Isaiah 60: 1-6, Matthew 2: 1-12

                     All are called and welcomed and accepted    Evelyn Underhill

Today we come to what I see as the third chapter in the story of the Nativity. A story with which we are all so familiar and yet it never loses its power to overawe and humble us each and every Christmastide as we hear of God’s incredibly clever planning to ensure that the birth of His Son will always be full of divine meaning.  The first chapter as it were tells of the obedience of Mary and Joseph as they were both called by God to be His servants in the bringing to life of the Christ Child.  Two ordinary, unremarkable people with no status whatsoever.  Chosen to emphasise that for God it is not status or riches which impress him but only simple unquestioning obedience to his will, his commandments. An obedience we are called to imitate with grace and humility.

And then we have the second chapter of the birth itself in that lowly, unsanitary stable to remind us that God will always be found in the most impoverished, troubled and needy places of his world. And then we have those first visitors, the shepherds, summoned by angels to seek out the holy family. Shepherds who were regarded as outcasts from society because by the nature of their job they could not obey that commandment to keep the Sabbath holy and do no work that day. And here again we are called to recognise that unlike the censorious Pharisees God does not exclude, God does not label people as unclean or outcasts. Whoever we are we will always be a part of God’s family, his children even if we choose not to hear the songs of the angels and their summons to go to Bethlehem to find there the Saviour, the Messiah, God Incarnate.

And so on to that third chapter which we read today namely the visit of those mysterious strangers from the East known variously as the three Wise men, the three Magi, or the three Kings. But those are names which mask the fact that whoever they were and from wherever they had travelled they were in Jewish eyes Gentiles, despised outsiders, the unchosen, the uncircumcised.  And here again in this amazing revelational story we find God expressing his wish that we understand that this priceless gift of His Son was and is for all people as expressed in that wonderful song of Simeon ‘for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples All peoples! That baby lying in a manger in the small unremarkable town of Bethlehem was sent to be a light for all peoples of this amazing world that God has created for us. No one is to be excluded or deemed not fit, not worthy to receive such a gift. Whether we choose to refuse it is up to us but God will never deny the gift of His Son, the Word made flesh, love incarnate to anyone who looks for it.

The story of those wise men is full of that desire to seek that gift, that king who had been born. As they set out on what must have been a long and hazardous journey following that mysterious star did they have the least idea what they would find at the end of it? I suspect not while at the same time being blessed with an innate wisdom, they must surely have had an intimation that this king they were seeking was no ordinary self- seeking king such as King Herod. And just what made these Gentiles, these shunned foreigners feel such a compulsion to see this so named King of the Jews? Again, I think it points to the fact that whoever we are in some way or other we all look albeit possibly  some only very rarely for that same King, the one who is beyond all else the King of Love. Surely it is that impulse, that longing even that brings so many to our churches at this time to kneel as the shepherds did, kneel as the wise men did and then join with the angels in the glorious music with which this time of Christmas and Epiphany is blessed.

And having found that King in the most unlikely of places they were overwhelmed and overawed as they were inspired to recognise the wonder and the mystery that lay before them and in true humility knelt down and paid the King of the Jews their devout homage. This was their moment of Epiphany when they understood that here was the Light of the World, the true light, which enlightens everyone. And then in recognition of the priceless gift that God had given to the world they gave their own symbolic gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.  Gifts which symbolized kingship, divinity and death. And it is that last gift which means there are many more chapters of this story to come but for now we will stay with those wise men and what they represent and what they teach us. They represent the outsider, the despised  foreigner, the unfamiliar, those we might we could all too easily label ‘not one of us’ and here in what we are called to recognise as the rather exclusive and even somewhat cliquey world of the Surrey Hills it is all too easy to forget that reality. And, as a consequence, it can be a real challenge to us to accept in love as Christ would have us do the infinite variations of people, of common humanity whom we are called to see and recognise as our brothers, our sisters within the entirety that is God’s. family. To accept in love the outcast shepherds of our society and the seemingly alien and  foreign wise men  and in that acceptance fulfil these words of Evelyn Underhill that ‘Christ must be known through us.’ And with such knowledge and  through the power of the Holy Spirit they too may experience an Epiphany and discover the Light of Christ shining in their lives. That they and we like the shepherds, like the wise men, having knelt in awe, knelt in adoration, knelt in wonder beside the Christ child may travel home a different way; a way  lit by that light which came into God’s world in a Bethlehem stable some two thousand years ago and shines now as  constantly, as  brightly into the dark places of this troubled world bringing new epiphanies, new hope for all God’s children.

I would like to end with this prayer of Evelyn Underhill’s: 

‘If indeed I am to radiate your light to the world, Lord Christ, then let that light burn within me to purge and purify until I know only you and seek only you, and finding you in everyone I meet enable them to find you even in me.’