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A recent Sermon

Here is a Sermon delivered by the Rector in the Saxon Shore Benefice at St. Mary's, Old Hunstanton for Epiphany, 2012.

Is 60-1-6.... Eph.3-1-12.... Mtw2. 1-12.

"What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning,
The end is where we start from."

Not, as you might have thought appropriate, from T.S.Eliot's poem "The Journey of the Magi," but the opening of the last stanza of Little Gidding, the end of Eliot's 4 Quartets.

Endings and beginnings. That is very much what we are about today as we celebrate Epiphany so close to the start of our New Year. As a feast, the culmination of the 12 days of Christmas, it is a spectacular and beautiful way of ending the festivities of the feast of Christ's Nativity. A feast made much more of in nearly every country of the world.

Where the secular world has now moved on through the increasingly pagan rites of new year, to the allure of the sales in Norwich or Peterborough, [only to find that they are the same sales that have been on all year, with just a hint of desperation.] We are still at the stable. And we end the Christmas story with this beautiful feast which tries to unravel, to reveal to us, to the world, a little of what it might all be about.

The appearance of the wise men also has the power to take us back in time. If I were taking a school assembly now I might ask how many of you have played the part of a wise man in the Nativity play? The well worn statues that come out in church once a year some how have the power to connect us with years past, times past, lives long gone.

Well not only can I remember playing a Magi at school on the grounds that I was tall, but I also wonder if that is the root of a certain ersonality type that has grown out of it. My nearest large art gallery as a child also did a good line in glitzy pre-Raphaelite paintings. Northern mill owning philanthropists knew what they liked when it came to art. So I regularly found myself in front of Holman Hunt's "The shadow of Death" where the adolescent Christ is [+] stretching his arms in the family home and the shadow it makes on the wall is that of a cross. The surroundings include the stuff of the carpenter's shop, hammers, saws and the completely incongruous sight of the Virgin Mary tidying the great chest in the corner in which we can see the stored gifts of The Magi, Gold objects, incense, spice pots. Exposure to this painting has left me with a lifelong query as to what became of these famous presents.

The endings hidden in beginnings and the beginnings hidden and revealed in endings are the stuff of mystery. A word that gets plenty of use in today's reading from St Paul. The prophecy from Isaiah and St Mathews account of the journey of the Wise men, are beautiful and familiar readings which belong together in our minds. But the Epiphany, the deeper showing of the mystery revealed in this event is encountered in St Paul. Of all his statements about who he was and what he was about, this account in Ephesians is the boldest. This is where the mystery is grappled with. The mystery of Christ. We mustn't forget that the Jews, the people of Israel, the first hearers of the Gospel, were steeped in a tradition that was awaiting a Messiah. The sort of Messiah that was very much like the one that Herod was troubled by. The Ruler who would save Israel from foreign domination. If that was what you expected you can see how the life of the child born in the manger was indeed a mystery.

St Paul takes on the task of revealing God's plan of the mystery hidden for ages, now to be revealed in the Church as God's Wisdom, rather than God's folly. The end of old ideas of a Messiah and the revelation of the new Gospel. That God the creator had chosen the vulnerability of the ncarnation. To come amongst humanity not as a mighty ruler but as the Christ of the Gospels. To suffer in order to bring access to God to all. Not to a chosen race or a chosen few but to all who have faith.

Our beautiful scene at the crib to-day is and was, a revolution. A revolution of ideas. For the one who has the brightest star of the night at his birth, will have darkness on the day of his death, and the one who is worshipped by Kings, will be mocked by the crowds, and the one who the prophets said would shepherd his people will be the shepherd who is struck and his sheep scattered.

Gone are the traditions of the coming Messiah. Revealed is the mystery that the inheritance of faith, the long awaited good news, is not just for the Jews but for Gentiles, for all, rich poor, black white, male female, ALL now have access to the Wisdom of God, to knowing God, in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ whose very life appeared as a contradiction, a mystery,... an end... and a beginning.

And when St Paul says that through the church this wisdom will be made known, he means you, he means you. The message hasn't become any more palatable. In a satisfied culture that values above all the right to self expression, the message of self sacrifice is very difficult to hear. You have been called to live your life for others. To give of yourself every day and not wait for the applause. C.S. Lewis once said that if people knew how much ill feeling was caused by unselfishness, it wouldn't be so often recommended from the pulpit.

Living the Gospel is often neither easy nor spectacular, but it is your vocation. It is the mystery revealed by the visit of the Magi, by St Paul, that Christ is there for us. All of us if we want to end the old life and start the new. It is a journey of self discovery with Our Lord right beside us and it is treading the way from the manger to the hill outside the walls of Jerusalem and it tastes bitter and real and ultimately all the more fulfilling for that.

When I think of the Magi's gifts in Holman Hunt's painting I still have questions to ask. Is Christ the treasure of my life? Have I put him away in a neat chest for Sundays only? ..... or do I live the mystery, the faith, through sacrifice, humility, openness, JOY. Using my gifts.
Whatever is asked of me?
These are questions to go on turning over in the quiet of our prayers, when we listen to God, every day..... perhaps forever.
T. S Eliot's Magi were certainly left with more questions than answers. "Were we led all this way for birth or Death? We had thought they were different. We returned to our Kingdoms..... but no longer at ease."

That is the nature of the Epiphany. You have been shown the mystery. The Wisdom of God. And it leaves you not altogether at ease, and that's how it should be. "It was you may say.....Satisfactory." concludes Eliot's Magi. Endings are always beginnings. It is so with God...

"We shall not cease from exploration.
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time."

And all shall be well
Amen.