A sermon for Epiphany 2021 (feast transferred): Isaiah 60:1-6 and Matthew 2:1-12
The late Professor Stephen Hawkins once said: “Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist.”
Look up at the stars: perhaps we miss that in north London; perhaps we only remember when we’re away from the functional glare of street lights.
Maybe we peered at the night sky hoping to see the rare conjunction between Saturn and Jupiter; an unusual light, shining a little brighter.
Perhaps it's an innate human instinct to look up: and the longer we stare the more we see and the smaller we feel; with awe and expectation we try to make sense of the cosmos.
In the beginning, the Spirit moved over a formless void; and lights were set in the dome of the heavens; the sun and moon and stars.
“Be curious” said Hawkins. In the midst of trying to make sense, he continued “however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at… It matters that you don't just give up.”
Image unknown
The magi in today’s Gospel were experts in heavenly realms; they were certainly curious.
As astronomers, they were disciplined in the science of mapping the stars and planets; alert to different constellations; noticing changes in alignment; asking the kind of questions Professor Hawkins did.
Perhaps, like us, they looked upon a similar conjunction to the one seen last month.
And as they looked, they saw not personal fate; but a sign of cosmic hope.
Jupiter and Saturn blazing bright; a light had come causing them to arise.
A sign of royalty: the glory of the Lord rising upon them.
Years before, Abraham had been promised that his descendants would be more numerous than the stars; Isaiah foretold that nations would be drawn to this light; kings, to this bright, new dawn.
A still from T. S. Eliot reading Journey of the Magi
And the journey begins: in words from a sermon by Lancelot Andrews, taken up by T. S. Eliot, we’re drawn into their steps [text of The Journey of the Magi here]:
‘A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
There are camels too: not the multitude of which Isaiah spoke, but perhaps sore-footed; with camel men cursing and grumbling as the poem goes.
And did these star-gazers, at times, regret their journey, as Eliot supposes? Longing perhaps for the precision of their science over against the seeming folly of this journey?
Did they miss the the summer places as night-fires went out? Did they avoid those cities hostile and the towns unfriendly and instead travel all night, sleeping in snatches?
This star of wonder had made them curious; they’d wondered about the universe; they could not give up.
These nameless pilgrims seek a royal birth; they go to a palace to pay homage.
They find a named king seeking to cling to power; his palace a place of fear, deceit and brooding violence.
Amidst the pieces of silver and empty wine skins, Eliot simply says:
But there was no information, and so we continued.
They continued to a smaller town; a more marginal place; a town that was satisfactory.
Their curiosity and expertise, their determination and endurance had led them this far.
Their arrival looks back to Abraham and Isaiah - to promise and prophecy. All nations shall come to the light - God’s blessing of Israel becomes hope of healing for the nations.
The bring gold and frankincense, yes; gifts marking this child our as a king; as the Lord worthy of worship.
Yet they also offered at his feet the gift of myrrh; foreshadowing burial.
This is unexpected. As Eliot’s magi puts it: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death?
There was evidence of birth, for sure; and yet the poetic star-gazer continues: I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
This birth is hard for Jesus will face opposition; a sword will pierce his mother’s heart.
This child who is Emmanuel - God with us - will not cultivate fear and deceit. Instead he is with us where the pain and grief is.
This birth prefigures his life: in fulfilment of the law and prophets; in love that heals and sets free; that binds up broken-hearts and breaks down divisions.
Here is the King of the Jew; the hope of the nations.
Not a king who rules through fear, oppression and violence; but the Lord who brings reconciliation through justice and compassion.
He dies with us; and we die with him.
He lives; that we might live.
Gislebertus: The Dream of the Magi, Autun Cathedral
The magi sleep and dream.
They are warned about Herod’s intentions.
They return, but not to him; they return home by another road.
They returned to their palaces and kingdoms, their maps of the cosmos.
Yet, as Eliot puts it, they were: no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation.
They no longer clutched their gods.
For they had worshipped the beauty of holiness.
They had knelt and adored.
They’d set down burdens and sorrows alongside their costly treasures.
There they’d found comfort and prayerfulness.
Truth took on this strange beauty of birth and death.
Love enfleshed in tenderness.
And now: curiosity had been met with joy.
Their ease unsettled in the face of this glory.
The old dispensation giving way to a new world.
A world where we too are called to carve out space that is less polarised.
We are to look up at the stars and to look into the face of Christ.
We are to dream: to dream that we will find another road where a commitment to being with and living for overcomes the fearful ‘I’.
A world that may be more compassionate and just.
© Julie Gittoes 2021
