SERMON 8 JANUARY 2017 - EPIPHANY

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight: O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.

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We three kings of Orient are
Bearing gifts we traverse afar.
Field and fountain, moor and mountain,
Following yonder star.

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One of the favourite images of Christmas is that of the three wise men travelling by camel through a star lit night. One star dominates the sky and they are following that star – and, as they arrive on the crest of the hill overlooking Bethlehem the journey is almost over. It’s been a long trip from a country far away in the east. There have perhaps been dangers along the way but now they are at the town of Jesus’ birth. There are just a few hundred meters to go. The wise men look down from the star in the sky to the building lying below its light. This is where they will find the new born king of the Jews that they had read about in the Scriptures.

We actually don’t know very much about these wise men –

Who were they – really?
What were their names?
Where did they come from exactly?
How far had they travelled following the star?

Traditionally a view has developed that they were Babylonians, Persians, or Jews from Yemen as the kings of Yemen then were Jews. ...and then there is an Armenian tradition identifying the "Magi of Bethlehem" as Balthasar of Arabia, Melchior of Persia, and Gaspar of India.

The truth is .... We don’t really know who they were...

We don’t even know how many of them there were – three, four, five...? The fact that there were three gifts has led to the accepted number of three,

We do know that they studied the stars and were familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures but Matthew doesn’t give us too many other details.

One of the facts that Matthew does give us is that the wise men came with special gifts for the new born king. The gospel writer tells us:

"On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh."

Gold, frankincense and myrrh – what strange gifts for a new born child.

A woman commenting on these gifts suggested that these men weren’t perhaps all that wise after all. If the eastern visitors had been wise women the baby Jesus would have received sensible gifts – baby food, nappies and clothes to replace the swaddling clothes, and maybe even a proper baby’s crib – not a useless lump of gold and two bottles of perfume – what is a new mother to do with these?

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However, gold, frankincense and myrrh.... some speculate that these gifts were the principal items used in the wizardry and magic in which the wise men from the east dabbled. So, in giving them to the Christ-child,  they were actually handing over their tools of their trade. They were demonstrating that they were no longer pagan dabblers in magic. They were letting go of the past because they had found a new guiding star – the Christ child.

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Others have reasoned that these gifts are symbols of who this baby was. That it was fulfilling the prophesy in Isaiah ...’and all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and incense...’ 

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Gold represents power and wealth. This child Jesus is royal and kingly.
Frankincense a symbol of his priestly role.

Myrrh was used in embalming the dead. It indicated this child’s humanity and perhaps foreshadowed his suffering and death as Saviour of the world.

These have been some of the many popular interpretations of the gifts that the wise men brought, but Matthew doesn’t give us any explanation ... he simply gives us the facts. "They bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh."

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As we have noted these might seem rather useless gifts but what do you give this child who is the all-powerful God who controls the stars to such an extent that a particularly bright star travels westward and stops over the place where Jesus and his parents were living?

When the Lord of the universe reaches down from heaven and touches the earth, condescends in love to come to us, in the flesh, as one of us, a baby come to do battle with Herod and all evil in this world, what do you give?

Even the wise men with their precious gifts must have realised that their expensive presents were hardly adequate for the child in the manger, the God who has become a human and now rests in his mother’s arms.... and maybe that’s just the point..their gifts or presents, despite their value, were hardly adequate...

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The story is told of an old professor who visited a past student of his whose first child had recently been born . He presented the parents with a gift for the baby, a book, all wrapped in fine paper, tied with a bow. Imagine their surprise and bewilderment when, upon unwrapping the gift, they discovered that it was a book, a very old, leather-bound copy of Shakespeare's plays.

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They thought, what a strange gift for a baby! How odd. An old book, written in archaic language, given to a baby who will not be able to read it, let alone understand it for many years to come.

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And then they realised: the gift was not the book; the gift was the giver. The old professor had given himself. He had given the child that thing most precious to himself - his own love of language, his admiration for Shakespeare. His gift was an expression of his deepest joy at the birth of the child and his hope for the future of this new human being.

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What the wise men gave and what we give to our Lord may seem so trivial and modest, but if they are representative of the giving of ourselves to God, this is our most important gift.

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This last Friday was the twelfth day of Christmas, and the Eve of the Feast of the Epiphany - that great festival on which Christians, for at least fifteen hundred years, have celebrated the manifestation, or the showing forth, of the glory of God in Jesus Christ, - the Eternal Word of God made flesh.

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Just as the showing forth of the glory of God in Christ takes many different forms, so our season of Epiphany commemorates many different things. First, the coming of the wise men from the East to worship at the cradle of the Infant Christ; then, the Baptism of Jesus in the river Jordan by John the Baptist, with the voice from heaven declaring that this Jesus is the beloved son of God; then the visit of Jesus, at twelve years old, to the Temple at Jerusalem, where the learned doctors were astonished by his understanding and his answers; and then, a series of Jesus' miracles: among them the changing of water into wine at the marriage feast at Cana; the healing of a leper, and the centurion's palsied servant; and the calming of the troubled sea. Then, at the end of the season of Epiphany, we have prophetic lessons about the final coming of the Son of God, in power and great glory.

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Many different things - a great diversity of commemorations; yet they are tied together by one common theme. They are all aspects of the showing forth, the shining forth, the "Epiphany" of the divine glory of Jesus Christ, the Eternal Son of God, the Eternal Word of God, made flesh. Thus these many commemorations of Epiphany make up a continuing meditation upon the meaning of the Christmas miracle - the miracle of God with us, God in our flesh, Emmanuel, God visible to human eyes, God audible to human ears, God tangible to human touch, God manifest in human life, judging, restoring, and transforming it by the grace and truth he brings. "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth."

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Through the season of Christmas and into the season of Epiphany do we sometimes fall victims to the boredom of repetition? We have done this all so often – Decorations, Father Christmas, presents, food, church...we are all so busy and it’s just the same again each year, perhaps all done by rote or habit. Or do we approach each year anew as we focus on the wonderful miracle of the Word made flesh and dwelling among us?

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Faith has eyes to see in all these things the shining forth, the "Epiphany" of the Son of God, the miracle of God with us, Emmanuel. And faith, our faith, has gifts to offer him; not much, perhaps, in worldly terms, but by his own grace we have that one crucial gift we can give, the acknowledging of his divinity, his kingship, and his sacrifice -  the gift he treasures most - the gift of adoration, the gift of humble obedience of mind and heart.

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...in the words of our gradual hymn..’O worship the Lord.....’

"Fear not to enter his courts, in the slenderness
Of the poor wealth thou canst reckon as thine,
Truth in its beauty and love in its tenderness,
These are the offerings to lay on his shrine.

Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness;
Bow down before him, his glory proclaim;
Gold of obedience and incense of lowliness
Bring and adore him; the Lord is his Name!"

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No Wise Man could offer more, and surely faith cannot offer less than adoration; for to the eyes of faith, the everlasting glory of the Father shines forth in Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh - "and we beheld his glory", day by day, we behold his glory, "the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." Amen. +

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Roger Lee