Epiphany of the Lord

Ephesians 3.1-12; Matthew2.1-12

Today we celebrate the visit of the wise men to Jesus, which the Church in the West has taken to think especially about what it also calls, the Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. And so this part of the season around the birth of Christ is used to think about mission and Christian unity. What I'd like to do today though is simply to look at this part of the story and consider it in the same terms that we considered the first part of the nativity story, the birth of Christ and the visit of the shepherds. When we were thinking about that at Christmas I asked that we might come to the story not so much with our rational minds but with our hearts and in faith; to try and put our doubts to one side let God speak to our hearts through it and thereby perhaps to hear Him speak to us in ways we haven't heard Him speak to us before. I can't tell you what to expect when you do that, only you will know how you respond to God in the story of Jesus' birth. And I think maybe we can look at the story of the wise men to help us consider the sorts of ways we might respond and what sorts of things might happen when we do just that, when we open our hearts, in faith to God in this Christmas story.

First of all the wise men saw the sign indicating the birth of a new king of the Jews. They must have been open to seeing the sign, must have had some sort of anticipation, expecting to see something of importance in their surroundings. Maybe looking at the stars was part of their own religion, it must have been part of their culture and an important part at that. It leads me to ask whether or not we are as open to God in what we see around us. Do we see God not just in the Church but outside it too and even in the most unlikely places. When we think of the people and places that Jesus himself met with and how shocking that was to His own people, we can expect God to show up in least likely places.

The wise men looked for the sign, then recognised it, then followed it, in faith. Again we see faith coming into the story as we did with Mary and Joseph and the shepherds as they responded in faith to what they heard the angels telling them. We can ask ourselves, even if we see the signs of God around us in people, in the things we see and hear, in places, do we ask ourselves if there's a message in there for us, do we respond to what we see and hear in faith, and follow whatever it is we have seen and heard? How often do we come to Church especially and hear the gospel week by week read to us, explained to us and lived out in front of us by others and simply continue in the way we've always been rather than being challenged and changed by it?

And then the wise men set out on a journey, a long and difficult journey, to find the king whose sign they'd seen. The journey to God, the spiritual journey can be a long and difficult one. It's a journey that lasts a life time because we can never ever get to know God fully. There's always something new to learn, there's always another avenue to walk down, always another corner to go around. And it's a journey of self discovery and change. As we get to know God, the challenge to us to become like Christ gets more and more tough. It never gets easier. It's usually easiest in the beginning. God seems to give us all sorts of consolations and encouragements at first. But faith is faith and in order to develop faith we have to put more and more trust in God and less in ourselves. In that way we give up ourselves and become more like God. That's what Jesus meant when He said those who lose their life for my sake gain it. And it's easy to get side tracked, especially in the Church. We can so easily get involved in Church business and think we are doing the business of the spirit. And then we delude ourselves into thinking that because we do so much Church business we must be right with God, when all along we've not taken one step in the business of the spirit and we can, indeed, end up being less like Christ than we were when we first started doing Church business many years before. And that can apply to clergy just as much if not more than to lay folk.

There's always the challenge of the self you see. There's that self which is the Herod in us that is so threatened by God taking the place of it that it actively seeks to destroy God in us and all inclination toward God in us, one devious and not so devious way and another. So we have to be constantly on our guard against the deceit of the self if we are to continue the journey towards God in any positive way.

And when we finally get there, the meeting with God is one of offering. And that's because, on the way, with all the other things we've left behind, we've left our self interest behind and we find that all we have to offer to God is thanksgiving and the whole of our life. The gifts the wise men brought were of the best they had. But notice that they were material gifts. We are being called by God to give the one thing the wise men didn't give and that was each of their lives. The wise men went back to their own country. They went back, after their visit to the life they had before. They would undoubtedly have been changed by the journey, but they nevertheless went back. Our spiritual journey has not turning back. God is the destination and our self is the offering we bring. And that's where we stay.

The journey and visit of the wise men shows us so much about our journey to God and what it involves. And this season is a time to dedicate and rededicate ourselves to the journey, no matter how long, no matter how hard, no matter what the consolations and joys.