Seeker

A Prayer For the Feast of the Epiphany Lord God, the bright splendour whom the nations seek; may we who with the wise men have been drawn by your light discern the glory of your presence in your Son, the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ our Lord. (Common Worship Post Communion Prayer for The Epiphany) 6 January is the Feast of the Epiphany, the start of the Epiphany season . Today's focus is the wise men who brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the infant Jesus. Their story is in Matthew 2: 1-12 . Matthew tells us that when these mysterious seekers with their toddler-unfriendly gifts found the house where Jesus was, they were "overwhelmed with joy" .  Christine Sine in 'Epiphany - An Invitation to Follow Jesus' suggests moving into the season of Epiphany  "with joy and gratitude, savouring each moment God gives us as a precious gift." Has anyone any simple suggestions of ways to do that?  For previous posts on the Epi...

Have you heard the story about the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson? As a young boy he used to watch the lamplighter lighting the village street lights below his house. He would say to his mother, "here comes the man who punches holes in the darkness" . This is one of the best pictures of epiphany that I know. Epiphanies are when we experience a hole punched in darkness so we see something or someone in a new light. What we didn't or couldn't see before is suddenly revealed to us. We all have those moments from time to time. Sometimes such moments are life-changing. For Christians, today 6 January is the Feast of the Epiphany , a celebration of God punching a hole in the darkness. The story of the wise men from the east who were led by a star to find and worship a baby in Bethlehem is well-known. They represent all of us who were not there when Jesus was born but are drawn to him by whatever light we are given. For those who find him life can never be t...

Today is the Feast of the Epiphany. I've put away the Christmas decorations, made Christmas gift labels for next year from this year's Christmas cards and walked round the village in unusually deep snow. Now, watching the snow falling again, I think of those mysterious wise men, 'magi' from the east who opened their treasure chests to give the infant Jesus the toddler-unfriendly gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Today's cold reminds me of the poem by T.S. Eliot about the visit of the magi in which one of the wise men reflects on the long hard journey he made with the others many years before and what exactly it was that they found - birth of death? Here it is: Journey of the Magi   'A cold coming we had of it,   just the worst time of the year  for a journey,   and such a long journey:   The ways deep and the weather sharp,   the very dead of winter.   And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,   lying down...