Epiphany

Gospel Reading:

New International Version (NIV)

Matthew 2

The Magi Visit the Messiah

1 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi[a] from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:

6 “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;

for out of you will come a ruler

who will shepherd my people Israel.’[b]”

7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”

9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

The Escape to Egypt

13 When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”

14 So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, 15 where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”[c]

16 When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. 17 Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:

18 “A voice is heard in Ramah,

weeping and great mourning,

Rachel weeping for her children

and refusing to be comforted,

because they are no more.”[d]

Suggested list of hymns and songs

O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness

We three kings

Darkness like a shroud

Everlasting God

Arise shine for your light has come

As with gladness men of old

Lord for the years

As with gladness men of old

Family Spot: QuestionTime

1 We all know how much pleasure that we get when we receive gifts at Christmas, but can any of you tell us all what has been the best gift you’ve ever GIVEN to someone? (Invite answers from the congregation , using microphone)

The best gift I ever gave was one that my sister and I chose for my mother. It was a brooch, made up of green and white sparkling stones, shaped in the words ‘Mother’. We were so very proud of it, paid for by us with all of the pocket money that we had saved up. She was delighted with it and she wore it faithfully, until one day a bus conductor said, ‘Hello Mother’ to her, (she must have been about 26 years old then )and then I think she wore it to go out and to come back in, but I don’t know what happened to it in between. But it really was the perfect gift for her, or so we thought!

2 What is it, do you think, makes a gift a perfect gift?

(For this story I decided to make two puppets, to represent Della and Jim; Della being the one with long shining hair made out of black raffia, which can be cut at the appropriate point of the story.)

Let me tell you a short story by some one called O'Henry entitled, "The Gift of the Magi."

A poor young couple Della and Jim were searching for just the perfect Christmas gift for each other.

Della looked into the mirror at home, and as she let down her beautiful hair, she decided there and then to sell it all at a local shop in order to buy a gift for Jim. She decided to buy Jim a watch chain and fob had been handed down to him from his father, and in turn from his father.

She returned home just before her husband did and she tried her best to style her hair in such a way as to still be attractive to her husband, for she knew how much he admired it.’ Jim arrived home, and Della looked at him hoping he would forgive her and still love her the way she looked with very short hair, but the expression on his face was a strange one, not one of horror, or anger but a curious look of despair. “Don’t be angry,” she cried, “for I sold my hair to buy a Christmas gift for you!” He reassured her after a while, and told her she was beautiful with short hair as well as long, but then he showed her the reason for his startled reaction. He gave her the gift he had brought for her. When she opened it, she was saddened, for the parcel contained a set of jewelled combs which she had always set her heart on when she had long hair, but couldn’t afford. “Don’t worry,” she said, my hair will grow again. Please open my gift for you.” He opened it and discovered the chain and fob for his watch. It was then that he revealed that he had sold his watch to buy the ornate combs for her.

This is a sad but very beautiful story which tells us of their great love and sacrifice for each other. The story shows us that the perfect gift is one given from the heart, and most suitable to the person’s needs! What they did receive was signs of their true love for one another, their sacrifice of love they had actually made was priceless.

3 So who or what was it that gave Christians the idea that GIVING gifts is a good idea at Christmas time?

The wise men brought gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the baby Jesus as acts of worship and adoration, today we give gifts at Christmas time to those we love and adore. But isn’t our custom of giving, less about the wise men and more about God being the first great gift giver. He made this world, and offered it to us to inhabit, and when we made a mess of it, he sent us his Son, who would show us a better way to live. (John 3. 16)

His Son Jesus came to demonstrate to us that same kind of sacrificial love for us. Christmas is about God giving and us receiving his gift to us.

The gifts of the wise men these gifts seem very strange ones for a baby, but perhaps they were special in their eyes or even more able to be found in the land they‘d come from. Or perhaps, some say, they were gifts with a special meaning

After all they say that to give a gift of gold was a mark of great respect, given as a gift to Kings and Queens. This was a gift for the King of all kings.Frankincense was a symbol of prayer, a priestly gift, for the High Priest of all priests. And myrrh, in Old Testament times was a gift to symbolise great joy and thanksgiving, although it is also a gift which is a symbol of death.

What would you have given him?

Children's Activity:

Provide the following for each child; one straw, a piece of card, sellotape and scissors, just as the sermon is about to begin; invite the younger children to make a gift for baby Jesus. Children have come up with some wonderful ideas in the past ; a manger, a crown, a birthday cake etc.,. Let them think of their own ideas.

Drama based upon a poem by T S Eliot: The Journey of the Magi . . . (to be performed at different times throughout the service)

Characters: Kings 1, 2 & 3

Kings 1 & 3 are ‘very Shakespearean’ and longsuffering with regard to King 2, who needs to have things ‘explained to him’. This character will help children in the congregation to have an understanding of the more difficult parts of this poem.

Drama part I

1 A cold coming we had of it, just the worst time of the year for a journey

2 . . . and such a VERY LONG journey.

3 If I remember the way was deep and the weather sharp, the very dead of winter

2 Just like the weather we’ve been having here recently in the North-East of England! * (or local area)

1 And the camels galled!

2 Galled?

3 You know sore; irritated!

2 Oh AND SORE FOOTED just like us!

1 and refractory,

2 Refractory?

3 Hard to control! (glares at 2) lying down in the melted snow! There were times we regretted the summer palaces on slopes, the terraces. . .

2 and the silken girls bringing sherbet.

1 Then the camel men cursing and grumbling, and running away,

2 and wanting THEIR liquor and THEIR women

3And the night fires going out, and the lack of shelters, and the cities hostile and the towns

2 Hostile?

1 Unfriendly! (GLARES AT 2)And the villages dirty, and charging high prices;

2 A HARD TIME WE HAD OF IT!

3 At the end we preferred to travel all night, sleeping in snatches…

2 In snatches?

1&3 (together) Ssh! (whispers) With the voices singing in our ears, saying

2 (sings) Turn back, turn back, this is foolish!

3 saying that this was all . . .

12&3 FOLLY.

(Short address no 1 follows here, see below)

Drama part II

1 Then at dawn we came to a temperate valley

2 Temperate?

3 Mild! (exasperated) And wet below the snow line, smelling of vegetation

2 Phew! (holds nose, whiffing hand movement)

1 With a running stream and a water mill beating the darkness and THREE TREES ON THE LOW SKY

2 Don’t say it like that you’re scaring me!

3 And an old white horse galloped away in a meadow.

2 No warrior’s horse for the baby king then

1 Precisely! Then we came to (looks around to see if the coat is clear, they do too) . . . a tavern

with vine- leaves over the lintel! (all listen in)

2 (Wide eyed and mysteriously) and six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver!

3 And feet kicking the empty wine skins . . .

2 But what does all this mean?

1 Read your New Testament and you’ll find out! But there was no information and so we continued, and arrived at evening.

2 Not a moment too soon!

3 Finding the place!

2 It was . . .

1 You may say

12&3 SATISFACTORY!

(Short address no 2 follows here, see below)

Drama part III

1 All this was a long time ago, I remember, and I would do it again . . .

2 OOOh I don’t know about that!

3 Yes I would do it again, but set this down; were we led all that way for Birth or Death?

2 I don’t know about that either!

1 There was a birth certainly. We had evidence, and no doubt. I have seen birth and death,

but had thought they were different

2 (Looks puzzled)

3 This Birth was hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death . . .

2 (looks even more puzzled)

1 We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, but no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation.

2 Dispensation?

3 The way our world was run!

2 (puzzles over this too)

1 With an alien people clutching their gods.

2 Come again?

3 EXACTLY! Lord come again!

12&3 We should be glad of another death!

(Short address no 3 follows here, see below)

Short address 1

It sounds like they had a terrible journey, according to this poem.

The Magi made up their minds to leave the comfort and security of their home bases. Their desire to seek out and know the reason for this strange constellation in the sky, drove them outwards and on. They faced harsh weather conditions, difficult animals, unruly camel men. The towns were probably unfriendly towards them, after all they were Gentiles, unclean people in most folks’ eyes.

There must have been times when they felt like giving up; they may have felt like failures, that their journey was pointless. ALL FOLLY.

But they persisted and kept focussed on their goal. They survived the clutches of the evil king Herod, for who knows the danger they may have been in from him from the minute they arrived in his domain?

Right from the moment of their meeting with him, Herod was determined to eliminate this baby born a threat to his throne,

We too are people on a difficult journey bearing gifts for our King, But what makes us, as modern day Christians, think that OUR journey will be any easier than theirs?

I often wonder whether we, at the end of our lives, will be able to look back and honestly ask if we truly sought earnestly after God, did we get to know him?

In the recent version of ‘A Christmas Carol’ (cartoon version with Jim Carrey) there is one point where Scrooge sees spirits of those people, who on earth cared nothing for their fellow man, float around in the streets outside. One of these spirits cries out to a poor child dying in the streets, ‘I want to help you, but I can’t now!

I wonder whether we will we look back on our lives at the end and ask . . .

Did God manage to get OUR attention and did WE listen to him and obey him?

Did WE walk the extra mile, go the distance, sacrifice comfort and possessions to journey with him?

Were WE victorious over hostility persecution, ridicule, apathy, and the temptation to live out our lives to our own comfort?

Did we take risks for God; did we overcome obstacles, keep focussed?

Did WE follow our own particular star, the one with our stamp upon it?

And what can we do when that voice whispers in our ears, ‘Your journey is futile, all folly, pointless? The answer is that all we have to do is hold fast to that light which has come into the world, only by our hope and our trust in him, will our journey in life be successful.

Who knows, the wise men may even have reached out and held the hand of the baby in the manger.

Hear these comforting words,

Quote

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year,

“Give me a light, that I may tread safely into the unknown!" And he replied: "Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way. "So, I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me toward the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.

(This poem was quoted by King George 6th Christmas 1939)

The wise men were ALSO people with a mission, bearing gifts; they shared fellowship and had the light of Christ to guide them. They, like the shepherds, were called to affirm the good news, to bear witness to a Saviour King born to the world.

We have been commissioned to do the same!

Short address 2

I don’t know about you but I puzzle over some of the symbols mentioned in this part of the poem. It is riddled with hidden meaning.Indeed I wish T S Eliot were here now to explain the images in his poem to us.

There’s a beautiful passage in the New Testament which explains that after his resurrection, Jesus sits and explains the ancient scriptures to his disciples so that they would understand all the symbolism and all the prophecies which spoke of his coming, and he reveals himself to them, as the Messiah who was destined to come.

(Luke 24. 28)

Some modern day intellectuals would say the gospel writers knew of these prophecies and wrote the scriptures around them. But surely a baby cannot organise the very place where he is to be born, or the people who would visit him, the gifts that would come his way, or even the place he would escape to or the town he would be brought up in. All these were foretold in scripture.

How awesome that moment in Herod’s court when those scribes and elders opened the ancient scrolls to answer Herod’s question, ‘Where is this Christ to be born?’ How very special that moment when men of great learning saw for the first time the Old Testament prophecies unfolding before their very eyes in the midst of rumours that he had at last arrived.

‘And you Bethlehem, in the land of Judah you are by no means least among the kings of Judah, for from you will come a ruler who will govern my people Israel!’ it said.

Bethlehem, whose meaning is the House of Bread, brought forth the Bread of life, Jesus.

This section the poem ends with the wise men reaching their goal. ‘We arrived at evening’, they say, ‘the timing was perfect!’ As the star settles above a stable cave, the wise men see a very ordinary scene, a young woman and her husband marvelling over a new born baby lying in a crude manger.

It was you may say Satisfactory! This is the word teachers in my day used to put on a school report to describe a pupil as average, not necessarily outstanding, just ordinary!

But there was also something quite extraordinary . . . a shining star pointing out the place where the baby lay, there must have been a sense of awe and wonder and mystery in that humble place, for they fell on their knees, they offered their gifts, they worshipped him.

They saw God in the ordinary, they saw through what was commonplace and perceived the Glory of God.

We too are called to see aspects of God in ordinary situations, and make Him known.

Let us keep our eyes open and try to God in every situation; rejoice that he is at work, in the ordinary things of life . . . and let us seek to make known how he works wonders, transforms lives and rescues us even today..

for he never changes, he is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Short address no 3

And so the seasons from Advent to Christmas and Christmas to Epiphany are rounded off in these words.

Lord come again, we should be glad of another Death.

What death? It’s a puzzling question for one of our wise men here.

The death of our imperfect bodies, but also a new birth! A Resurrection! A brand new start. .

Renewal; a New Year beckoning where all our faults and failings and weaknesses are swept away, and where new resolutions can be made.

Each new morning is the first day of the rest of our lives . . .being utterly transformed into a new and living way that leads to a life which is eternal. . . led and directed by our King, our Lord, our Saviour Jesus.

Let us resolve never to give up or want out. We must resolve to continue our journey, readjust our focus, keep our eyes on our goals. . . to be more involved than ever.

Surely we want to get to where God wants us to be.

Prayers to follow