Epiphany

After more than sixty years, I can still remember by heart most of the verses from Matthew chapter 2 which tell the story of 'wise men from the east' come to seek the Christ child. Our primary school class learned it, under the direction of our teacher Miss Vickers, for the school carol service when I was nine in Junior 3, and if memory serves, we recited it again when in Junior 4.

Strange what stays. I can see us know, on the risers, reciting this to parents in the hall in front of us. We were a large class- thirty plus. I wonder how many of them, like me, come into contact with that reading, and can say it, all over again?

'Wise men from the east, come to worship him'.And bring gifts- gold, frankincense, myrrh. It's one of the important readings from scripture which met us this first week in in this Epiphany season, when Jesus is manifested to a wider world than his own people. By the grace of God, he has manifested himself to me over the years, and I'm grateful. My gifts to him have been adoration, forgetfulness, wilfulness, disobedience, surrender, anger, love. The best and worst of my life. And the mediocre in between. But like the wise men, his bright star draws me on, into a mystery I don't understand, but know is true, just as the wise men must have felt in presenting gifts to a child they believed was a prophet, priest and king, judging by their gifts, but found in an ordinary house far from palaces and the trappings of royalty.

'Show me the way'- it's a prayer I often make, an acknowledgement that the Bright Morning Star I follow is the true one, even though it leads I know not where,and has mystery about it. But in the mystery, grace and truth above all, .