Seeker

6th January is the Feast of the Epiphany. It marks the end of the Christmas season and the start of the Epiphany season which continues to Candlemas on 2nd February. The celebration on 6th January features the strange outsiders from the east, the magi, the 'wise men'. They followed the direction of a new star, expecting to find a new special king. What they found was a toddler with his parents, in an ordinary house in Bethlehem, on what was presumably for Mary, Joseph and their son Jesus, an ordinary day. And they were overwhelmed with joy.   You can find my previous posts for Epiphany on my  Epiphany page here . Something wonderful was revealed to those mysterious strangers that the locals didn't see. They experienced an 'epiphany', an eye-opener, a moment of revelation. They glimpsed the glory of God in the face of the child Jesus. You can read the story in Matthew's gospel here and you might notice that unlike most nativity plays there are no cam...

6 January is the Feast of the Epiphany which starts the Epiphany season which follows the 12 days of Christmas which ended yesterday. The celebration on 6th January focuses on the story in Matthew's Gospel of strange outsiders from the east, the magi, people obsessed by study and interpretation of the movements of planets and stars. They followed the direction of a new star, expecting to find a new special king. What they found was a toddler with his parents, in an ordinary house in Bethlehem, on what was presumably for Mary, Joseph and their son Jesus, an ordinary day. And they were overwhelmed with joy. Something wonderful was revealed to those mysterious strangers that the locals didn't see. They experienced an 'epiphany', a moment of revelation. They glimpsed the glory of God in the face of the child Jesus. You can read the story in Matthew's gospel here and you might notice that unlike most nativity plays there are no camels, no kings, no stable and the nu...

Have you packed away your Christmas decorations or are you someone who likes to leave them until at least the end of today, the Feast of Epiphany? I took ours down this afternoon, so the house is gradually returning to its normal look. I've posted several times in the past for today's feast on this blog. If you want to take a look you can find links on my Epiphany page .  I wasn't planning to do another post today, but then I came across a story I hadn't heard before. It's about the 'Fourth Wise Man'. Traditionally there were 3 wise men, perhaps only thought of as 3 because they brought 3 expensive gifts, gold, frankincense and myrrh. The story of the visit of the magi (or wise men) to the child Jesus is only told in Matthew's Gospel and doesn't state a number. There could have been 2, 3, 4 or many more who sought the 'new-born king'. In the story I came across today, the 4th wise man set out but never got to Bethlehem with the others...

Here's a round-up of some posts  about the Feast of the Epiphany that  I think are worth reading . In Strangers Bearing Gifts Nancy Rockwell has some interesting reflections on the practicality rather than symbolic nature of the gifts given by the magi to the Christ-child: "What better than gold for buying safe passage out of Jerusalem, when so many boy babies are being killed?  What better than medicinal and funereal herbs, to be exchanged for food at a market on the way to Egypt, or for housing in Egypt, or for clothing to make them more able to blend into the surroundings in which, for two years, they will be refugees?  And when, after the death of Herod, they return to Galilee, a stored coin or two could make that journey possible." In Is Epiphany Plausible? Ian Paul does some critical reflecting on what critical scholarship has to say about Matthew's nativity account. In Epiphany Evensong at Coventry Kathryn posts a sermon in which she says that epip...