In my Christmas sermon, I spoke about the way in which we can miss so much of what’s important in the Christmas story through our over familiarity with the story and with the way we celebrate Christmas. I said that we become so familiar with the Christmas story and with the way we celebrate Christmas that we don’t really give these things our full attention and so we not only miss important aspects of the story, but we can actually distort the story through our lack of attention to it. One of the ways I illustrated that was by speaking about the way we can get the words of well-known Christmas carols wrong simply because we think we know them so well, that we don’t read the words of the carols, we simply sing what we think they say and so we can get the words wrong and completely change the meaning of the carol by doing that.
One of the carols I used to illustrate that point was In the bleak mid-winter. Specifically, I spoke about the way so many people distort the meaning of the last line of the carol by not paying attention to what the last line actually says, and in doing so, they change the last line from the pledge to give Christ our hearts, into a question about what we could give him if we chose to do so. In the last verse of that carol, as it’s written, our pledge to give Christ our hearts is compared to the gifts of the shepherds and of the wise men and so today, on the Feast of the Epiphany, the day we celebrate the visit of the wise men to the Christ child, I want us to think about just what those wise men did, what they gave to Christ, how meeting Christ, even as a child, affected and changed them, and in doing so, to think about whether we do, in fact, play our part as they did and as we promise to in the words of In the bleak mid-winter.
So what did the wise men do? For one thing, we know that they travelled a long way to find the new-born King. We’re not certain where the wise men travelled from, but it’s usually thought they were from Babylon in modern day Iraq. If that’s right, then using the trade routes of the day, it was a journey of around 800 miles to Jerusalem. Travelling in a caravan, a group, for safety, as they almost certainly would have done, it would have taken them about 6 weeks to make the journey. So they’d made a long, difficult and dangerous journey to find the new-born king of the Jews.
We know that the purpose of their journey was to do homage to the new-born king. We could, and sometimes do, translate this word ‘homage’ as ‘worship’, but homage is to show honour and respect publicly, it’s to give public recognition to the one we’re honouring, or worshipping. And of course, one of the ways the wise men did this was to present gifts to the Christ child.
We see these gifts as highly symbolic. Gold, a gift fit for a king. Frankincense, a gift for a deity, a god. And myrrh, a resin that can also be used as incense but as a medicinal ointment and for embalming the dead too. As Christians, we understand these gifts as symbolising the dual nature of Christ, his humanity and divinity. We understand them as referring to Christ as not only king of the Jews, but of all people, as represented in the wise men, and as our Lord and God, as King of the universe. And we understand the myrrh as both symbolising Christ’s sharing in the suffering of the world through his common humanity with us, and as foreshadowing his own suffering and death on the Cross.
At the end of the story of the wise men we’re told that, having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they went home by a different way. And we see this as referring not only to a different route, but to a different way of life. What they’d found at the end of their journey wasn’t what they expected to find, and what they’d found had changed their understanding of things in a very profound way. They set off on their journey as wise men looking for the new-born king of the Jews, but they went home with a new kind of wisdom that they probably hadn’t had before. We could say that they set off full of human wisdom and returned home with at least a little of that Wisdom that comes from knowledge of God and an understanding of and reverence for his ways.
In the Christmas carol, In the bleak mid-winter, we promise to do our part, in the way they did theirs, and we promise to do that by giving our hearts to Jesus. So how do we measure up to the wise men? Do we play our part as they did?
The wise men made a long, difficult and dangerous journey to see Jesus; but are we prepared to do the same? Isn’t it true that people are very often happy to make the flimsiest of excuses for not coming to church to worship the Lord? The service is too late, it’s dark, the weather’s bad, it’s cold, it’s raining. I want to watch the football, or the rugby, or whatever else it may be. I’ve got into this story on Coronation Street, or whatever soap it may be, and want to see how it turns out. Or how about, it’s too far to travel?
One of the problems I’ve spoken about as holding this benefice back from real progress is the lack of support for joint services. The wise men travelled 800 miles without the aid of cars or buses to pay homage to Jesus, but it seems that today, even with modern transport, people aren’t willing to travel an extra 2 miles to join with their fellow Christians to worship the Lord. And isn’t it true that, despite all their words of devotion to the Lord, when ‘their church’ closes, a lot of people simply stop going to church because they won’t go anywhere else, regardless of the distance involved? In effect, they won’t go to church by a different way. And how many people have stopped coming to church in the wake of Covid because they can watch a church service from the comfort of their front room and don’t have to travel at all to worship the Lord?
But where is the homage to Jesus in that? Homage, as I’ve said, is the public display of honour and respect, so we can’t do homage to Jesus, as the wise men did, if we don’t attend public worship, in other words, if we don’t get up, get out, and come to church. But homage is also showing public recognition of the one we’re worshipping, and there’s much more than simply coming to church to doing that. To truly do homage to Jesus, we have to let people know that we are Christians. But how many people try to hide their faith? How many people never speak about their faith, or that they come to church, outside the church and among their fellow Christians? If someone asks you what you did last night, or during the week, or over the weekend, for example, how many of you say, “I went to church”, or “I said my prayers”, or “ I read the Bible”? Don’t people rather talk about what they watched on the TV, or where they went shopping, or what they ate last night, or any one of the myriad things that make up daily life but never, ever mention anything to do with the church or their faith? But without that public recognition of Jesus, we can’t do him homage.
And do we do our part, as the wise men did, when to comes to the gifts we bring to Jesus? Gold, frankincense and myrrh were, and still are, expensive gifts to offer and give. They are gifts fit for a king and offerings fit for God. But what do we give to Jesus? Do we, like the wise men, give the very best we can, or do we give to Jesus what’s left after we’ve taken the best for ourselves? And I’m not simply talking about what we put on the collection plate when we come to church. One of the things I’ve spoken about time and again is people’s unwillingness, and even outright refusal, to use their gifts and talents in and for the Church. People say they don’t have the ability, either they’re not very good at something or they’ve never done it before. But has that ever stopped anyone from doing something they really want to do? If we don’t know how, we learn, and if we’re not very good, we practice until we are don’t we? People say they don’t have time but again, if we really want to do something don’t we always make the time to do it? People say they’re too busy with this that or the other to help out at the church but no matter how busy we are can’t we always find time and make time to watch something on the TV if we want to, to go out with family and friends if we want to? There are so many ways that we could give our best to Jesus but are more content to give him what’s left after we’ve taken the best for ourselves.
And it’s the same when it comes to engaging with the suffering of the world. I’m not saying that any Christian is indifferent to the suffering of the world, nor that they don’t want to do something to help the suffering people of the world. But how many of us would deny ourselves some luxury, or even small pleasure, to help the poor and needy? Don’t we all, rather, tend help out only to the extent that doesn’t diminish our comfort? Don’t we all tend to help the suffering as long as that doesn’t involve us in any suffering, personally?
What the wise men found was not what they expected to find, and they went home by a different way, a different road and as different men with a changed understanding of things. If we really engage with the Gospel, if we pay attention to Jesus and really listen to and take seriously what he says, our expectations will be changed too, and we’ll travel by a different way. But how many people aren’t willing to be changed? How many people aren’t willing to change their expectation of the way they think things should be? We find this so often in the church, from large scale arguments about denomination, arguments within denominations about churchmanship and tradition, to arguments in parishes about the ‘way we do things here’. People, in general, don’t like change, but Church people seem to absolutely loathe it, in fact, they seem to be terrified of it. But if we look at the Church and ourselves honestly and in the light of the Gospel, can anyone say that the Church and we as individual Christians aren’t in dire need of change? And I think the problem here is very much one of expectation; people expect things to be a certain way and because they expect things to be that way then, even if that way is wrong, they don’t want to change those ways, their ways, and often refuse to change them. But if we aren’t willing to let our expectations be changed, our understanding will never change, we will never change, and we’ll never travel that different way that Christ calls us to follow.
In the Christmas Carol, In the bleak mid-winter, we promise to play our part in Jesus’ story, as the wise men did, and we promise to do that by giving him our heart, so let’s do that. Let’s do as the wise men did and do homage to Jesus, even if and when that means putting ourselves out to make public display of our faith. Let’s do as the wise men did and offer to Jesus the very best of ourselves, gifts worthy of our king and our God, even if that means foregoing the odd luxury that we’ve become so accustomed to. And let’s do as the wise men did and let our expectations be changed so that we can come to a different kind of wisdom, that Wisdom which comes from a better understanding of God and his ways. And, like the wise men, let’s then journey on along a different and better way.
Amen.
Propers for the Epiphany of the Lord, 7th January 2024
Entrance Antiphon
The Lord and ruler is coming; kingship is his, and government and power.
The Collect
O God,
who by the leading of a star manifested your only Son to the peoples of the earth:
mercifully grant that we,
who know you now by faith,
may at last behold your glory face to face;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
The Readings
Missal (St Mark’s)
Isaiah 60:1-6
Psalm 72:1-2, 7-8, 10-13
Ephesians 3:2-3, 5-6
Matthew 2:1-12
RCL (St Gabriel’s)
Isaiah 60:1-6
Psalm 72:1-15
Ephesians 3:1-12
Matthew 2:1-12
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 