Dear All
Today we celebrated the feast of the Epiphany.
We were once again buoyed up by Hugh’s playing as we sang the Epiphany hymns.
This Week
Tuesday – 10am Prayer Group in the Garden Room
Thursday 10am Said Eucharist followed by coffee in Friendship House
2pm Vestry – Garden Room
Readings for next Sunday – 2nd Sunday of Epiphany – Isaiah 49:1-7 1 Corinthians 1:1-9 John 1:29-42
Today’s Readings – Isaiah 60:1-6 Ephesians 3:1-12 Matt 2:1-12
Over the past few years, a dear friend of mine has always sent me an Advent calendar, regular as clockwork a large envelope would land on our doormat sometime towards the end of November. This year, nothing, I naturally feared the worse! But of course, I needn’t have worried because sure enough on New Year’s Eve there it was! Only a month late!
But during Advent, I missed it, each tiny window telling the Christmas story through pictures and biblical verses.
As we begin a new year we may look back on the past year and reflect on those Advent window moments: the invasion of Ukraine, the death of her majesty the Queen and the various political upheavals.
We may wish mentally to do an advent calendar of our own lives. Our pictures may be a mix of significant moments, moments of quiet personal triumphs, joys and adversity or perhaps just images which speak of our everyday lives.
Today we celebrate the feast of the Epiphany – the revelation of the Son of God by the wise men to the Gentile world, the last window of the Christmas story.
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. 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; sometimes 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 often the moments of ordinary everyday life in which divinity is revealed in humanity and we see a glimpse of God’s glory shining through the earthliness of our being.
Despite the gloominess of the weather, the news and our January souls, as we embark upon a new year 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