Having met Herod in Jerusalem behaving the way of all kings, the pilgrims found in the child Jesus in the most unlikely of places, in a Bethlehem stable, a new form of kingliness, a new form of authority, altogether. It dawned on them that this child was not a king, this child was the king, but a king with no position – except the position of complete vulnerability, a king with no power – except the ‘soft’ power to fill them and all people with overwhelming joy.
So they left by another road – avoiding a King Herod who was flexing his muscles in a show of hard power, and – transformed by their joyful encounter with the new-born king – embarking on a journey forwards into the ways of soft power.
Their story resonates for us today, especially for those who might feel that the road we are on is a dead-end, a road too dependent on things which won’t last; for those who feel at a crossroads in our lives; for those who feel we’ve arrived at our Jerusalem but long to get to our Bethlehem. For those longing to learn how to exercise soft power in a world where hard power appears to hold sway.
– celebrating Ravi Singh and the volunteers from his Sikh international aid agency Khalsa Aid who helped in the Somerset Levels flood relief efforts last year, and Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani schoolgirl the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 2014, for her activism for rights to education and for women … among the magi and other outsiders … in my talk for Epiphany, They came from another place – they left by a different road.
