Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish

FR MICHAEL BIBLICAL IMAGERY

(Fr Michael Boakye Yeboah: Vice Rector of St Gregory Seminary, Kumasi-Ghana)

CHRIST IS FOR ALL PEOPLE

            There is a Christmas carol that begins “We three kings from orient are.” It refers to the feast we celebrate today, the Epiphany of the Lord. Actually, those three men were not kings at all. They were rather sages, wise men, better still, astrologers. But they were from the “orient”; that is, the east, east of Palestine, the birthplace of Jesus. They were, therefore, not Jews. They did not worship the God of the Jews either. The Jews would have referred to them as “pagans”, “gentiles”, “unbelievers.” Yet, somehow, a “star” told them – naturally, since they were astrologers, “stargazers” – that an extraordinary child had been born in the land of the Jews to the west. Without being Jews, and without being worshippers of the God of the Jews, they set out to seek out that child and pay him homage.

            It would seem that from the outset, even when he was still in the cradle, Jesus wanted to make it clear that his mission was a universal one. He had come for all people of all races, all nationalities, all languages, and – would you believe it – all creeds. All would be welcome in the kingdom that he was going to establish.

            The Jews, Jesus’ own people, would not have seen things that way. They believed that God and his Messiah would be their exclusive property. The Messiah would have no business with the gentiles. He would, in fact, be coming precisely to overthrow the reign of the gentiles and re-establish the earthly reign of the Jews. Jesus thoroughly disappointed that expectation. Little wonder that the Jews, even to this day, believe that the Messiah is yet to come, and that Jesus was not the Messiah promised by God through the prophets.

            Christians believe that the Messiah has come already, and that Jesus is the Messiah. In the early Church some Christians believed that he did not come for everyone, but for Jews alone and those gentiles who adopted Jewish ways, Jewish customs and practices. The Church wrestled with that attitude within her ranks until it was agreed that Jesus came at least for gentiles of time – several centuries later – before the Catholicity of the Church would be understood to extend to people of other races too, notably those of Africa, Asia, and Native Americans of north and south America. Rather curiously, one still encounters pockets of racial bigotry in the Church even in our own time, people who still think and behave as if Africans, Asians and Native Americans had no place in the Church. Usually, they do not say it in so many words – understandably, since that would not be politically correct for these times – but their attitudes, subtle remarks, and general behaviour give them away. Some of us who have travelled to Europe and America have been at the receiving end of that kind of attitude. Even here on African soil, some have been similarly treated.

            The truth that today’s feast testifies to is that Jesus is for all. He is as much for the gentile as he is for the Jew, as much for the African, Asian, and Native American as he is for people of Middle Eastern and European origin. All have equal stake and status in the Church. In the Church of Christ nobody is a second-class citizen, nobody should ever be made to feel like one. And nobody should accept to be treated as a second-class citizen anywhere in the Universal Church.