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Epiphany Date:4th January 2009 Preacher: Revd Hilary Barber Three Wise men meet with Christ. Today is
the feast of Epiphany. It comes during the Advent to Candlemas period, moving
us away from the birth of Christ at Christmas, to his Epiphany or manifestation
to the world. The story
is a dubious one, which those in the secular world often take as real. The
three wise men or were they astrologers, or even consultants, are said to have
followed the star to where the baby lay. Much of the story is surrounded by
mystery, and although Matthew makes mention of it in his Gospel, very little is
recalled in detail. Aural tradition named the men as Capsar, Melchior, and
Balthasar, who brought gifts of gold to symbolize Christ’s kinship, frankincense
his priestly divinity, and myrrh his suffering humanity. The Sundays
of Epiphany in the Common Lectionary take up important gospel passages in which
Jesus makes himself manifest to the world. Today we have Matthew’s account of
the Three Wise men meeting with Christ. Next week comes the baptism of Christ,
then the call to Andrew and Peter, by the sea of Galilee, and finally, before
Candlemas, the great Wedding Feast at Cana. All of which are designed to point
us in the direction of understanding the mystery of who Jesus was. That
question was the one for Herod the King all those years ago, and remains the
same today. Why was it Herod feared so much about the birth of Jesus? Why was
he so vulnerable to anxiety and the threat that Jesus posed for him? The same
could perhaps be said of Richard Dawkins, Polly Toynbee, and many secularist
and humanists of our own age. Certainly, there are those who work in the Public
Sector who fear faith communities, and monies and grants are withheld to
support associations with religion. This is a particularly British phenomenon,
where politicians are regarded as crack pots if they speak openly about their
faith in God. BBC Panorama interviewed Tony Blair about his faith, and only now
that he has left Office as Prime Minister, does he feel able to speak about his
own faith journey, and one that continues in mystery as he is accepted into the
Catholic Church. Interestingly, George Bush, and those standing for the
American Presidency, have the confidence and the culture to use their faith to
seek votes and to claim God on their side. The point I
want to make, is how the Epiphany reveals to the world who Jesus was, and that
those who live in fear of Jesus, is because of their unbelief! Jesus comes to
fulfill the Jewish Scriptures – yet the Jewish people reject the
personhood of Jesus, and are still waiting for the advent of a new Moses to
arrive. It was to the Gentiles that Jesus revealed himself and they came to
believe in him, and to follow him. The wise men represent all those who come
from the ends of the earth seeking to understand the mystery of Jesus the
Christ. Jesus
baptism in the Jordan and the Marriage Feast of Cana are integrated in the
Epiphany celebration to enlarge our perspective from which we perceive the
divinity of Christ – he was human yet divine. Jesus’ baptism by John represents
the manifestation of Jesus’ divinity to the Jews, the moment when Jesus entered
fully into his mission for the salvation of humanity. His baptism in the Jordan
is a preview of Easter and Pentecost, in which we celebrate the Mysteries of
divine life and love. Jesus’ decent into the waters of the Jordan anticipates
his decent into the sufferings of his passion and death; his emergence from the
Jordan symbolizes his resurrection; and the Dove’s decent prefigures the
outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
The third
text describes the Marriage Feast at Cana where Jesus manifested his divinity
to his disciples. Epiphany celebrates the marriage, so to speak, between the
Church and Christ; we, of course are the Church. It could be described as the
joining together of those who have experienced the Light of Christ in their own
lives, with the life and love which that light contains. The new wine is the
transcendent principal that Christ has brought into the world by taking human
nature into himself. The whole human family is taken up into this new life,
which has been inserted once and for all into the heart of God, by the
Incarnation and the redemptive work of Jesus. The journey
of the Magi, symbolizes the faith journey of men and women down the ages. The
doubts, the fears, the decision to give up and turn back for home, but still
something nagging in the back of one’s head, says ‘stay with it, keep on
traveling’. T S Eliot,
reflects on his own faith journey, and writes this Poem just as he is baptized
and accepted into the Church of England in 1927. The Journey
of the Magi ‘A cold
coming we had of it, just the
worst time of the year for the
journey, and such a long journey: the ways
deep and the weather sharp, the very
dead of winter’ and the
camels galled, sore footed, refractory, lying down
in the melting snow. There were
times we regretted the summer
palaces on slopes, the terraces, and the
silken girls bringing sherbet. Then the
camel men cursing and grumbling and running
away, and wanting their liquor and women, and the
night fires going out, and the lack of shelters, and cities
hostile and the towns unfriendly and the
villages dirty and charging high prices: a hard time
we had of it. At the end
we preferred to travel all night, sleeping in
snatches, with the
voices singing in our ears, saying that this
was all folly. Then at
dawn we came down to a temperate valley, wet, bellow
the snow line, smelling of vegetation; with a
running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness, and three
trees on the low sky, and an old
white horse galloped away in the meadow. Then we
came to a tavern with vine leaves over the lintel, six hands
at an open door dicing for pieces of silver, and feet
kicking the empty wine skins, but there
was no information, and so we continued and arrived
at evening, not a moment too soon finding the
place; it was (you may say) satisfactory all this
was a long time ago, I remember, and I would
do it again, but set down this set
down this: were
we led all that way for birth or
Death? There was a birth, certainly, we had
evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, but had
thought they were different; this birth was hard and
bitter agony for us, like Death, our death, we returned
to our places, these kingdoms, but no
longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, with an
alien people clutching their gods. I should be
glad of another death. T S Eliot. The season
of joyful celebration that begins at Christmas now continues through the
successive Sundays of Epiphany, and the festal cycle end only with the Feast of
the Presentation of Christ, which we call Candlemas. The child who has been
manifested to the magi at his birth is now recognized by Simeon and Anna, when
he comes to be presented in the Temple according to the Law of Israel. He is
both ‘a light to lighten the Gentiles’ and ‘the glory of God’s people Israel’.
But the redemption he will bring must be won through suffering; the Incarnation
is directed to the Passion; and Simeon’s final words move our attention away
from the celebration of Christmas and towards the mysteries of Easter. Amen. |