Epiphany

‘Wise men from the east came to Jerusalem asking where is he who has been born King of the Jews?’.... ‘When they reached the place they fell down and worshipped’.

There was a report on the news some  time ago of a man aged 102 who is leaving Britain to begin a new life in New Zealand. 102 –What a journey.  What courage. It was noticeable that a question not asked by the journalists interviewing him was: ‘What sort of a future are you looking forward to’? I guess there could only be one answer: ‘Short’. But he did say that he and his wife were looking forward to the journey because they were going by boat and it would take six weeks – that journey would be a time to rest and take it easy.

Journeys aren’t always like that are they? Journeys can also be exhilarating and exciting full of new and unexpected experiences. You can learn new things on a journey. Meet new and different people.  See things never seen before. But journeys can also be hard and frustrating. Never ending uphill struggles. Sometimes hazardous even dangerous. Whatever a journey is like it has an end – a destination. You are journeying somewhere.

Today it is the wise men and their journey that we must think about as we celebrate this Feast of the Epiphany. They journeyed from the East - from a far off place. They were foreigners, outsiders, Gentiles. And that’s the point. This child Jesus, born of the House of David, born the King of the Jews, is more, much more than that. Jesus is God’s gift of himself to the whole world to those from a far off place. The climax of Matthew’s story of Jesus’ birth is the moment when the magi from the east reach the end of their journey in Bethlehem and fall down in worship to the infant King. All the world is called to worship when God gives himself to us. The wise men were drawn to worship; they were drawn to the presence of God himself, in a child, at a time, and in a place. In their journey and in their worship those three mysterious figures from the east blundering about Jerusalem and stumbling their way to Bethlehem represent all of us. They represent you and me and everybody else on our journey to seek and to find God in our time and in our place. They represent God’s call to everyone. The spiritual longing of everyone, to journey, to seek and to find God in our lives. The journey into knowing God’s presence, feeling his love, beholding his glory and in that presence and in that glory to worship him.

What sort of a journey did the magi have I wonder? Matthew doesn’t tell us very much. In his poem ‘The Journey of the Magi’ T. S. Eliot paints rather a bleak picture of that journey: ‘A cold coming we had of it, just the worst time of the year for a journey and such a long journey.....’ He characterises the wise men as regretting the journey which they had begun. They longed for the easy life they had left behind them: ‘The summer palaces and silken girls.’ Now all they had was ‘the camel men cursing and grumbling with the night fires going out and the lack of shelter and the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly and the villages dirty and charging high prices’. And there were those who whispered convincingly ‘that this was all folly.’ But, despite all of that, not only did they persevere and continue but they would not have missed it....... ‘And I would do it again’. And this journey transformed them. They would never be the same again. ‘But set down this. Set down this: were we led all that way for Birth or Death?’ ‘There was a birth certainly.... this birth was hard and bitter agony for us, like Death our death’. ‘We returned to our places, these kingdoms, but no longer at ease here with an alien people clutching their gods.......’

T. S Eliot is not the easiest poet to interpret but I think he’s talking about our journey of faith not just the journey of the Magi and he’s saying this: ‘Once you sense the Lord’s call to him no matter how hard the journey, and it is often hard, yet you have to continue. ‘And the end of the journey is to know the presence of God and to fall down before him and it’s like a death but a glorious death into a fuller life - and life can never be the same again.

We are talking about the journey of faith. We are talking about the journey towards God. We are talking about the journey into life with God. We are talking about the journey into the life that God wants to share with each and every one of us. The magi were led by a star. That’s how they began. With God calling them from the natural world. But that was only the beginning and it led them to the wrong place, the wrong king, to the wrong kind of king. It was only from the scriptures that they found the real king sent from God. Guided by the scriptures they persevered and they found him and they fell down in worship. The true homage of those who  find and beheld the love of God in Our Lord Jesus Christ.

How did our journey begin? Where are we on the journey of faith? What or who set us out upon that journey? Where are we on that journey? Is the going tough, arduous and uphill? Are we tempted to listen to the siren voices telling us that ‘this is all folly?’ Or is the journey full of excitement alive with the presence of the light and the glory of God?

New Year is a good time to take stock and to look back upon your own journey of faith. How far have I come?  What have I learned about myself and about God?  What do I see more clearly? What has helped me and what has hindered me on my journey towards God? The journey is yours and no one else’s. Just yours.

And what is the purpose of our journey? Well the Wise men have shown us. Our goal and our chief aim is to worship in the presence of the glory of the God who has been made known to us in Our Lord Jesus Christ. That is what the journey of faith is to lead to. That is what we are called to – with the Magi that is what we are led to and drawn to. That is why you are here at this moment on your journey.

T. S Eliot wrote another poem about the Spiritual Journey. In ‘Little Gidding’ from the Four Quartets he spoke of the end and the purpose of our journeying towards God:

‘If you came this way, taking any route, starting from anywhere

At Any time or at any season, It would always be the same:

You would have to put off sense and motion.

You are not here to verify, Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity, or carry report.

You are here to kneel  Where prayer has been valid’.