Haphazardly by starlight

 Epiphany 2024: Isaiah 60:1-6, Ephesians 3:1-12, Matthew 2:1-12

+ Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

This was the moment when Before turned into After.

So begins U. A. Fanthrope’s poem BC:AD.  She writes:

And this was the moment

When a few farm workers and three

Members of an obscure Persian sect

Walked haphazard by starlight straight

Into the kingdom of heaven.

It’s not uncommon for our journey of life and faith to feel haphazard: moments of triumph and tears, clarity and confusion. 

It’s rare for us to walk by actual starlight.

How often do you gaze upwards, seeking those sparks of light? Hard for us in north London. Easier in remote areas, on the coast, beyond the streetlights.

Then we see shimmering lights travelling billions of years to meet our gaze; stars which have illuminated the firmament for all who have been and will be born. The plough, Ursa major, Orion and the North Star - the still point for those who’ve navigated the earth and its seas. 

Image here

Today we remember those who observed a star... followed it and were overwhelmed with joy when it stopped. 

They walked haphazard by starlight: from the east, via Jerusalem, to Bethlehem, returning by a different road.  

They walked haphazard…straight into the kingdom of heaven: an experience of enlightenment, a new perspective, a striking revelation. This was an epiphany.

An epiphany rooted in their observations, deepened by the journey. A new reality, a shift in understanding, a fulfilled hope and a leap of faith. 

Their epiphany had come by means of a single star. A pinprick of light guiding them through the darkness and revealing something greater than their fears. 

It was a mystery made manifest. 

On their knees, in joyful adoration, their minds embraced the quiet, unfailing love of God; a love older than the stars, a love which holds the universe together, in a mother’s arms. 

The Lord who made the Pleiades and Orion, brings darkness into morning and draws day into night. Now, beyond the rhythms of the day, the nations have become aware of a bright new dawn. 

A dawn that sees the world as it is, with the darkness and danger that covers it; but sees that the Lord will arise.

An epiphany that is alert to the fear, threats and warnings swirling around Herod and those who cling to power, the thick darkness that broods over the peoples; but trusts that the Lord’s glory will appear. 

That child is the one of the Father’s heart begotten who comes to the world in its radiance, possibility, darkness and fear and embraces it, loves it; who will go to the depths of alienation to save it. 

In Epiphany we hear echoes of Easter: the sorrows, the joys and God’s ‘yes’ to the world; and the space we’re given to respond to such a mystery.

In Katherine Rundell’s book Impossible Creatures she presents us with such echoes of such a ‘yes’ through the lens of the children Mal and Christopher - and the magnificent, mythical world they journey through.

Image a still from Bloomsbury promotional video here

They see the erosion and darkness but press on in their quest to bring hope and restore beauty. There is friendship, courage, duty, laughter and grief: there is, says Mal, a ‘dark stretched upon dark… such purposeless sorrow’ but also ‘wonder on wonder… kindness large and wild enough to transform you’. 

At one decisive and climatic moment, there is a shout and a great ball of light in the darkness. Christopher hears it, saying: ‘it might have been fear, but it sounded, as he stood watching, exactly like triumph - like joy - like love’. 

Today’s gospel also names the fear but makes more space for the joy and for love. 

It takes us to the moment when Before turned into After.

Look around, says Isaiah, as peoples as numerous as the stars are gathered together; there is radiance and rejoicing, praises are proclaimed. 

Look around, says Paul, Gentiles are now fellow heirs, members of the same body, sharers in the promises of Christ; the riches of such grace are boundless.

A hidden mystery has been made known by revelation: the radiance of God in a child brighter than any star.

This is the strength of a glimmer of hope. We too:

walk haphazard by starlight straight

Into the kingdom of heaven. 

We are invited to notice it, to pay attention to it, to receive it; we are to be that starlight as we walk in the world with boldness and confidence. 

The biblical scholar and poet, Walter Bruggemann, loved the local church in service of the kingdom, puts it like this:

On Epiphany day,

we are still the people walking.

We are still the people in the dark,

and the darkness looms large around us, 

beset as we are by fear,

anxiety 

brutality,

violence,

loss -

A dozen alienations that we cannot manage.

We are - we could be - people of your light.

So we pray for the light of your glorious presence

as we wait for your appearing;

we pray for the light of your wondrous grace

as we exhaust our coping capacity;

we pray for your gift of newness that

will override our weariness;

we pray that we may see and know and hear and trust

in your good rule.

That we may have energy, courage and freedom to enact

your rule through the demands of this day.

We submit our day to you and to your 

rule, with deep joy and high hope. Amen.

© Julie Gittoes

Walking by starlight

 Epiphany transferred: Isaiah 60:1-6, Ephesians 3:1-12 and Matthew 2:1-12

The James Webb infrared telescope has been described as a $10 billion gift to the world. It sees the sky at wavelengths of light that are beyond what our eyes can discern. 

Nasa’s senior project scientist was thrilled and relieved after years of hard work.

A machine showing us our place in the Universe; thousands of galaxies in a grain of sand. Images of a ‘stellar nursery’ and a ‘cosmic dance’. 

Human beings have long to scale the heights of heaven or plumb the depths of space - arts and science set on a celestial quest. The desire to know the source of life,  to see beyond where darkness and light are both alike, to know what gives our earthly stardust breath,  to measure the pulse of the very heart of God.  

Image from James Webb telescope

Today we travel towards our epiphany - the revealing of a mystery and a manifestation of love. 

This is the moment when,  U. A. Fanthrope puts it in her poem BC-AD, 

‘... three

Members of an obscure Persian sect

Walked haphazardly by starlight straight 

Into the kingdom of heaven.’

The love that flung stars into space, causing energy to pulse and atoms to form and life to be breathed into dust was made flesh and dwelt amongst us; perhaps no wonder then that cosmic signs singalled this birth.

Those who contemplated the skies not only followed a star but looked beyond it. They observed and inquired; they searched diligently and found. Then, they were overwhelmed with joy before a child, dependent on parental care and protection. 

There they knelt. There they offered gifts. 

They searched for the love that made us, and found that love with us.

Their worship and adoration left us a sign of who this child was and how he would gather nations to Godself. 

Gold: the marker of authority and kingship, yes; but found with and among us. The one who purifies a people as his own.

Frankincense: the one whom we worship and love beyond all things; opening our hearts in worship and service.

Myrrh: the king of our hearts who loves us to the end, to the grave and beyond; who brings healing to the nations, a new creation.

A mystery has been made known. 

The radiance of which Isaiah spoke breaks in that we might proclaim the praise of the Lord.  For we, with our different races, cultures and languages can seek and rejoice as we are made members of the same body, shares of the same body, as Paul puts it.

He continues saying that this wisdom, rich in variety, is now made known to rulers and authorities. 

The star-gazing wise men encounter one who is used by Rome to maintain order in an occupied land. Herod, like many rulers, rules with the assumption that all things are determined by power. He is fearful and fragile, crafty and yet intrigued; he operates through violence. 

The magi  move beyond him and walk haphazardly, as the poem puts it, into the kingdom of heaven.  For Jesus is the one who embodies God’s very self as a tiny child, as as an adult demonstrates God’s ways with the world.

Adoration of the Magi

Herod is defeated by such a person, movement and kingdom; by those who, in the words of the ethicist Stanley Hauerwas, ‘refuse to believe that violence will determine the meaning of history’. 

This story begins to shape the time we live in too. 

The magi take a different road home for the kingdom of heaven - God’s loving ways reshaping our lives - is a journey. In sleep, their imaginations have already begun to form around a more peaceable way. Their dream reveals to them that the safety and well-being of children, of the most vulnerable, cannot be left to the Herods of this world. 

We need to name that and seek alternatives, different routes for human flourishing, shaped by dreams that counter violence. Hauerwas continues: ‘God has given us gifts of bread and wine to be offered so that the world may know that there is an alternative to Herod’. 

Fed by the body body that we are to become, how can we be part of that alternative?

Perhaps in part, by doing our job; by doing what is entrusted to us - in work, at home, at school, in communities. Allowing our curiosity to be stirred, connections to be made, being attentive to where we find ourselves and acting out of what is possible or purposeful. 

And into that we bring the gift of our whole selves; and we pray that we will find the words and actions to reflect the radiance we see; that as we look around, we will be people who gather together rather than fragment, build up rather than tear down; seek the flourishing of others rather than their survival. As scientists and artists, pragmatists and dreamers, little by little a stellar - heavenly - kingdom will come. We join that cosmic dance.

May we who walk by starlight act with boldness and confidence through faith in God that the world might know a more radiant dawn. For God's love is worldly in focus, cosmic in scope.

© Julie Gittoes 2023