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“Come” he replied to two of John-the-Baptist’s followers; ‘and you will see.”    John 1:39

Do you remember those times, when you were a child, when you were so excited  about some discovery that you had made that you just had to get someone else to share in your excitement as well? Even if like Nathaniel, they took some persuading.

In John’s Gospel account of Jesus’ calling of his disciples you can still sense the excitement of those first disciples. I have this sense of Andrew almost dragging his brother Simon to meet Jesus; and then Simon, who had initially been reluctant to meet the wandering preacher being bowled over when he realised who the preacher actually was - and then he is totally shocked when Jesus calls him ‘petros’ - the rock! His rock!

Andrew had seen who Jesus was and led Simon to see him too. Can you imagine their excitement in coming face to face with the promised Messiah? We get the sense of this excitement in John’s writing but what would it have been like to meet Jesus in real life? And, what was it that these men saw in him?

John uses a strange phrase to describe Jesus; ‘The Lamb of God’ (1:36), a phrase that today we hardly notice and if we do, our thoughts are most likely of fluffy wee white or occasionally black or brown creatures happily gambolling in Springtime fields. A pretty but hardly powerful image. The image John is trying to convey is certainly not fluffy, his is of sacrificial offering.

Ritual slaughter or sacrifice was a big part of the Hebrew religious practice. Lambs without ‘spot or stain’ were used as offerings to God. When the Jews sacrificed and animal they would first place their hands on the animals head, then take them away as they slit its throat. They believed that as they placed their hands on the animals’s head their sins passed into the creature and thus when it was sacrificed it carried or took away their sins. Hence the meaning of the Angus Dei in the Eucharist:

“Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.”

Ritual sacrifice was big business in Jesus’ day and when John-the-Baptist refers to him as the ‘Lamb of God’ ordinary folk would have instantly recognised what he meant. However, they would not have expected the phrase to be associated with a human being, least of all the long promised Messiah. John’s picture of Jesus is a harsh one. The salvation he comes to offer us comes at a great price, his life in atonement for OUR sins.

The Russian author Dostoyevsky encapsulates what this means in his novel ‘The Brothers Karamazov’:

“The righteous man departs, but his light remains. People are always saved after the death of him who came to save them. Men do not accept those whom they have tortured to death.”

Quite what those called to be disciples expected to see when they were challenged to ‘turn and see the Lamb of God’  we do not know but what we do know is that they saw in Jesus something that them follow him. They saw enough to desire to be taught by him, to give up everything for him, to bring others to listen to him and to be (eventually) prepared to die for him, as well.

Andrew tells Simon to ‘see the Messiah’  and like the phrase ‘the Lamb of God’  both phrases would have been mind blowing to first century Jews. In the 21st century these words have lost much of their power, perhaps we need to recapture something of what we have lost and give back to Jesus the amazingness of who He actually is and what He came to do.

This morning’s Gospel reading is one full of hope, full of potential. It speaks of new life, fresh starts, new beginnings and it also challenges us to take its message seriously; to proclaim again who Jesus is and what He means for us and for our salvation. If we can only encourage the world to take Jesus seriously we might actually be able to live in a better world.

These days I often turn for entertainment to podcasts and to crime series on television. The relevance of these leisure habits to the Feast of the Epiphany will be made clear in a moment.

One of my favourite podcasts is The Rest is History and it is presented by two distinguished historians, Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook. Just before Christmas they did a two-part presentation about Jesus. Tom Holland demolished the absurd but now surprisingly widespread view that Jesus didn’t even exist, and they both attempted to assess which bits of the Gospels are historically reliable and which are what might be called pious embroidery. It was at this point that I took issue with them, for today’s Gospel was dismissed as pious embroidery. That may be what most New Testament scholars think, but there’s a case for its authenticity. I thought Tom Holland was going to make it when he explained “the criterion of embarrassment” – the idea that anything in the Gospels which would have been embarrassing to the early Christian church is almost certainly authentic.

The Magi are an excellent example of “the criterion of embarrassment”. The Greek word that Matthew uses – Magoi – can mean “Astrologers” or “Sorcerers” or “Magicians.”  There are two other Magoi in the New Testament, both in The Acts of the Apostles. One of them, called Simon, is baptized but only after he has repented of his evil ways. The other, Elymas, is roundly condemned by St Paul as a “son of the devil”, “an enemy of all righteousness, full of deceit and villainy” and is then struck blind. So those who doubt whether Wise Men really did visit Jesus, need to remember that Magoi were generally regarded by the early Christian community as disreputable and unreliable characters and that a visit by Magoi to the Christ child is not something that early Christians would have been inclined to make up. In early Mediaeval times there was indeed embarrassment about the Wise Men, and they were transformed into Kings in an attempt to give them greater status and an air of reliability.

So much for the podcasts, what about the crime series? Epiphany is all about the revealing of mystery – that’s why we heard those verses from Ephesians Chapter 3 which speak of “the mystery of Christ”, a mystery not made known to former generations. Just now we are catching up with the TV series Endeavour and grateful to Ian Lawson for recommending it. Like all good detective stories, it sustains the mystery until the climax while scattering clues so that the revelation as to whodunnit is surprising yet doesn’t seem contrived; offering the sort of surprise which makes you say both “Yes, of course…!” and “Why didn’t I see that coming?”

It’s easy to imagine the surprise of the Wise Men when it turned out that the new king was not the son of a current monarch but a baby born to an apparently obscure mother in a small provincial town. Yet it was a satisfying surprise – when they got to Bethlehem, they had no doubt that they were encountering the special baby whose birth had been marked by the rising and moving of the star, and they had no hesitation in acknowledging the kingship of Jesus by presenting the costly gifts which they had brought with them. The baby was not where they had expected him to be, not whom they had expected him to be, and yet they recognized him for who he really was. They experienced that special moment of thinking “Yes, of course…!”

Their Epiphany surprise was made possible by their study of the heavens, their willingness to undertake an arduous journey and their encounters with Herod and with the chief priests and scribes who knew the answer to the question “Where will the Messiah be born?” but who were expecting a different kind of Messiah – a liberator who would free them from the rule of the Romans and usher in the golden age of which the prophets, including Isaiah in today’s reading, had spoken. Most of them did not, either then or later, see in Jesus the fulfillment of those prophecies – and the adult Jesus, the challenging travelling preacher and healer whose earthly life ended on a cross – did not fit the picture they had of the way in which God would put everything right.

It’s easy to understand why, then and now, most people don’t get Jesus. Darkness still covers the earth, and we have moved forward into a new year in times of violence and uncertainty. Matthew’s Gospel acknowledges that. It is the most grown-up, the least sentimental of the Christmas stories, for it goes on to tell how Herod ordered the massacre of the Innocents and Mary, Joseph and Jesus became refugees.

Yet reading it in faith we are able to say “Oh yes, of course! This is how God comes to us and seeks us out…” Not as a tyrant demanding absolute obedience, but open to the best and the worst of human responses. The Epiphany mystery is not just a whodunnit, though the recognition that Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us, is central to it. The Epiphany mystery is also a Whatareyougoingtodoaboutit?”

The writer of the letter to the Ephesians explains that the whole point of the church is to be an Epiphany Church:

“…to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things”

There’s a technical theological term for that – it is “participatory eschatology” – in plain English, that means how we as the church play our part in God’s healing and redeeming work.  St Augustine of Hippo summed that up splendidly in one of his best one-liners:

“God without us will not; we without God cannot.”

“God without us will not” - because God is not the authoritarian tyrant some folk believe in and other folk reject. Rather God wants us to respond freely and lovingly.

“…we without God cannot” - because we’re human and broken, because our vision is clouded and our searching, like the searching of the Wise Men, doesn’t often take us straight to the right place – and that’s the whole point of Christmas and Epiphany, God becoming visible to short-sighted humanity, and showing us a better way.

May God bless you and yours this coming year.

I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see

If I was to ask you from what hymn the above line comes from, I expect that you would immediately and confidently tell me it was from “Amazing Grace” written by John Newton (1725-1807).  Perhaps not so well known is that Sunday 1^st January 2023, marks the 250^th anniversary of that much loved hymn. John Newton penned the famous words “Amazing Grace” for a sermon for his 1773 New Year’s Service at the Church of St Peter and St Paul,  Olney, some 60 miles north of London.  It has been sung around the world at so many different occasions and reflects so much of our own humanity over the years.  It identifies with our personal experiences which many of us can relate to. Of being lost; of being blind; of being fearful; of facing many dangers, toils and snares as well as offering us hope for living, not only now, but also for eternity.

In his letter to the Archdiocese of Munich written on 8^th February 2022, Pope Benedict XVI wrote “quite soon, I shall find myself before the final judge of my life. Even though, as I look back, I can have great reason for fear and trembling, I am nonetheless of good cheer for I trust firmly that the Lord is not only the just judge, but also the friend and brother who himself has already suffered for my shortcomings, and is thus also my advocate. It grants me knowledge and indeed friendship, with the judge of my life, and thus allows me to pass confidently through the dark door of death”.

In his book of reflections and poetry entitled “Barefoot Ways” for Advent, Christmas and Epiphany, Stephen Cherry the Dean of King’s College, Cambridge writes about time which is very pertinent for today. He comments that “Waiting is a fundamental aspect of Christian living. Indeed, you might even say that the whole of Christian spirituality and ethics is about what you do while you wait. But waiting is not about being passive. It is about acting in a way that is realistic about the actual capacity we have to made a difference.  Waiting is always a reminder of the extent to which we cannot control things as much as we would like. The Christian calendar exists to make the point that all time belongs to God. It is to say that whatever else we think we can do, we cannot hasten or shorten God’s timing. Accepting our limits is the first lesson in Christian spirituality. It’s not the last word, but it is a word of Advent. The message is that time, like power, is in God’s hands. Our task is to learn not how to take control, but how to tell God’s time and to respond to God’s power and grace”.

As we step out into this New Year, may we, like John Newton, be able to say “Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home”.

In the story book; ‘Jesus’ Christmas Party’, a particular favourite of mine, the main character is a somewhat harassed and grumpy inn keeper.He keeps getting woken up in the middle of the night by various visitors who are either seeking a room in the already over filled inn or who come to visit the folk in the stable. The inn keeper has a catch phrase of ‘round the back’ which he shouts at those who disturb his sleep. When the heavenly host appear and start singing it drives the inn keeper to distraction and his anger boils over and he storms off ‘ round the back’ to see what is going on. He is loud and noisy and is ‘ssshhed’ by those present as he will wake the baby. This revelation takes the wind our of the inn keeper’s sails as he peers into the manger. In an instant he is transformed and is delighted by the wee child lying on the straw and so excited that he rushes into the inn and wakes everyone up so that they can come and see the baby.

Nicholas Allan’s story is simple and witty but I also think powerful as it tells us of the transformative power of Jesus Christ.

Whether Jesus’ birth happened in the way the Gospel accounts tells us is less important to the fact that Jesus was actually born. Only in Luke and Matthew do we have birth narratives. In Mark there is no birth story at all - it begins with Jesus’ baptism by John as an adult. In John the story is mystical and refers to ‘The Word becoming incarnate’ without any reference to how that happened. And the two accounts by Matthew and Luke differ! In Matthew there are no shepherds on magi and in Luke no magi only shepherds. In no one account do we have the full story as we know it and if we only had one Gospel account our view of Jesus’ birth might be very different.

Because we actually have four accounts our nativity story is like a jigsaw, made up from various bits from each account that together give us an understanding greater than the sum of the various parts.

I have always quite liked that fact, once I realised that no one account has the full story. I like it because it says to me that we can’t contain God or ever fully understand God’s ways and that when we encounter Jesus - the Word made flesh, God on Earth, the human face of God (or whatever) we will like the inn keeper in the story be transformed by the meeting. Why?Because quite simply encountering God will always change one. We might not realise quite how but it does and always will.

Often, many of us struggle to get an understanding of who God is and why the world is the way it is and what our rôle in Creation actually is. But, in Jesus, we see someone like ourselves. A human being, no matter how divine he was, who lived a life like we do. Had all the pains and successes we do and loved and lost. he knew happiness and sadness and as such I think makes God easier to comprehend as we can begin the journey of revelation from a staring point we understand, being ourselves. As that exploration develops throughout our lives we daily get glimpses of the Divine in the encounters with others and God’s Creation. Those little almost unnoticeable things that can take our breath away or cheer our hearts. Things that transform who we are and how we see the world and our fellow beings.

For all of us with a faith, that transformation begins when we first encounter Jesus, be it in worship, in stories, in other people of faith. Those things which helped us to begin the journey or nourish us on the way. It is never an easy journey and at times we might doubt it all but if we continue to question and try to remain open minded Jesus will encounter us as much as we will encounter him. And, we effect those encounters when we interact with each other and spark that image of God within each of us that we are made with.

Jesus was both human and divine and we if we believe that we are all made in the image of God contain and essence of God and thus Jesus as well. An essence that we discover more and more as we explore that journey we call life.

On this Christmas Day we meet Jesus face to face as a helpless child in the manger. A could full of potential waiting to be discovered. We know his story but we can never fully know it or him, unless we journey with him and open ourselves up to be transformed by the journey we make in his presence. As the poet Wendy Cope says inter open 'Lantern Carol' :

“Ours if we will have Him.

Ours to love and keep.”

Enjoy this Christmas Day and look out for the ways in which you will be transformed in the coming year as you journey with Jesus the incarnated face of God.

Happy Christmas