The Discovery that Changes Everything

The dictionary defines an epiphany as, “A sudden intuitive leap of understanding, especially through an ordinary but striking occurrence.”  Today we celebrate the Epiphany of the Lord, associated with the discovery of the baby Jesus by the Magi.  For many, this is just a quaint story about three kings who sought and found the newborn Christ, but there is much more at issue here.  Discovering the reality of God can be, and should be a life-changing experience.  Coming to the realization that there IS a God and that He created us for eternity, changes our understanding of the meaning of life.  It explains why we are drawn to the good, the true, and the beautiful.  Without this understanding, what is after all, the meaning of life?  As I wrote about in my previous blog, without a belief in God, life is nothing more than a fleeting attempt to find happiness in earthly satisfactions. 

All the symbolism associated with Christmas points to the fact that Jesus came in the darkest of times, in the most humble of circumstances, to bring light into the world.  The Light of Christ overcomes the darkness of sin and death, revealing the true meaning of love.  This changes everything if we come to realize that we are the beloved children of God, called to something far greater than the selfish pursuit of pleasure.   Life is not, “nasty, brutish and short” as described by the atheist Hobbes, who then concluded that the best thing for everyone is for the intellectually elite, the philosopher kings, to make decisions for the masses who are selfishly pursuing their own personal desires.  This is pretty much the way all socialists view society.  They believe that people are too dimwitted to make good decisions for themselves.  The recent brouhaha over Jonathan Gruber’s repeated comments about the people being too stupid to understand Obamacare, demonstrates the arrogance of the secular progressive movement.  Turns out that Gruber, a professor of Economics at MIT, also published papers showing that the government saves about $1.6 billion a year as the result of the widespread practice of abortion in what he calls, “positive selection,” meaning the poor, undesirable members of society who would otherwise be collecting welfare benefits.  “Positive selection” is simply a euphemism for eugenics.  This is a view openly held by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg who has stated more than once that abortion is desirable because, “it cuts down on the growth in populations we don’t want to have too many of.”  These are her exact, if inarticulate words, and they smack of eugenics.  So the 50 million babies sacrificed to abortion are a good thing in Gruber and Ginsberg’s minds. 

All of this points to the fact that we live in dark times and we are sorely in need of The Light of the World.  We are engaged in nothing less than a culture war.  St. John Paul II coined the term culture of death, and more recently Pope Francis has warned about a “throw-away culture” in which the poor, the weak and the vulnerable are considered “disposable.”   Are we people of intelligence and free will, capable of knowing, loving, and serving God, and of knowing good, appreciating beauty, and recognizing truth?  Or are we just complex animals for whom instant gratification is the greatest good, and therefore in need of the intelligentsia to control and direct our lives? 

So, these are our choices:  A.) Accept the Light of Christ, and find the courage to fight for the dignity of human life in the culture wars; Or B.) Passively remain in the dark and accede to the demands of the philosopher kings who claim to be “on the right side of history?”   I choose A above, how about you?