6 January

This festival marks the showing of Christ to the Gentiles. The Magi, taken to represent the practitioners of magic, by their homage indicate that the power of magic has been superseded by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Whilst this is not a sermon note, we do not know the number, neither do we have the names of the Wise Men. It may be helpful, when talking with the children, to draw this out. That doesn’t stop me from singing “We three kings”, or “Three kings from Persian lands”.

Readings
( When 6 January is a weekday, these readings may replace those of the preceding Sunday)

Isaiah 60: 1 - 6
Once again we are offered something of the beauty and power of Hebrew poetry. The passage should be treated as a whole, looking at the dazzling images presented as examples of the renewing power of God. If desired, verse 2 gives an opportunity to reiterate that the light if God (in Christ) overcomes the deepest darkness of our humanity in all its sinfulness. The reference in verse 6 has been seen as something of a prophecy about the Wise Men.

Meditation
The greatest gift humanity has is to be able to share ideas through language. For the vast majority this means speech.

Your gift to us of language, Lord,
Enables us to put into words
The thoughts, even dreams, that
Flash in the mind with your light.

Your gift to us of poetry, Lord,
Enables our minds to grasp
A little more of the beauty and
Grandeur of your love for us.

Your gift to us of imagination, Lord,
Enables us to envision the complex
In terms of the ordinary and thus
Enlarge our scope of the vision we have.

Psalm 72: (1 – 9) 10 – 15
The set verses give us background material for the homage to the infant Jesus in that it is drawn from the farthest extent of the then known world.

vv. 12 – 14
A beautiful word picture of the future compassion of Christ. Montgomery’s hymn “Hail to the Lord’s anointed” will make an excellent complement to the reading of these verses.

Meditation
In these ‘enlightened’ times we tend to regard ‘rulers’, ‘kings’, with some suspicion. Yet in any society there have to be leaders. I suppose our problems arise from the fact of ‘them’ making decisions for us, particularly when we are not sympathetic to those decisions.

We continue to witness the intense evil that can arise when a despotic ruler controls people. This is the, all too common, experience of the human race down the ages.

Here, in this Psalm, we have a prayer that the ruler, “king”, may be endowed with the personality and behaviour that derives from “the fear of the Lord”.

For us, as Christians, this is exemplified in Christ’s acceptance of his ‘Suffering Servant’ role on our behalf.

In very poetical terms it means “governing rightly and doing justly”.
We, in our turn, are called upon to give the ruler, “king”, our “tribute and homage”; loyal service.

Ephesians 3: 1 - 12
vv. 1 - 4
Paul, writing powerfully from prison, has again to indicate the validity of his claims to Apostleship, and proper understanding of the real message of the Gospel. We too, as preachers, have been “assigned the gift of his grace”. Do we use it for the benefit of our hearers?

vv. 5 - 9a
Our Gospel, in this most affluent of centuries, must be to proclaim the unfathomable riches of Christ. Not the crass materialism that so grasps our civilisation, but the spiritual resources which alone can build the lasting peace and universal prosperity that all crave.

vv. 9b - 12
This is a powerful reminder to us ALL that, in Christ, we have direct access to the very throne of grace itself!

Meditation
The gospel we proclaim is Good News indeed. For God-in-Christ showed, openly, the extent of his love for us. God has also demonstrated intense personal care for us in that we, very ordinary mortals, are part of his scheme to promote knowledge of his love. Thus we, who are Gentiles, are now the main proclaimers of the “unfathomable riches of Christ”. These are not to be measured in the materialist terms of our twenty-first century. Rather are they to be realised as the achievable fullness of life promised by Jesus Christ. To make that fullness a reality in daily living we have to recognise our need and Christ’s ability to meet that need. Thus is the true Epiphany (the showing of Christ to the Gentiles) an actual event for each of us.

When we offer our ‘gifts’ to him, he in his turn transforms them into great blessings for us.

Gold becomes a way to enable new life.

Frankincense becomes a way to deeper faith.

Myrrh becomes a way through death.
The whole of life transformed through Jesus.

Matthew 2: 1 - 12
We have already made a very brief excursion into the historical puzzle that the Gospels set us.

One of the great mysteries, to me at any rate, is the way in which God seems content to use our ignorance as a means of communicating with us (cf. John 12: 24). Astrology is superstitious nonsense, yet God uses it to bring these Gentile astrologers (New English Bible) to Jesus! A great deal of astronomical effort has been expended to identify this Star, without much success. Nevertheless we should note that the Wise Men used their technological understanding to come to a closer relation with God - we should follow something of their example.

Meditation
We saw, in the stars, the signs
Of a new and powerful king.
We knew, from our records,
That he was to rule the Jews,
And so to Jerusalem we journeyed.

When we arrived there was a
Great consternation, for Herod
Their king, and all their leaders.
He had to ask “where is the Messiah
To be born?” “In Bethlehem” they replied.

Onwards, then, to Bethlehem
Not at all in our expectations.
A small town, a small house
Yet when we saw it we knew
That we had, finally, arrived.

The parents were very ordinary
A middle-aged carpenter, a very young
Mother, and the baby – utterly age-less!
We made our homage, offered our gifts
And, in our selves, our whole lives were changed.

Herod was an unpleasant man and
So we changed our route for ‘home’.
Yet it did not seem ‘home’ after we
Had seen the child. For our ‘magic’
Was magic no more, he alone was the true way.