Hollowell  6th January 2008:  Feast of the Epiphany
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be always acceptable to you, O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer. 
“And when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts : gold and frankincense and myrrh”
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Well, Christmas is over for another year.  I hope you had a good one and that looking back you agree that all the effort and expense of preparation for the great day was worth it.  
Since the Feast of the Epiphany marks the arrival of the Three Wise Men in Bethlehem with their gifts for Jesus, I thought it timely to talk a little around the theme of what is, perhaps,  this most exotic event in  the Christmas story. 
And ever resourceful in my quest for knowledge, I decided first to consult that great cascading fountain of wisdom and knowledge,  the Internet.   
First into Google the search engine went the word “Magi” and up they came, a dozen of so websites bearing that name.   High on the list Magi Consulting Inc –  “solutions matching clients needs”.  Now that’s something that might go down well from the pulpit, I thought.   Everyone is looking for answers in their lives.   We need a businesslike approach. As the church notice board proclaimed “For Best Results, follow the Maker’s Instructions”.  But on closer examination I realised that Magi Inc was not really going to be much help in defining things spiritual.
Click again – it’s a bit like rubbing Aladdin’s Lamp – next is a website called “Realm of the Magi”  - described as a  “Dragonlance Fantasy Adventure , Realm of the Magi in real time with on-line role playing”.   No thanks.
So, failing to get much inspiration from Magi websites I entered the words  “Three Wise Men.” – 
Hey presto! - another dozen or so websites at my command.  How about “Mystical revelations about what goes on in my mind and my head”?  Now that might work for a television evangelist in the wilds of Montana or North Dakota, but is not, I think,  a suitable theme to pursue before churchgoers in Hollowell.
I confess I lingered over the Smithsonian Institution’s website in Washington, advertising the fascinating Three Wise Men nutcrackers, made in Germany and  reduced to $119.99. That’s what I call making religion pay.
Then there is a website about MAGI, we all have one Modified Adjusted Gross Income ;  or click again and you can discover the possibility of  using Magi astrology software programs and lessons for love and financial astrology. 
How about Epiphany?   Well there’s the Epiphany webrowser for the Gnome desktop, if that means anything to you.  
The possibilities are almost literally endless and most of them are about making money. 
But I don’t want to be too critical: for without the story of the Three Wise Men, a large chunk of inspiring Christian art would not exist.  And there is –plenty about that a story on the worldwide web too.  And in your drawing room you only have to look at the Christmas cards.  There they are, on horseback or camel following the star, through usually romantic scenery, to the manger in Bethlehem, bearing their gifts.  
Actually St. Matthew only talks of  “ Wise Men from the East”. He does not say how many and does not say what their mode of transport was.  It is generally assumed that there were three of  them because Matthew mentions three gifts.  But the number of Wise Men is not mentioned elsewhere in the Bible and some Eastern Religious apparently talk of 12.  
The names of the three Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar did not appear in Christian literature until the middle of the first millennium.  And despite that old favourite  carol “We Three Kings”, no biblical source depicts the Three Wise Men as being royal. 
And did they arrive just after the birth and find Jesus lying in a manager? Some confusion there.  Matthew says :  “And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him…”  So they came into a house, not a stable and they saw a young child not an infant.
And to cap it all, the Feast of the Epiphany itself seems to have originated in the Eastern Orthodox Church rather than the Western Roman Catholic one.  Indeed to-day is Christmas Day for the Orthodox Church.  It is celebrated as the actual date of Christ’s birth, because the Eastern Church  did not like 25th December, that being regarded as a heathen feast, the birthday of the sun.  
Does all this contradiction and confusion  matter?  I think not. History is full of colourful events involving well known people that in all probability never occurred.  I doubt whether Alfred burned the cakes, or Canute sat on the shore trying to turn back the waves. Did Queen Victoria really say “We are not amused” or George V make an unrepeatable comment about the town Bognor.  Even in our own age of shorthand notes what was said about the leadership of the Labour Party between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown at that famous dinner in the Granita restaurant  still remains in dispute.  
It seems to me, then, that rather than dissecting the Gospel story and looking for inconsistencies, it is more productive to look behind the embellishments  and into the heart of Epiphany, the manifestation of Christ to humanity.   As Christians we know that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, dwelt among us and gave us the promise of eternal life, and a set of teachings to follow here on earth.  The gifts of the Magi, as subsequently interpreted,  were designed to say something about Jesus and his future: symbolising royalty through gold, divinity in frankincense and death in the gift of myrrh. 
We know, then, what we have to do to follow Christ’s teachings: love God with all our heart and love our neighbour as ourselves.  The most important thing in Christian life is to make those main things the main thing.   So, if we have yet to make a New Year’s  resolution, we have  a couple of  tried and true ones on the table to follow. 
We don’t have to be on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho to find a neighbour. A cursory glance around shows that there are a whole lot needing our attention: struggling single mothers, men and women  whose lives are dominated by drugs and alcohol; teenagers who drift and cannot find jobs; young people who are in out and out of the justice system, old people who are lonely.   
“At this festive season of the year,  Mr Scrooge, it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute…..many thousands are in want of common necessaries, hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir”
“Are there no prisons?”,  asked Scrooge
“And the Union Workhouses?  Are they still in operation?  The treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then? 
“They are”,  rejoined the gentleman. 
 
Fast forward to 2008.  
“ Am I not funding the welfare state from my taxes?  Are the social services not in operation  operation?  What about the Job Centres and the benefit system -  are they in full vigour? Is not the YMCA  there to help?  Or the night shelter? 
They are.
“ Oh, I was afraid from what you said that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course”, said Scrooge.  “I am very glad to hear it.”
We all know that the Christmas Carol had a happy ending.  But I have drawn on Charles Dickens’ message only to show how the welfare institutions of the state can divert our attention from what is going on round us,  or be an excuse for inertia.   
I hope that we can, then, think of the somewhat bleak midwinter time of Epiphany as the moment when we bring our own gifts to Jesus.   As Christina’s Rosetti’s carol says : “What can I give him, poor as I am?”  Our gifts to Jesus do not have to be expensive just practical - like resolving, for example, to change the course of someone’s life for the better in the coming year. 
How about coming back next Epiphany to report to Him on our efforts and say – to go back to the carol - with more sincerity that I can now   “Yet what I could I gave him  –  I gave him my heart ”      
Holy Spirit think through us till your ideas are our ideas.  - Amen
