Readings: Isaiah 60:1-6, Ephesians 3:1-12, Matthew 2:1-12
By now I’m sure all the
decorations are put away, the thank-you notes have been written and the diets
begun. For many, the past week has meant
returning to work, returning to school, returning to the usual routine. Christmas is over, and there are only 351 days until it comes round again. For some people, exciting things have happened
this Christmas: an engagement, a wedding, or the birth of a baby; for others Christmas
has been disastrous: an illness, a job
loss, or the death of a loved one. For
some people, Christmas has been just about shopping and parties. However your Christmas was spent, it’s not
uncommon afterwards to feel a bit low.
Walking around Tesco the
other day, I was struck by the change of mood amongst people – instead of the
atmosphere of excitement and good will that I found before Christmas, people seemed grumpier and less friendly
afterwards. I wondered, when all is said
and done, ‘what difference does Christmas make’. From the evidence I gathered at Tesco, if
Christmas changes people at all, the
effect seems to be only temporary. And
maybe that’s not too surprising. After all, bad news doesn’t stop at
Christmas. Violence continues, in
Nigeria, in Syria, in Iraq and even in this country. Worldwide, the economy is still floundering. Darkness seems to cover many places and
people. Even those of us with faith are at times beset by darkness. When we go through times of darkness what we
need to do is persevere in seeking the light of Christ. We must find our own epiphanies,
and we must seek in unexpected places:
among the poor and lowly, in the stranger; among the outcast, and in the
suffering. And we must expect and even desire
to be changed.
After Jesus was born, Magi from the east ‘saw his star’ and followed it to
Bethlehem. Without any light pollution,
the night sky must have been amazing, but the Magi had discovered an especially
bright star, and they were convinced this was the sign that the king of the Jews had been born. They were so
sure of it they travelled afar from their Eastern homeland, bringing gifts fit
for a king. They found what they were
searching for when the star stopped over the place where Jesus was, and they
bowed down to worship him.
There’s a thread running
through our readings today, and it is this:
that God has intended his light to
draw people together from far and wide,
as his glory and his grace and his accessibility to all the nations is revealed through his Son. The prophet Isaiah says ‘Nations will come to your
light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn’. In
Ephesians, Paul preaches to the
Gentiles the boundless riches of
Christ, ‘to make plain to everyone
the administration of this mystery’, that through Christ all people may approach God with freedom and confidence. And in
Matthew, the Magi represent the foreign nations – Matthew is telling us
that Jesus is for the whole world –
the reign of Christ is without limit. Jew and Gentile, wealthy and poor, oppressed
and oppressor: Jesus, the Light of the World, came for all people. That’s why
we’re here worshipping together – and that’s why, in turn, we must welcome all.
When the Magi finished
worshipping Jesus, and after being warned in a dream to stay clear of Herod,
they returned to their country by another
route. I wonder what difference the epiphany made to the Magi. I mean, when they returned home, do you
think they went back to their ‘same old routine’? No doubt they still had day-to-day
responsibilities as we all do, but they
must have been changed by their encounter with Jesus. I wonder how they were changed by their epiphany; Matthew doesn’t tell us. But then I wonder does Epiphany change us? Just as it’s tempting to think ‘another
Christmas is over and nothing has changed’, can it be true that as another epiphany comes and goes, it has changed
nothing? Surely life is nothing unless
it involves change. We may not like
it, we may be afraid of it; but perhaps like
the Magi, we, too, need to return ‘by another route’. Consider these words from Gregory the Great,
of the late 6th century, who said, “having come to know Jesus we are forbidden to return by the way we
came”. And from the early 20th
century the Scottish protestant minister Oswald Chambers, who said, ‘Beware of
spending too much time looking back at
what you once were, when God wants you to become something you have
never been’.
For Christmas to have any
meaning at all, we need to experience our own Epiphanies – we must respond to the
light we see in Christ. Signs of assurance come when we step out in faith. When the Magi found the Christ child they
were assured it had been the right thing to do. When Lesley and Sue and I started
the Lunch Club, we knew it was the right thing to do. We were anxious about it, but we stepped out
in faith. And each time we meet
with those who come to the lunch club, people usually shunned by society
because of their mental health issues, the truth in God’s word is confirmed for
us that by welcoming the stranger we’re welcoming Jesus among us –the fulfilment this brings is hard to put
into words, but we are certain that it’s right
and it’s worthwhile and it’s Kingdom stuff.
Following the light of Christ leads us into God’s mission in the
world.
So if, like me, you found
yourself a bit deflated after all the hype of Christmas, wondering what
difference Christmas makes, the solution can only be to remember to focus on the
light of Christ, and expect to find it in unexpected
places, even in the darkness of this world.
When we keep our eyes focussed on Jesus and his light, with thankfulness
for all that we’ve been given, then everything is changed: the ordinary and
the routine; our pain and our joy – all of life is changed by our faith in
Christ, who is the light of our hope in the midst of darkness. Setting off from a faraway place, the Magi
didn’t know what to expect, but no doubt their encounter with Jesus changed
them. And when we encounter Jesus, we are changed
– to walk a different and sometimes uncomfortable path – and really, we have to
accept this: we cannot go back the way that
we came – we must find another route.
