If I were to ask most people what today’s feast, the Epiphany of the Lord was all about I’m sure I’d get quite a few blank looks. Perhaps a few people would know that it has something to do with the visit of the Three Wise Men to Bethlehem and the baby Jesus, but I’m sure that a lot of people would have no idea whatsoever what the day is about, many probably wouldn’t even that the day exists at all. Maybe some would say that it’s the traditional day for taking down Christmas decorations but I’m sure a lot of people wouldn’t even know that because if you take notice of the media and what goes on in the supermarkets these days you’d think that the Twelve Days of Christmas begin on December 13th and that Christmas ends on the stroke of midnight on December 25th. In fact I have heard people in the media express exactly that view. And as we all know, if you go into a supermarket after Christmas Day the only hint you’d get that Christmas had happened at all are a few Christmas goods on sale at cut prices because the shelves that had been stacked with Christmas goods up to Christmas Eve have been emptied and re-stocked with Easter Eggs.
But it wasn’t always like that. At one time everyone would have known that the Twelve Days of Christmas referred to the twelve days of celebrations that began on Christmas Day and ended on Feast of the Epiphany. In fact, it could be said that the celebration of Christmas actually built up over the twelve days and culminated with the great feast of Twelfth Night on or on the eve of the Feast of Epiphany. And that’s a measure of how important a feast Epiphany was once held to be. But that doesn’t seem to be the case even in the Church these days where the secular view of Christmas seems to have crept in too. For example, I was being asked in November when the Christmas Tree could go up and when the Crib could be set up, but then, within days after Christmas Day, people began to ask me when the tree could come down and how long do we have to leave the Crib up before we can take that down and ‘get back to normal’?
I think we, in the Church, need to get back to celebrating Christmas in the way we once did. We need to get back to starting our preparation for Christmas on Advent Sunday and using Advent as a time to prepare for Christmas rather than as a time to start our Christmas celebrations. And we need to get back to celebrating Christmas during Christmas, during the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany. And we need to get back too, to celebrating Epiphany as it should be celebrated. Not simply as the day when we can finally take the Christmas Trees and Cribs down, and ‘get back to normal’, but as the great feast of the Church it is and always should be.
And Epiphany is a great feast of the Church. The visit of the Magi to the Christ-child marks the revelation of Christ to the Gentiles and so it marks the day when we, who were once not God’s people, realised that God had offered us the chance to become his people. And we become God’s people by recognising who the child born in Bethlehem really is and following the example of the Magi in coming to him, offering our gifts to him and worshipping him.
Of course we don’t have to offer the exact same gifts to Jesus as the Magi did and we can’t offer any gifts to Jesus in the same way they did anyway because Jesus isn’t physically here on earth now as he was then. But we know what their gifts were, and we can offer to Jesus what their gifts symbolised. Gold, a gift fit for a king. And we can offer Jesus a gift fit for a king by treating him as our King, by listening to his words and obeying them as commands. Frankincense, an offering to God. We can offer Jesus that kind of gift by treating him as our God, by treating him as though he not only has power over us in this life, but in the next life too. As though he has power over our lives both now and in eternity, power over us body and soul. And myrrh, a gift for healing and embalming the dead. And we can offer this kind of gift to Jesus by turning to him in prayer for healing in our lives and in faith that he will heal us in this life and raise us to eternal life when this life comes to an end. So we can all offer Jesus the gifts of the Magi by recognising him as our King, our God and our Saviour, and treating him as all these things. But there’s more to the example of the Magi than offering these gifts.
I think one of the ways, perhaps the main way, in which we all fail to live up to the example of the Magi is in our lack of commitment. In the last verse of the Christmas Carol, In the Bleak Mid-winter, we find these words;
What can I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb;
if I were a wise man I would do my part,
yet what I can I give him: give my heart.
And to give our heart to Jesus means to give him everything, just as the Magi gave Jesus much more than gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. They put their all into searching for him and finding him. They looked for signs and found a star. We think that they probably came from Persia, modern day Iran, and so the journey to Bethlehem would have taken them about two months. But we know from Herod’s questioning of them that it had been about two years between the Magi first seeing the star and arriving at Jerusalem, so it was a journey a long time in the planning. The fact that they went to Jerusalem means that, when they set off, they weren’t even sure exactly where to go. And after having spent so long travelling to Jerusalem, only to find they’d gone to the wrong place and still had further to travel, they didn’t give up, they set off again. And in spite of the fact that they’d been told by Herod, a king who seems to have had no qualms whatsoever about doing away with anyone who crossed him, to return to Jerusalem and tell him where the child was, they didn’t because they knew that Herod’s stated wish to worship the child was a lie.
How many of us are so committed to Jesus? How often do we miss opportunities to meet Jesus or to allow him to enter our lives simply because we’re not looking for him in our lives? How often do we dither about doing something or going somewhere in connection with our faith? And if you think people don’t do that, try to organise a pilgrimage! I’ve been doing that for over twenty years now and I’ve never yet taken all the people who, at one time or another, have told me they want to go, or even are going to go. I want to go but the dates aren’t convenient, it’s too far ahead to plan for, the journey’s too long, I’ll go if I can have an en-suite room, if I can travel with this person, if I don’t have to travel with that person. And so the list goes on. But it’s not just when it comes to making that kind of journey that we dither. How many times do we miss going to church on a Sunday or other day of obligation because we’ll have to make a bit more effort than usual to go? If we’re away from home for work or on holiday, for example, and we can’t go to the church we usually go to there will be a church, or perhaps a few churches that we could go to but how many of us actually take the trouble to go and find one?
And how easily are we put off by what people say and do and how often do we use what others say and do as an excuse for not doing what we know we should be doing? The Covid-19 lockdown that forced us to close our churches is almost five years ago now, but how many people are still using Covid as an excuse for not coming to church? In this benefice the churches stayed open until we were told we had to close them, and we reopened them as soon as we could. But how many churches seemed to use Covid as an excuse to remain closed long after they could have re-opened? One of the most appalling things I heard with regard to this was from a priest who said that the churches should not reopen because that gives people the message that we in the Church think things are back to normal and they’re not. So we should keep the churches closed so that we can identify with the brokenness of the world. But by that reasoning surely we should never open the churches, ever, because when is the world anything but broken in some way? If a member of our congregation can’t come to church because they’re ill and in hospital, does that mean we should suspend services until they’re well enough to join us in church again? If a church in Ukraine, for example, is bombed to destruction, does that mean we should close our church until that church is rebuilt and reopened for worship?
The words of In the Bleak Mid-winter urge us to emulate the part of the Wise Men by giving our hearts to Jesus. They urge us to do as the Wise Men did and show our full commitment in looking for Jesus, searching for him in our lives and in worshipping him as our King, our God and our Saviour. The Feast of the Epiphany reminds us of what they did and so it should remind us of what we need to do. But it can’t do that if we don’t treat this feast as it should be treated. The Feast of the Epiphany can’t remind us of these things if we treat it as little more than a reminder that it’s time to take our Christmas decorations down and get back to normal. So let’s treat it as it once was treated as the culmination of our celebration of Christmas, the time when we realise just who the babe of Bethlehem really is, our King, our God and our Saviour whose birth gives us the opportunity to be God’s people.
Amen.
Propers for the Epiphany of the Lord, 5th January 2025
Entrance Antiphon
Behold, the Lord, the Mighty One, has come;
and kingship is in his grasp, and power and dominion.
The Collect
O God,
who on this day revealed your Only Begotten Son to the nations by the guidance of a star.
Grant in your mercy that we, who already know you by faith,
may be brought to behold the beauty of your sublime glory.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
The Readings
Isaiah 60:1-6
Psalm 72:1-2, 7-8, 10-13
Ephesians 3:2-3, 5-6
Matthew 2:1-12
Post Communion
Go before us with heavenly light, O Lord,
always and everywhere,
that we may perceive with clear sight, and revere with true affection,
the mystery in which you have willed us to participate.
Though Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 