My annual pre-Christmas bout of Covid gave me an opportunity for some more Netflix bingeing, which included an Epiphany story hidden within the docu-series “Aftershock,” about the disastrous 2015 earthquake that rocked Nepal. I’m warning you that when I say the story is “hidden,” I mean that you are going to be wondering for a while what any of this has to do with the Epiphany. Within the series is told the narrative of a group of young Israeli guys who are trekking through the Langtang Valley of Nepal when the quake hits.
It’s easy to forget how devastating that earthquake was. It left 9,000 people dead throughout the country and 2.5 million people homeless. Across Nepal, tens of thousands of people were thrown into survival mode, including the small group of Israeli tourists.
It turns out that this group of young Israeli men were particularly sensitive to the cultural divide between them and the local Nepalis, which was heightened by the crisis. The Israelis got stranded outside of a little village, and events quickly transpired that left them feeling vulnerable. One of the young men, named Yuval, explained as he was interviewed:
“I'm telling the rest of the Israelis, ‘Listen, we all are in the most danger out of everyone here.’ The one thought I had in my mind,” he continued, “was that getting rescued would be a freaking battle for my life. And maybe a violent one, potentially.”*
What had happened in a short period of time, largely as a product of mistakes that were made or actions that were misunderstood, was that the Israelis felt at odds with their Nepali fellow-victims. And the more at odds they felt with their fellow victims, the more threatened they felt. The extreme nature of the crisis served to heighten tensions and put everyone on edge. And the more on edge everyone became, the less likely was the possibility of trust amongst strangers.
It transpired that one of the young Israeli men had a GPS safety device that could communicate with a private Israeli company to arrange for their rescue. Secretly they used the device to communicate with potential rescuers, their anxiety growing as the hours passed. Yuval determined that they required "not just a rescue, but we must be rescued by people with weapons, as the situation could deteriorate any minute." And they spent a worrisome and mostly sleepless night wondering what would befall them.
Meanwhile, the rescuers were more than a little confused by the communication they received from the stranded young men. As the chief of the rescue operation put it, “They asked if we can come armed, which is really unique. This is not acute mountain sickness. This is not hypothermia. This is not what I know.”
By now, I hope you are wondering where is to be found the Epiphany story hidden in this narrative. If I am correct, you cannot see or discern it yet. No stand-in for the Holy Family has been introduced, and the GPS device is not the star that guides wise men to the Christ Child’s cradle. But I also hope that by now you have a sense of the tension, and the possibility of danger from any number of causes, all within a context of grief and loss. And by now, I hope it’s clear that everyone in the story needs help. Everyone needs to be rescued - both the Israelis and the Nepalis. And by now, I hope you realize that there is a real possibility that help is coming, but of course, the question is, who will be rescued and how?
Yuval takes up the narrative again: “… this helicopter lands. Out of this helicopter, some guy jumps out. And I look at this guy in the distance and I see, OK, he's wearing shorts, he's wearing a T-shirt. And I'm looking at him, and I'm looking for his gun.” But it becomes clear to Yuval that the rescuer has no gun. He is completely unarmed and he does not look like he is prepared for the kind of conflict that Yuval is prepared for. This is concerning, of course, for Yuval, who believed that he had assessed the situation accurately, and believed that he knew what kind of rescue they needed.
Yuval goes on: “And this guy comes in, and everybody's around him, and everyone's expecting to hear what he has to say. And then he says a sentence which I'll never forget. He says, ”My name is Yochai. I'm from Israel, and I came to help everyone."
Again from Yuval, “In one second, with one sentence, the whole tension drops flat. That second everyone felt like we're all going to be rescued and believed in it, then there was nothing to fight over.”
“I came to help everyone,” he said. In the interviews, the rescuer, Yochai, said this: “I think, to defuse a situation, the best way is to have a very, very, very strong tool, which is hope.”
It is tempting to think of the Epiphany as the extended version of the Christmas Pageant, and to be distracted by the camels, and the exotic dress of the magi and their retinue, and to be impressed by the gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. At some level, it seems as though all these details are what the Epiphany is about, and they must provide the key to understanding the meaning of this feast.
But if this little Child born at Bethlehem was to be the Messiah of God, the Redeemer of Israel, and the inheritor of David’s kingship, then there were some real problems, beginning with the fact that, as Yuval put it, “I'm looking at him, and I'm looking for his gun.” But there is no gun, no weapon at all. No army. No noticeable power to speak of. Nor any prospects for these assets or war. And if you were expecting a conquering Messiah, you’d be concerned that this was the way he was making his entrance. You might also make the mistake that Herod made, (along with a lot of those who opposed Herod), and assume that a messiah who was coming for the Jews was only coming for the Jews, and everyone else could go to hell - more or less literally.
You would not be expecting to hear what Yuval was not expecting to hear. You would not be expecting to hear the news that “I came to help everyone.” But that is the meaning of the Epiphany: that Christ is revealed, not as the messianic savior of Israel, who came to save his chosen and select group of people, but as a universal Savior, who came to help everyone.
Yochai, the rescuer, explains not only the meaning of the Epiphany, but also tells us why this meaning is so important: “I think, to defuse a situation, the best way is to have a very, very, very strong tool, which is hope.”
And this is our hope: that Jesus is here, and he came to help everyone!
Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
The Feast of the Epiphany, 2023
Saint Mark’s, Locust Street, Philadelphia
* All quotations are from “Aftershock: Everest and the Nepal Earthquake,” produced by Netflix, 2022
The Langtang Valley, Nepal