Dear All
Today we celebrated the Feast of the Epiphany. Always a good celebration, we had a lovely service, enhanced by Clare singing two of my favourite hymns beautifully!
The Thursday morning Said Eucharist will resume this Thursday 7th January 10am.
I will forward the YouTube recording of this morning’s service once it has downloaded, today it is taking a long time, not sure why this sometimes happens!
Have a good week……and a very happy New Year to you all! Let’s hope it’s better than 20201!
Ax
Epiphany 2020 St Andrews Milngavie
Matthew 2:1-12 Ephesians 3:1-12 Isaiah 60:1-6
A few days before Christmas there was great excitement as, for the first time in eight hundred years, the star of Bethlehem was due to be seen at dusk, low in the sky towards the south west. In anticipation of this we drove to Baljaffrey to gain a good view and sure enough, to our great delight and excitement, there it was!
A great light shining brightly in the dark sky – the star of Bethlehem itself, straight out of the nativity story! How Christmassy did we feel! But then we realised that this light was moving and becoming lower in the sky until it began to sink out of sight just beyond Clydebank, in the direction of the airport!
So, we looked closely again at the sky and this time saw twinkling in the far distance, two planets close together, and that was it – the star of Bethlehem!! But unfortunately, not the star of Bethlehem, as we had hoped, because the planets were no longer correctly aligned to give the correct effect.
Today we celebrate the feast of the Epiphany. We follow the story from Matthew’s gospel of the wise men from the east following the bright star to view the new-born child. The nativity scene is essentially a humble one. It speaks of lowliness and poverty. But enter the wise men in their smart clothes bearing their gifts of luxury, excited and enthralled by the sight of the Christ child with his mother in Bethlehem.
“On entering the house, they saw the child with mary his mother and they bowed down and worshipped him” Matt 2:11
From the beginning, Jesus the son of God, was clearly sent to be the saviour of all people. Not just the poor, not just for the local population, not just for the Jews, but for all people. And the wise men from countries far away in the east would return to them and reveal to the world what they had seen.
As Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians “through the gospel the gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise of Christ Jesus” Eph 3:6
As we begin this new year our emotions and feelings, like the planets, may not feel correctly aligned, and we may easily feel anxious about the future amongst many other fears. At this feast of epiphany may we open our hearts and souls to the revelation that Christ is our saviour who, by the Holy spirit, guides us through this life safely into his Kingdom.
He is our light that shine in the darkness.
When our hearts and souls are truly aligned with God, through Christ, then we may feel truly at peace and we are truly his people.
Amen