Isaiah 60:1-6 Ps 72:1-7,10-14 Eph3:1-12 Matt2:1-12
Happy Epiphany Season!
We survived Christmas, and here we are, peeping out from under the corner and ready to embark on the church’s next season. Epiphany; where we have our own epiphanies, through the pages of scripture, and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, about who this Christ Child is and what his coming means for the world. And today we have probably the most well-known of all the epiphany stories; the journey of the wise men.
These star gazers travelled for miles and miles, years and years, searching the skies, watching for the secrets it will give up, wandering and wondering and finally, the star stops and they are overwhelmed with joy. They enter the house, see the child with his mother Mary; and they kneel in worship and hand over their gifts; gold, frankincense and myrrh and declare he is a king, who is God, and destined to die.
That’s what their gifts represent – you, little man, are a King (so here is gold to crown you), you are fully divine, THE holy priest (so here is frankincense for worship) and here is myrrh, because we’re anointing you for death.
But these gifts paled in comparison to the primary purpose of their visit. We hear, ‘we have come to pay him homage – we have come to worship’. They bring themselves before God in complete adoration. In this moment, their lives were forever changed, and a new road stretched out before them – an encounter with the Christ Child is often like that.
This journey, this visit, these gifts, this epiphany is a significant part of the faith story. It encapsulates every traveller’s road; we hear or suspect there might be something happening in this God story and we want to explore. We look, watch from far off, figure out if we want to know more. We follow where we may have seen the light of Christ – usually in people, sometimes in places. We make our journey, and then, when we inevitably meet the Christ (because he is never hiding and is always relentlessly pursuing us too) we fall on our knees in worship – so beautiful is his presence it sweeps us off our feet, onto our knees.
The astronomer’s journey is such a foreshadowing of our own journey in faith that we need reminding of it; that others have gone before, that Christ is there to be found, that when we reach the end of ourselves, we simply need to kneel in worship. It is so essential we need to do all we can to keep it in mind, to be able to access it in our heart. And the church gives us rich traditions to help.
You may have seen homes and doorposts, even around this site, with chalk markings above the doorway. It is a tradition that came to us from Europe and is a simple way of blessing our homes and all who visit, based on this story of the journey of the magi.
Several years ago, when I changed from curate to priest-in-charge, I had to move house into the vicarage. House moves went as house moves do and I began to settle in. A couple of months later a little girl from the local primary school came running over to me, jumping and squealing that she now lived in my house. She said ‘I saw the chalk above the door and knew it was your house’ and she was right. And when I moved here, all those miles from home, it was a comforting thing to see chalked doorposts around the place – even over the door of the new, strange place we were about to call home.
The chalking of the doors comes back to a command to God’s people in Deuteronomy, saying “These words shall be on your heart… You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” So we bless chalk and take it to each home and write the year and 3 letters on each one. This time it will be 2025, and always the letters C M B, partly to remind us of the names assigned to the Magi – Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar – and also standing for the Latin Christus Mansionem Benedicat meaning May Christ Bless this Home.
What this action says is ‘this house, and all who live here, want to be a blessing to God and who visit in this coming year’. A tangible way of saying that we want to give our gifts to Jesus, just like the magi did, and that we want those around us to see the beauty and hope of the good news of Jesus Christ in our lives and in our homes.
We don’t have gold, frankincense and myrrh, but we are not being asked for those. What we have is something far more valuable, far more costly; we have ourselves and our homes. And we have countless opportunities in this coming year to use both of those to worship God and bless those around us.
If you want to commit to you home being a place of blessing in this coming year – for yourselves and those who pass by or visit – for all who will see the chalk scrawl and wonder – then when you come up for communion in a few minutes you will see here chalk in bags, with instructions. You are invited to take one and use it.
The beauty of our faith that we hold so dear is that we know the star – that divine light of Christ – has stopped here too, over Beaconsfield, over our very homes. People nearby are searching, and we want to help them to seek and find. This tradition is a way for our lives and homes to point people towards Him, and in their seeking may they find and, in their finding, may they worship.
So let us pray,
Lord God, source of all light and grace,
we ask You to bless this chalk which you have created.
May it serve as a reminder that Christ, the true Light of the World,
has come to illuminate our lives.
As we mark our doorposts with this chalk,
may we remember to open our hearts
to Christ’s presence in our homes and in our lives. Amen.
Holy Adventures 