Today is the Feast of the Epiphany, that Christian festival which commemorates the visit of the wise men, the Magi, to the infant Christ. This day, 6th January, sees the end of the season of Christmas; for last night was Twelfth Night. Today, the Christmas trees are taken down, the decorations are packed away for another year. So today is, in some senses, an ending; but endings are also beginnings.
Today, we celebrate that moment when Jesus Christ was manifested, revealed to the wise men. Epiphany, with a small 'e' means, according to the dictionaries, 'the manifestation of a divine reality', 'any moment of great or sudden revelation.' There is no requirement to be wise - or, indeed, a man - to experience such a moment. An epiphany can happen to each and every one of us.
Who were these wise men? Tradition says there were three of them; the Bible gives no number, though is does list three gifts. Tradition gives them names: Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar; the Bible gives no names. Tradition says they were kings; the Bible does not. So, who were they?
In the King James Version of the Bible, Matthew describes them as 'magi', a word that comes from Old Persian by way of Greek. It is specific title given to the priestly caste of Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion of Persia, modern-day Iran. As part of their religion, these priests paid particular attention to the stars, and gained a reputation for astrology that spread far beyond the borders of their land. Astrology was at the time a highly-regarded science, later giving rise to aspects of both mathematics and astronomy, as well as the modern practice of fortune-telling which goes by the same name.
These travellers, whoever they were, were led to Jesus by a light shining in the night sky. As Fr Ian reminded us a fortnight ago, on the last Sunday of Advent, we have more than enough night at this time of year, with the winter solstice falling just before Christmas. Now - though it's still a little hard to appreciate it - the days are growing longer once more; the nights are shorter; there is more light. And more light is something we all wish for, albeit in different ways. Darkness hides, but light reveals.
And as Jen reminded us on Christmas Day, in her meditation on the wonderful prologue to John's gospel, there is no greater light than the one that came into the world in that Bethlehem stable, the one that drew mysterious, gift-bearing travellers to worship at the manger.
In a little while, the choir will sing a new arrangement (by our own Ian Macdougall) of the cantata, Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern:
The text of the piece contains the line Du... hast mir mein Herz besessen which can be translated thus: you have taken possession of my heart. It reminds me of my favourite Christmas carol, Christina Rossetti's In the bleak midwinter, the very title of which conjures up the darkness of this time of year.
The choir sang In the bleak midwinter during communion at Midnight Mass. The verse I find particularly moving is this one, the final one:
There is an echo here of this morning's cantata: 'you have taken possession of my heart.' Yet what I can I give him, give my heart.
First came the shepherds. If they brought a gift for the baby, what else would it have been but a lamb? What else could they bring? And then came the wise men. They too bore gifts, sophisticated offerings as befitted their background and their learning: they brought gold, and frankincense and myrrh.
We should not read too much into the gifts themselves. Gold, frankincense and myrrh - all were appropriate gifts to offer a king, for it was a king they sought. What we should note is that they brought their best. As the shepherds would have done, had they brought a lamb.
Christina Rossetti poses a question for us all: what can we offer? What is the best we can bring before the King of Kings and Lord of Lords? What does he ask of us? The question begins to be answered for us in the final verse of the carol: Yet what I can I give him, give my heart.
To give my heart is to commit myself to another, to allow myself to be possessed by another. I would love to know what happened to the shepherds who came to the stable, and the wise men who knelt at the manger. How were their lives changed by this epiphany, this revelation of God? Did each one of them, I wonder, give his heart?
We have been told that we must love God. Twenty chapters further on in Matthew's gospel, we hear Jesus answering the lawyer's question: "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" Our Lord said, by way of reply, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment."
Loving - the giving of the heart - is essentially a divine experience. The beginning and source of all loving is the way in which God loves. When we love we are doing something which is characteristic of God. That is why our experiences of love can tell us something about God's love for us. Our experiences of love are a hint, but no more than a hint, of the way love is in God. Love belongs to God. We hold it in trust, his gift to us.
Of course, our Lord's reply to the lawyer had two halves. After telling him what the great and first commandment is, he continued, "And a second is like it. You shall love your neighbour as yourself." To give my heart to God is not enough, or rather; it is not complete in itself.
Our spiritual lives are not ways of being comfortable, of finding peace and joy for ourselves alone. Our striving for God is a personal and private matter no doubt. But the gospel command to love other people is very clear.
Obeying the command to love our neighbour is, like the command to love God, an instruction on how to function properly as a human being. We are less than human when we treat others in an inhuman manner. Matthew records how Jesus spoke about the day of judgement when the criterion to qualify for the kingdom of God was our treatment of the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the prisoner, and the stranger.
And the important point was made, namely to feed the hungry or to give drink to the thirsty, is to do it to Christ himself. In other words, by loving my neighbour - by giving my heart to others - I am loving God, I am giving my heart to Christ.
The neighbours that I am required to love are, of course, my family, my friends, those who live nearby, and those I meet at work. But is that all? A keen sense of the bond that our common humanity creates is part of that second commandment. Therefore the interests and fate of all peoples in some manner are my concern.
Some I can help; some I cannot. But to turn my back on those I can help is to turn my back on God. In this morning's psalm, after all the stuff about kings bringing gifts, there are these lines: For he shall deliver the poor when he crieth: the needy also, and him that hath no helper. How exactly does God deliver the poor... the needy... and him that hath no helper? The answer is: by his love for us that he pours into our hearts, the love that requires the response of loving others in our turn.
The gospel is radical stuff, demanding radical action. However, it is rooted, not in some political theory, but in love. It is based in the love of God and the love of neighbour. It demands that I become more human by giving my heart of God and thereby to my neighbour. It demands that I give of myself, in whatever why that I can.
Perhaps, in the year just begun, we can all be wise, all do our part, all allow our hearts to be possessed. Who knows what epiphanies we might not give to the world?
Sermon by: Jonathan Mason