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Last Sunday we kept the Feast of the Epiphany, the revelation of Christ to the gentiles as represented by the Magi. Today we jump three decades in Jesus’ life to the turning point in his adult existence – his baptism. We know very little about Jesus’ childhood, adolescence or his twenties save that he was recognised by Simeon and Anna in the Temple as a baby and that when a little older stayed behind in Jerusalem in that same Temple, engaging in dialogue with the learned, causing his parents no end of worry.

Then we hear nothing until the day of his baptism and what a momentous day that was because it was at this point in Jesus’ story that we are given insight by God to whom Jesus really is. God proclaimed from heaven:

“This is my Son, my beloved, on whom my favour rests.” Matthew 3:17

This was also the moment that Jesus is inspired and motivated to begin his preaching and healing ministry; sharing the love of God and calling God’s people back to their Creator. Through his baptism Jesus is catapulted daily into our lives, just as much as he entered the lives of those around him during his earthly life and ministry. Jesus’ baptism was a new start for him, a significant turning point in his life and if our own baptisms echo his, then, through baptism we too have been given the opportunity of a new start. It is appropriate, today, that we remember our own baptisms as well as celebrating Jesus’. As such we should do so with thanksgiving for the ways in which our baptism into Christ has changed our lives and the world. In doing so we need, however, to look both backwards and forwards, for all of us, like Jesus, need to know where we have come from before we can go forward. One of the images that work for me, especially at this time of the year, is that of the double faced Roman god ‘Janus’. Janus, after whom January is named, is the god who it was believed stood at the gate of the year looking backwards into the old year and forward into the new. He is able to both assess what has gone before and to predict what might come in the future and he does it simultaneously. We have to look at Jesus’ life before and after his baptism to read the signs that tell us who he is and to follow his ways into the future. When Jesus was born he fulfilled the promises of the prophets, something the Magi acknowledged by calling him their king. When he was baptised he became aware of what he had to do and how his life to that point had led him to that new start. In doing so he submitted to God’s will and promptings and began the ministry that would ultimately lead him to death, but would open the path of new life for us. All of us can make new starts and begin to follow new paths, at any time in our lives and at any age, and the New Year is as good a time as any to do so. What resolutions have you made this New Year? What changes do you want to make in your life that will set you along a new path? There may be many decisions that you have already made but it will be the ones that stick and that you really follow through, that are the important ones. Perhaps these are the ones that you have been guided by God to make. If your resolutions flag or fail then they are not the ones that you need to be following, they are not the right paths for you to take. I like to think of these paths through life that we follow as a pilgrimage - a daily journey closer to God and nearer to eternal life in him. Like all pilgrimages or journeys there will be stopping off points along the way; times to rest, to learn from, or just to admire the view. There will also be opportunities to reassess the path taken and to move off again, sometimes in a new direction. As individuals we are all called to pause for a moment and to look back over the last few years and to try and discern where we are called to go in the future. Where does God want us to go next? We can begin to answer this; through prayer, debate, discussion and through dreaming. Who knows what we will hear as we seek to listen to God’s ‘still, small voice’. I find that exciting and I hope that you do too ‘Take heart and be bold’ could be our watchwords this year and who knows where any of us will be this time next year. Just as Jesus’ life changed at his baptism so will our lives change this year as we continue to follow his ways and to put into practice those things he calls us to do but we do this with hope and trust in Jesus Christ, our Lord. As the old hymn says: All my hope on God is founded; He doth still my trust renew. Me through change and chance he guideth, Only good and only true. God unknown, He alone Calls my heart to be his own. If we go forward in hope and trust, we ‘shall not fall’ for the one thing we can be assured of is that we have a faithful God, who keeps his promise to loves us always and who never wants anything but the best for us. At times things may be difficult but we will never be left alone by God and hopefully we will also be supported by friends and loved ones too. As Jesus’ life shows us, the pilgrimage of life is not always easy but we will be supported by others if we let them and as the hymn goes on to say: Christ doth call One and all: Ye who follow shall not fall.

I remember as a child in Sunday School, a very long time ago, singing a hymn which begins with the verse

“Wise men seeking Jesus

Traveled from afar

Guided on their journey

By a beauteous star”

It was written in the 19^th century by a Methodist minister, James East, who served for a time in Glasgow. It was some years later that it occurred to me that James East had oversimplified the story. The Wise Men found Jesus but when they set out on their journey, they had no idea that they were seeking for him in particular or, indeed, that the climax of their journey would be an encounter with the divine. Their study of the stars had convinced them that a child had been born who was destined to the King of the Jews, so they headed for Jerusalem, the principal city of Judea. That was the logical place to pose the question:

“Where is the child who has been born King of the Jews?”

King Herod, frightened when he heard what these foreign visitors were asking, put what sounds like a similar question to the Jewish religious authorities.

“He inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born.”

Herod was nominally of the Jewish faith, and had grasped the possibility that the Wise Men were speaking about the coming of the Messiah, but his knowledge of the religious tradition into which he had been born was slight. It’s easy to imagine the Chief Priests and Scribes sighing inwardly at the king’s ignorance, perhaps exchanging eye-rolls and then answering aloud:

“In Bethlehem of Judaea”

while mentally adding “As you would know if you ever bothered to read the scriptures”.

So the question “where?” is answered. Herod, alarmed at the birth of a potential rival to his power, encourages the Wise Men to find the child and to report back to him, concealing his murderous motive behind a mask of piety, pretending that he too wishes to pay homage to the child. 

The Wise Men also act on what they have been told, though they almost certainly had little understanding of the concept of the Messiah. Yet they experienced the Epiphany. They hadn’t been sure where to look and the family they encountered when they arrived in Bethlehem was far from royal.  Yet they recognized the presence of the divine a powerless infant.

The key question posed by the Epiphany Gospel is where does God disclose Godself? The hymn writer James East answered that question in three ways, all of them helpful. For him, the beauties of the natural world were a place where Jesus might be encountered by those who are thankful for God’s creation.  

Prayerful souls may find him

By our quiet lakes,

Meet him on our hillsides

When the morning breaks.

James East’s second answer hints at worship and prayer as a place of divine presence and disclosure. We’re invited to imagine a packed kirk or chapel on the east coast.

Fisherman talk with him

By the great North Sea

As of old disciples

Did in Galilee

And for us a vital place of divine presence and close encounter is in the Eucharist.

James East’s third answer, once again an oblique hint, is that we encounter Jesus outwith the church. We encounter Him in other people. 

In our fertile cornfields
While the sheaves are bound,
In our busy markets
Jesus may be found.

Jesus himself taught that in meeting the needs of others we are encountering Him. Much later in Matthew’s Gospel He paints a word picture of the last judgement for his disciples. Those who will be reckoned as righteous, He tells them, are those who have fed the hungry, given drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked and visited those who were sick or in prison. They will be told “Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

Such moments are themselves epiphanies, moments when (somewhat like the Wise Men) we are called to recognise something of the divine in the face of a fellow human being; someone made in the image and likeness of God. And such epiphanies are a call to loving action

A little over 500 years ago, Bishop Lancelot Andrewes preached a Christmas Day sermon on the theme of Epiphany. He challenged his hearers to remember that a religion which does not change us and motivate us to live and act differently, is a very shallow thing. He wasn’t saying that seeing and contemplation are unimportant. Rather he was asking his congregation questions:

What will your response to the Epiphany be? What will recognition of the divinity of Christ move you to do for others?

In his own words:

“With the body, no less than with the soul God is to be worshipped.”.

Prayer for a New Year

As the dawn breaks on a new year, let us give thanks for all we hold dear: our health, our family and our friends. Let us release our grudges, our anger and our pains. Let us live each day in the most loving ways, the God-conscious way. Let us serve all who are in need, regardless of race, colour or creed. Let us keep God of our own understanding in our hearts and to chant God's name each day. Let us lead the world from darkness to light, from falsehood to truth and from wrong to right. Let us remember that we are all one, embracing all, discriminating against none. May your year be filled with peace, prosperity and love. May God's blessings shower upon you and bestow upon each of you a bright, healthy and peaceful new year, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Jesus said to them “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49)

Four days ago we celebrated the Nativity of Our Lord. The birth of the baby Jesus, to Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem. This Sunday our gospel reading moves us quickly on to when Jesus is visiting Jerusalem with his parents for the Feast of the Passover. We are not told anything about the intervening years. That is left to our imagination.  We are however specifically told that Jesus is now twelve years old. This is extremely important for our understanding of this narrative.

It was laid down by the law that every adult male Jew who lived within fifteen miles of Jerusalem must attend that Passover.  A Jewish boy became a man when he was twelve years of age. 

When his parents returned Jesus lingered behind. It was not through carelessness that they did not miss him. Usually women in a caravan started out much earlier than the men for they travelled more slowly. The men started later and travelled faster. The two sections would not meet until the encampment was reached. No doubt Joseph thought he was with Mary and Mary thought that he was with Joseph. 

Imagine what it must have been like for them. They returned to Jerusalem in haste to begin searching for him.

For the Passover season, it was the custom for the Sanhedrin to meet in public in the Temple court to discuss - in the presence of all who wished to listen - religious and theological questions. I expect that Jesus was listening to the discussions, asking questions and searching for knowledge and understanding. 

What follows next is fundamental in the life of Jesus. “Your father and I” said Mary, “have been looking for you anxiously”. “Did you not know” said Jesus “that I must be in my Father’s house?” What is striking is how very gently but very definitely Jesus takes the name of “Father” from Joseph and gives it to God. At some time Jesus must have discovered his own unique relationship to God. It is most unlikely that he would have known this when he was a child in the manager or a baby at his mother’s side. 

As the years rolled on we can only surmise that Jesus began to have such thoughts. At this his first Passover with manhood dawning there came a blaze of realisation that he was in some unique and mysterious way the Son of God. 

But let us not forget our other readings today which can easily be overlooked. 

In Colossians we are told to “clothe” ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and above all with love, which “binds everything together in perfect harmony”.

There is another young man in our Old Testament reading, Samuel. All we are told is that he was ministering before the Lord and that his mother used to make him a little robe and take it to him each year when she and her husband went up to offer the yearly sacrifice – not unlike that which Jesus and his family did. The thought of Hannah, his mother, year by year, remembering how big her son had been last year, making a robe a bit bigger and allowing room for another year’s growth, is so touching.  It speaks of love, tenderness and longing.  She has sacrificed this first son, Samuel, so that she can have others, but he is still her son. 

Now what does this remind us of?

“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my saviour…”

You can get over-familiar with sacred texts. They can become like unrestored old master paintings, covered in a dark brown layer of varnish – beautiful in a safe, decorous way; familiar, unchallenging. I’d like to remove a bit of the varnish this morning, by focusing on that word “rejoices”. It is the usual translation of a Greek word which is a whole lot stronger and gutsier than “rejoices” might suggest. This is not restrained, dignified rejoicing – this is the letting out of a yell of joy, an unrestrained cry of exultation. “My spirit whoops for joy at God my Saviour”. And suddenly we see not a serenely meek Raphael Madonna, but a big-hearted, full-blooded teenage girl shouting “Yay!” and punching the air in delight. 

And I use the word “Yay!” advisedly, for the reason that we focus on Mary when we celebrate the fourth Sunday in Advent is that she said “Yes” to God, was willing to accept the consequences and received the Grace and the strength which empowered her to say “yay!”

That is astonishing, when you consider Mary’s position at that moment in her life. Mysteriously pregnant in a society in which women who conceived children out of wedlock risked being stoned to death. Uncertain of the future, not yet knowing the strange, terrible, heartbreakingly surprising dance that her unborn son would lead her in – to the foot of the cross, to the empty tomb and beyond. Yet she speaks as though God’s saving work is already accomplished – piling past tense upon past tense…

“He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.” 

That repeated use of the past tense offers us a clue as to why Mary was able to say a full-throated “yes” to God’s purposes for her. She had been brought up in the Jewish faith. She was practiced in prayer. She was familiar with the Hebrew scriptures – the Magnificat riffs on the Song of Hannah in the first book of Samuel and also on Psalm 113 which includes this verse:

“He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap…”

This context of faith and devotion helped her to assent to God’s purpose for her. It was a context of faith in which it was possible to tell her story to Elizabeth knowing that she would get a sympathetic hearing rather than condemnation and scornful rejection.

That is the context that we seek to sustain in this place, aware that our beliefs and practices are not as widely shared in this country as they were sixty years ago. While we aren’t in the perilous situation in which Mary found herself as a result of saying yes to God’s calling, we do live in a culture where religious belief attracts scorn, ridicule and critical hostility. Yet there are signs that the secularist tide is turning. One of the outstanding podcasts of 2024 was by the Christian commentator Justin Brierley. It’s called The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God and it’s based on a book with the same title. It explores the ways in which the militant atheism of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and others which was very influential in the aftermath of the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11 has given way to a more thoughtful and receptive attitude to religious belief and the fact that Christianity is attracting new converts among the educated classes in Britain and the USA who have previously poured scorn on it.

This is encouraging news for us as we seek to share the Gospel; to be “yea sayers” in a culture which still has plenty of “nay sayers” but which is now becoming more receptive to what we have to share. 

Mary’s full-hearted “yes” to God and the “yay” of delight that she expressed in the Magnificat were the responses of an exceptional and saintly person to a supremely important calling. The lesson for us is that her “yes” and her “yay” were possible because her knowledge of scripture and her prayerful life had made her receptive to God’s calling. Those means of cultivating receptivity – prayer and reading the Bible - are open to us. To say “yes” to them can enable us to discern and respond to God’s calling and say “yes” to that. And that in turn will make it possible for our “yes” to become a “yay”.