Epiphany Matthew 2:1-12 Isaiah 60:1-6The feast of the Epiphany goes back to the account in Matthew’s Gospel about the journey and arrival of the Three Wise Men – the Magi. They were political officials, so that is probably why they are often depicted as kings. The prophecy from Isaiah 60 has particular relevance, as it speaks of foreigners who will bring tribute, bringing gifts, also mentioned in Matthew. Epiphany means manifestation – it is the moment when Christ is made manifest to the Gentiles, non-Jews. The short season of Epiphanytide helps us to see the world-wide perspective of God’s act of salvation through him, and to be reminded that this is part of the mission of the Church in every age. Jesus was born for all of humanity, not just for a selected few. In the sequence of the following weeks, we find several other incidents of the identity of Jesus as the Christ being manifested and revealed. It is like the pulling back of a curtain or the lifting of a veil; what was hidden and obscure now becoming visible. It is now also a few days into the New Year. It may have been a bumpy start for some; so much in the world is still challenging and difficult or downright painful. The story of the Epiphany does not claim to change our circumstances in a flash. But it does point to the One who can – and who did and who still does, through faith. For the realisation that we are not facing life alone already makes a difference. Through Christ we are called children of God and in his care, even if the circumstances don’t change, we are being changed and find comfort and peace. It is a bit, I hope, like the poem I wrote for the beginning of the New Year:Hope for the unknown journeyWhat can we do at the start of a yearwith the diary open and bare -what do the seasons of this year bringin the days and the months that are there?Are we to fill the blank pages with workor with leisure, we ask, as we stareinto the unknown, as yet distant, timeof the future that’s certainly there?How do we live in the places we knowwith the people that are in our care,when so much before us is covered in fogfor the days that are not yet there?What is our hope for this year ‘25in the times when we are going sparewith worry about wars and dreadful thingsthat are not right, both here and there?Where are the words we can listen tothat will not let us down in despair, but will build us up in lives that are fullof joy and peace, finally there?So many questions, this year just begunand I wonder, am I not awareof the love that God came to share in his Son,who said he would always be there?So I listen again to the words that he spokelike a lamp to my feet, and show wherehe says I should reach out my hand in faithand be held on the path that is there;in his care, anytime, everywhere!May this New Year be for you a time of peace and joy. Amen.
First Sunday of Christmas Luke 2:41-end 1 Samuel 2:18-20; 26The first Sunday of Christmas falls four days after Christmas this year and in terms of the story of Jesus we make a bit of a jump from when he is a baby to when he is twelve years old. The scene is actually the Passover festival and Mary and Joseph are taking him to Jerusalem for the festival. This must have been a very exciting time for Jesus. When the festival was ended and Mary and Joseph started on their return journey, Jesus stayed behind, but they didn’t know it. You know how it happens: assuming that he was in the group of travellers, they went a day’s journey. Then, when they looked for him among their relatives and friends, Jesus was not there… So, they went back immediately, to search for him. It took them a long time: three days in all, before they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking question. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. The worried parents were astonished and Mary asked him: ‘Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.’ But Jesus said: ‘Why were you searching for me? Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house?’ I remember a time when I grew up and was so engrossed in my play outside – and outside her range of vision – that I missed my mother’s call to come in. She also looked for me and her emotions were quite mixed… As I came to understand fully when I had a similar moment later as a mother myself.The passage in Luke chapter 2 ends saying: ‘And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favour.’ In 1 Samuel, we find similar words about the boy Samuel when he grew up to be a servant of the Lord. He was a longed-for child to his parents, after his mother Hannah had prayed fervently for him and later ‘gave him up’, as it says, as God’s servant in the temple. The temple that we know as the very special place as God had designed, for festivals and sacrifices to him. Samuel was indeed to become an important figure, as the last of the judges and the prophet who anoints Saul and later David as king. They too, have a particular part to play in the run-up to the birth of Jesus, especially, of course, king David. But what about this particular part in Luke’s Gospel on the first Sunday after Christmas? We’ve only just celebrated Jesus’ birth and we haven’t even had the Epiphany yet, the arrival of the three wise men who came from the East to bring homage to the new-born king. So, we may feel a little bit at odds, going backwards and forwards in the account. Well, it is not so strange as it seems, really, as it’s all about indications of who Jesus is. It was this event, when Jesus chose to spend more time in the temple after the festival of the Passover that already pointed in the direction he was to go as Saviour. For the temple would be important in the days leading up to his crucifixion and consequent rising from the dead. Already, Jesus knew about his Father, God, and possibly began at this time to learn and to teach about the calling and work of the Messiah. I think this little part of the story, when Jesus is only twelve years old, is actually very important. It could well have been a reminder to Mary and Joseph that this child that they were raising had God’s special task to perform, for the good of the whole world. It’s a reminder to us, too, that Jesus did not stay a cute little baby, nor did he simply ‘jump’ into a grown man and started his ministry then. Rather, his connection with God as his Father, began as a child and inspired and helped him grow. His earthly parents might have feared for him as being lost, but Jesus was never lost, not physically, nor spiritually, for he knew the Father. That is now a reality for us, too. We have been known by the Father and we can know him too, through Jesus and his obedience to his work of salvation. That is why we rejoice: we once were lost and now are found: glory and praise be to God forever and ever! Amen.
Fourth Sunday of Advent Luke 1:39-55 Micah 5:2-5aMary. You can’t get any closer to Christmas and the birth of her son, Jesus. It was a strange encounter, nine months earlier, when the Angel Gabriel announced his birth to Mary, an unknown virgin from a town in Galilee, and said that the child she was to bear would be God’s own Son, the Messiah, the promised Saviour of the world. Not just a bit unusual; totally different! When I am trying to imagine how she must have felt and what she might have thought in the days, weeks, months that followed, I know that I fail to comprehend completely what it must have been like for her. Society at the time did not look favourably on unmarried mothers; she risked even her life! But we can be sure here: God knew what he was doing and the man that Mary was engaged to be married to was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her publicly. Also, as we learn from Matthew’s Gospel, he was told in a dream to still take Mary as his wife, for the child that she carried was from the Holy Spirit. Mary might have tried to explain to him what was happening to her but it was so inexplicable that Joseph needed the reassurance of God himself. I find it helpful to know that God speaks to people in various ways, possibly the way they can deal with best.And so we find Mary in today’s passage from Luke’s Gospel when she visits her relative Elizabeth, who is expecting a child herself, even though she had been ‘too old’, and beyond the age of childbearing. When Mary enters the house with a greeting, Elizabeth feels her own child leap in her womb for joy. And Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, it says, exclaims with a loud cry: ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’ Mary stayed with her about three months, possibly witnessing the birth of Elizabeth’s son John, before returning to her home. As we know from the rest of the story, she and Joseph go to Bethlehem, in order to be registered there.Later still, after the birth of Jesus, when the Wise Men from the East are looking for him to pay him homage, the words from the prophet Micah are recalled with the reference to Bethlehem as the place where he is from. As we can deduct from all this, Mary travelled quite a bit, not even stopping in Bethlehem, but fleeing into Egypt, again inspired by a dream to Joseph, in order to preserve the life of baby Jesus from the hatred of king Herod. Mary. We consider her to be special, yet she was such an ordinary girl, with ordinary hopes of her future: to be a carpenter’s wife, to raise an ordinary family perhaps, not God’s own Son! Whatever her hopes and dreams of her future might have been before the angel Gabriel announced her unusual pregnancy, she is ready to give them all up and commit to God’s plan and bear his Son, as her response indicates. But even more so, she goes to see Elizabeth and share with her the joy of God’s work in and through her. Her words in the Magnificat – Latin for the first word of Mary’s song – praise God for this and encourage people to this day. They are about hope and God’s holiness, his help and his care for the vulnerable. Mary was willing to be an instrument in God’s plan of grace and as Jesus’ mother was closest to him on earth. We can learn from her and we can be encouraged by her story that God’s love is able to reach into the most obscure and insignificant by the world’s standards, to reshape our future and offer us hope. The hope of Jesus, Son of God and son of Mary. Amen.
Third Sunday of Advent Luke 3:7-18 Zephaniah 3:14-endThe third Sunday of Advent is also called Gaudete Sunday – ‘gaudete’ being Latin for ‘rejoice’. The theme of the day expresses the joy of anticipation at the approach of Christmas. There is a shift in focus: from ‘The Lord is coming’ to ‘The Lord is near’. The day’s theme is marked by an altogether lighter mood and the readings focus on rejoicing in the Lord and the mission of John the Baptist; one step closer to Christmas. The traditional colour is pink, so many Advent wreaths have one pink candle among the purple season of Advent, to mark the joy of the good news. The prophet Zephaniah, in the passage for today, calls out to the people to rejoice: ‘Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem!’ There’s no holding back, it seems, in this proclamation that the liberation that the people have been longing for is near. In the season of Advent, we have been approaching this moment, first from a long way back, with the Patriarchs – beginning with Abraham – and then the Prophets, now focussing on John, the herald of the Messiah. We can now almost touch him, as it were, as he is so close to being revealed. Yes, in today’s reading from Luke, Jesus is to arrive on the scene shortly as an adult, not as a baby. But that’s not the point. The point is, that he is the Saviour whom the world needed to come and set us free from the power of sin and death and to give us hope for the future. Even if we may feel that it’s all wrong chronologically, for God that is no problem; he is not restricted like that, as time belongs to him. So at this moment in Advent, we are reminded of the journey towards meeting Jesus Christ, and how the story of his mission begins. I have used the image of a pair of binoculars before, to illustrate how we are seeing closer what was first far off and blurred, now coming into focus: the birth of Jesus that we are celebrating at Christmas. In this day and age, it may be a dark time; what with some upsetting events in the world, we may be wondering how his arrival – as we are looking forward to the celebration of his birth – may make a difference. How can we see hope and peace in a world that is so broken? Among all the clutter and noise of today’s state of affairs in the world, we may have lost the sense of hearing the still, small voice of God, revealed in a new-born baby. He is Emmanuel, God with us, offering peace in our hearts and restoration of our relationship with God and our neighbours. What about our longing for the healing of past hurts and failures? If we are feeling weary with the weight of today’s demands, God is saying, with this little baby, that he knows and cares and wants to carry us through. If we wish for change in God’s direction, if we want to have real peace, then we may pick up on the invitation to listen, and hear, to watch and see. He is on his way. God, in Jesus, is coming to be with us. So let us rejoice! Amen.
