Epiphany Today - the end of a blogging series

I’ve been blogging through Advent and Christmas and I end my little series today as we reach the feast of Epiphany, the day we remember wise men coming to the toddler Jesus. It’s much later in the story than most people place it. Hence, this skit has been doing the rounds! 

As we reach the end of Christmas I notice some things in the Epiphany narrative. First, to really find Jesus takes some effort and some searching. The wise men, probably astrologers, planned their journey for ages. They assumed where they would find the new king. They were wrong. The star led them to unexpected surroundings and to a very different king indeed. Maybe the story as it ends reminds us that when we think we have God all sorted, he confounds our expectations and our careful planning. And we have to think again! 

I think taking more time to read the Bible, alone, and together would be a good new year resolution. I’m astounded the Circuit I find myself in has virtually no study groups in it. I keep quietly offering to start some, but I guess I’m only around for another eight months! The joy of exploring Scripture together or in a social media group is that someone else shows us something we had never thought of in a verse or a story. The wise men were led to a new experience through being led to God’s place of good news and reign, rather than a human palace. Where is the star leading us as we look up? Do we need to alter our plans however careful they have been? 

We’ve been tonight to the Epiphany service in Peterborough Cathedral. As the Gospel from Matthew was read the last verse of the reading hit me. “And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.” Herod, representing dodgy power crazy leaders of the world in history and today, was rattled by a rival king. So he orders a vile act of genocide and we know the holy family are soon to be refugees in a foreign country. 

I was badly bullied at school. I used to have my head kicked against a wall a lot. My pants and socks would be nicked from the changing room after PE! Children can be vile! The bully wants you to retaliate. They don’t want you to ignore them or avoid them but they certainly don’t listen to reason if you choose to engage with them. The nasty letter writer or the campaign of hate mastermind often is the loser as people soon tire of their antics. Someone wise, probably reading this, taught me to respond to nasty e mails “thank you for your comments. They have been noted.”

Herod, and his like, in the end, do not win. The peaceful kingdom wrong-foots them. I find it powerful “their own country” was probably Iraq. This Epiphany sees Iraq and Iran once again volatile after President Trump’s decision to take out an Iranian military leader. If ever the world needs “another road” it is as Christmas ends on this 6th January night. 

To return by another road needs courage, conviction, and hope. To return by another road needs a firm belief we need to follow a new path to find rest and peace. To return from the Christ child by another road means we have experienced new birth, new joy, we have like shepherds and wise men seen his glory. To return from the Christ child by another road means we make a difference in our own country because of what has happened to us. To return by another road is an act of commitment to say no to death and destruction and threats and bombs, and yes to peace and love, light and love. We have to journey to find what we seek and rest in its presence and find life different.

We are currently living in a vast former vicarage with a huge staircase. My little Velvet cat who needs to know where I am at all times is getting used to the stairs having to be climbed to find me at bedtime. She is hesitant to come up but when she makes the journey she finds my lap and snuggles up and all is well. 

What difference has making the journey to incarnation made to us this season? Like wise men of old, I guess if we have really understood it and found it then we will live the rest of this already bumpy year very differently. Rebecca Long Bailey has just entered the contest to become Labour Party leader. She used tonight these words about her party but I want to use them about Christians and other people of faith having a burning desire to travel differently and hopefully with fire in their bellies. As my late beloved theological college principal Graham Slater used to say assessing worship when he turned up at places like Bacup or Atherton or Rawtenstall and you’d come out of the vestry and think “oh no, he’s here” and he’d sit with his eyes shut all service, “where was your clincher, young man?” Meaning, how are these folks going to apply the story you’ve just shared with them? 

“You are part of a courageous movement of millions of people who are ready to stake everything for a better world.” 

In the cathedral tonight for some reason I remembered this poem by Edwina Gateley: 

 We are called to say yes.

That the kingdom might break through
To renew and to transform
Our dark and groping world.

We stutter and we stammer
To the lone God who calls
And pleads a New Jerusalem
In the bloodied Sinai Straights.

We are called to say yes
That honeysuckle may twine
And twist its smelling leaves
Over the graves of nuclear arms.

We are called to say yes
That children might play
On the soil of Vietnam where the tanks
Belched blood and death.

We are called to say yes
That black may sing with white
And pledge peace and healing
For the hatred of the past.

We are called to say yes
So that nations might gather
And dance one great movement
For the joy of humankind.

We are called to say yes
So that rich and poor embrace
And become equal in their poverty
Through the silent tears that fall.

We are called to say yes
That the whisper of our God
Might be heard through our sirens
And the screams of our bombs.

We are called to say yes
To a God who still holds fast
To the vision of the Kingdom
For a trembling world of pain.

We are called to say yes
To this God who reaches out
And asks us to share
His crazy dream of love.

Having journeyed, Velvet has what she has sought. A nice lap! Our prayer surely on this Epiphany feast is that journeying, finding, celebrating and returning, we might know a peace and a strength to keep going whether this year brings.

Thank you for journeying with me these past few weeks. I continue to be amazed anyone reads this stuff and more than that, find it helpful!