus Christ Who desires to dwell within you? And will you persevere in pursuing Him, even if you find it difficult? The Magi persevered and found the object of their desire. In seeing and possessing Him, we find the happiness that we have always longed for. As St. Augustine said, “Faith is to believe in what you do not see, and the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.”