“Appearances can be deceiving,” as the saying goes. As we celebrate the epiphania, the “appearing” of the eternal Word of God on earth, this is still true.

What rapturous foresight must have filled Isaiah as he wrote the words we hear today. How, for four hundred years, they must have filled the hearts of the people of Israel with hope for the day when God’s glory would shine on them. How deceived some must have felt when the glory of God came to them in the lowliest and humblest of human lives.

We have many expectations about how the divine presence will appear among us. But we can also set ourselves up, through these expectations, to miss the divine glory when it truly appears. We get caught up in looking for the star, forgetting that the star is not the divine sign, the babe is. It may take a persistent journey for us to come upon the true appearance of God’s glory in our lives: Jesus Christ.