The Epiphany St Andrew’s Milngavie 2022
This morning we gathered for the first Eucharist of 2022 as we celebrated the Epiphany with much joy and wonderful seasonal music.
I hope you all had a great Christmas and I wish you many Blessings for 2022!
Notices for this week:
Tuesday 10am Prayer Group in the Garden Room.
Thursday Holy Communion 10am
Readings for next Sunday – The Baptism of Christ – 1st Sunday after Epiphany: Isaiah 43:1-7 Acts 8:14-17 Luke 3: 15-17,21-22
Further news from the diocese and church can be found on the St Andrews website. Click on the link below.
https://standrewsmilngavie.church.scot/
Isaiah 60:1-6
Ephesians 3:1-12
Matt 2:1-12
Today we celebrate the feast of the Epiphany – the revelation of the Son of God by the wise men to the Gentile world. These wise men from the East were called to enlighten the world with their divine discovery, a world that would never be the same again, a world that would be inspired to see things differently through the life and love of Christ. As we begin a new year we pray for a sense of this inspiration.
Just before Christmas at the prayer group Jacqui amused us by sharing a message from a friend designed to encourage us at the start of a new year. “Welcome onboard flight 2022. We are about to take off into the New Year. Please make sure your positive attitude and appreciation are secured and locked in the upright position. All destructive devices: anger, selfishness, self-pity and resentment must remain turned off. All negativity, hurt and discouragement must be put away. If you were to lose your positive attitude under pressure, reach up and pull down a prayer. Prayers will automatically be activated by faith. Only by turning on your faith, can you assist other passengers who are of little faith.
Baggage is not allowed on this flight.
God, our Captain, has cleared us for take-off. Destination – abundant life in Christ.
Ready for the ride?”
Yes…. obviously rather cheesy… but appropriate for today…and suitably celestial as we celebrate Epiphany.
We read the story of the three Kings in Matthew’s gospel. They were not actually kings but magi – wise men, probably astrologers ‒ people who knew the secrets of the stars. We don’t have much historical information about these wise men and their journey. St. Matthew says they came from the East. Some have speculated they were from Persia. We like to think that there were three of them, but St. Matthew doesn’t say that, and the number has varied throughout the church’s history; 2, 3, 4, 8, even 12.
We call them Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar but those names didn’t come about until the seventh century. And as for “the star?” various theories exist. It has been viewed as a supernatural phenomenon, just a regular star, a comet, or sometimes a planet.
But whatever the facts were… the truth of sacred scripture is never limited to or contained only in the past. It speaks to us today.
We don’t know what was in the sky, what they saw, that first night. We don’t know what was in their minds; what they thought, asked, or talked about. We don’t know what was in their hearts; what they felt, dreamed, or longed for. But we do know that there have been times when we each have experienced Epiphany. Times when our night sky has been lit brightly, times when our minds have been illuminated, times when our hearts have been enlightened. Those times have revealed to us a life and world larger than before. They have been moments that gave us the courage to travel beyond the borders and boundaries that usually circumscribe our lives.
Epiphanies are those times when something calls us, moves us to a new place and we see the face of God in a new way; So human that it almost seems ordinary, maybe too ordinary to believe.
Yes, God notices us, knows us, lives within us, and calls us. God is continually revealing himself in and through humanity, in the stories of our lives. Those pivotal moments of love, sorrow, hurt, joy and hope.
These are the stories of our lives, epiphanies that forever change who we are, how we live, and the road we travel. They are moments of ordinary everyday life in which divinity is revealed in humanity and we see a glimpse of God’s glory face to face shining through the earthliness of our being.
This new year as we board flight 2022 may we feel boosted and inspired by the Holy Spirt, to be positive in body mind and spirit and heed the words of St Paul to the Ephesians as he tells them “We have access to God in boldness and confidence through faith in him, I pray therefore that you will not lose heart” Ephesians 3:13
Amen