A new law meant to help crack down on young Canadian street racers in their souped up cars has nabbed an octogenarian in his Oldsmobile. The 85-year-old man is one of 2,300 drivers across Ontario to be charged under new legislation, designed to combat “street racing, stunts and contests,” since it came into effect three months ago — and he’s the oldest.

The man was pulled over after allegedly driving 161 kilometers per hour (100 mph) this week on a main highway north of Toronto, where the speed limit is 100 km/h, Ontario Provincial Police said.  “It really doesn’t matter the age of the person or whether they’re trying to race another car,” Sgt. Cam Woolley said on Friday. “The consequences of the crashes and the laws of physics are always in effect.”  Under the street racing legislation, a person is charged if they are driving 50 km/h more than the posted speed limit.

“Street racing was probably a bad title for it, extreme driving probably would have been better,” Woolley noted.  Under the legislation, the 85-year-old could face a minimum C$2,000 ($2,000) fine. His license has been suspended and his car impounded for a week.  Woolley said that, in the case of the 85-year-old, a police officer driving in a marked car saw the Oldsmobile and tried to get the driver’s attention, honking her horn and waving.  “He flew past her,” said Woolley, adding he was going about 140 km/h at the time — and then speeded up.  When he finally stopped, the man told the officer he was going to the bank and planned to go shopping.

“When she informed him that his car was being impounded for a week, he had a few choice words for the officer and then said: ‘you’re not taking my car, are ya?’” Woolley said, adding the man later apologized for swearing, and the officer drove him to the bank.  Until this week, two 75-year-old men were the oldest to be charged under the law. The youngest is a 16-year-old woman. Most are men in their 20s.

I don’t know which is more unbelievable an 85 year old man being pulled over for doing more than 100 miles an hour or three men stopping and asking for directions.  No one could accuse the wise men from the east of being street racers; they weren’t exactly speedy in their getting to the Christ Child. We don’t know much about these wise men from the east, we don’t know when they finally caught up to Jesus and his family; some have theorized it was anywhere from weeks to years after his birth.  Though we often refer to them as the 3 kings we don’t even know for sure who they were or how many of them there were; we know they presented the Christ child with three gifts which has led many to assume there were only three of them but we don’t know that for sure.  What we do know is these wise men followed a star over what we assume was a considerable distance and when they got close they stopped in to see King Herod figuring he may know where they might find the King of the Jews for which they were looking.  Women wonder why men are reluctant to stop and ask for directions, well just look at what happened when these three did.  First Herod didn’t know what they were talking about and so he wasn’t really much help to them; just tells them to go on to Bethlehem and keep looking.  Second Herod didn’t know about Jesus birth but the wise men tip him off and make him nervous.  So not only do the wise men not get much help now there is an increased risk added to the equation as Herod feeling threatened wants to find Jesus to get rid of him.  So stopping for directions isn’t always a good idea. 

Finally the wise men find the child for which they have been looking and the present him with gifts.  Then they receive some more directions in a dream; this time from a more reliable source we assume the source to be divine and the wise men head home by a different way presumably so as not to tip off Herod about Jesus’ location.  These are the events of the church holiday we celebrate today which we know as Epiphany which means appearance or manifestation and certainly the wise men experienced first hand the appearance the manifestation of God in the flesh, Immanuel, God with us, Jesus the Christ our savior. However this was an epiphany for the wise men in another sense of that word in that they had an illuminating discovery, a realization, or a disclosure.  So they experienced the manifestation of God first hand but certainly that had to be an illuminating discovery for them, a startling realization for them that certainly changed them.  So I can’t help but imagine they not only went home by another way but they went home different people than when they were still searching for the Christ child.  The wise men went home differently, changed for the experience of having encountered God in the flesh.  Having followed the light to find the place where Jesus was the wise men went home having encountered the light of Christ and presumably changed by that light carried it with them. 

In many ways the epiphany story is the Christian story.  Whether we believe we seek out Christ or Christ seeks us out once we have felt the presence of our Lord with us we are changed.  We are then charged with going home differently after having seen the light of Christ and it is then our mission our responsibility to be different to live lives that reflect the light of the messiah.  Christians are called to offer a ministry of light and a message of illumination to everyone from those in power to the powerless.  In the words of Carl F. H. Henry “The divine mandate is to beam light, sprinkle salt, knead leaven into an otherwise hopeless world.”  The Christian epiphany, the startling revelation to which the wise men point us is the world’s best hope, the world’s only salvation, comes to us by bowing to the Christ who is found in unexpected places, places that stink, places we don’t want to go, but it is where the light leads us to go.  Today following in their example it now falls to us to point to the same best hope and world’s only salvation, by bowing to and pointing to Christ.

The biblical principle of “unto the least” has motivated the life of Brazil archbishop of the poor, Dom Helder Camara. Like India’s Mother Theresa, Camara is concerned not just for the moderately poor, who benefit the most from various aid programs, but the poorest of the poor. In a feature article on him, Time magazine quoted a Methodist missionary who paid Camara this tribute: “Being with him, watching him, listening to him, one is less and less aware of him and increasingly aware of the reality to which he points - a God who cares about the little people of the earth.”  Having experienced the light of Christ Dom Helder Camara makes sure to reflect the light of Christ into the world.Ann Belford Ulanov, gives an example of someone “living love into the world,” someone “in whose presence … you feel the capacity to be born.” She tells the story of the Harlem woman discovered by the press who for forty years has been taking into her home the infants of drug-addicted prostitutes and raising them as her own. She continued this into her eighties. Women come and leave their babies on her doorstep. The babies they bring are addicted. She does not treat them with drugs, which is the usual medical way with children. She said in one interview: ‘I love them back into being.’ That means holding the infants and walking up and down with them, singing and talking to them as they suffer withdrawal from the drugs. If the babies are made well, and the mothers have kicked their own habits, she gives the babies back to their mothers. Recently, she has added to her family babies afflicted with AIDS. There, in her, is love, love pulled into the world, love brought almost violently back into circulation.”  This Harlem woman in her own way bears the light of Christ in an otherwise desperately dark situation. 

Without a doubt there are other great examples of faithfulness, men and women who go to heroic lengths to spread the light of Christ and if you have the ability to be one of these people then do it.  However if you don’t feel as though you can live up to these examples then don’t be discouraged.  The mark of the change in the wise men was that they went home by a different way.  That is our call to be different, to allow Christ to change us and use us to spread the light of Christ in a dark world.  That may be by ministering to the poorest of the poor or to drug addicted babies or it may be visiting the lonely widow across the street, or telling someone about how you have been changed by Christ.  As Christians we are called to share the light of Christ with all no matter what form that may take for us.  We don’t have to be the fastest, we don’t have to be the best, and we don’t have to be the brightest we need only to be made different.  May we like the wise men commit ourselves anew this day to going home a different way, having been changed by our encounter with the risen Christ.  Amen.