Sermon St Eustachius 9.45 & 10.30am Sunday 17 January 2021  Year B Epiphany 2
1 Samuel 3v1-10            Psalm 139v1-5, 12-18                        Revelation 5v1-10            John 1v43-end
Let us pray:- Lord Jesus give us hearts like those two disciples when on the road to Emmaus felt their hearts burn within them as Jesus interpreted to them the things in all the scriptures concerning himself, so we pray open our hearts and minds to your word this morning. Amen

At this time in our Christian calendar we have been focusing on the advent, birth and Epiphany, the revealing to the nations of our great High Priest, and our soon to be coming again King, our Lord Jesus.

In our gospel reading this morning the apostle John records the second encounter between Jesus and his cousin John the Baptist, only mentioned in his gospel. It took place a couple of months after John had baptised Jesus in the Jordan near Jericho, sometime in the winter of AD 27-28.

Now John the Baptist and Jesus meet up again, but this time much further along the Jordan valley at what is called ‘Bethany beyond the Jordan’. We are not certain of its precise location, but some now believed it to be in the Batanea, in the Decapolis, in a region SE of the Sea of Galilee. It was the place where Elijah the prophet, to whom John was often compared, had been fed by the ravens after he had predicted drought in Israel, and so this region would have been dear to the Baptist. There John describes Jesus in the beautiful words we use in the Eucharist, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”.

As the cousins again meet up, John points out to all the people gathered there that Jesus was the Son of God, for he had seen the Holy Spirit descend upon Jesus as a dove when John had baptised Jesus earlier in the Jordan. Jesus was their promised and long awaited Messiah; the one who had now burst upon the scene of history not only to deliver all peoples from their bondage to sin, but also to ‘baptise them with the Holy Spirit’.

You and I, in this twenty first century, still have that same message to proclaim. Jesus, the promised Messiah, is still the one who alone can deliver and set us free from our bondage to sin, once we have put our faith and trust in him. But there is more, if we will but look to Jesus, John the Baptist’s promise still holds true that ‘Jesus will also baptise us with the Holy Spirit’. As we embark upon this new year following a very disturbing 2020 dominated by the pandemic, do you, do I, feel the need to have that promised power of the Holy Spirit with us as we seek to further the presence of God’s Kingdom?

We need to see the Holy Spirit sweep through our nation as in previous times of revival.

The evangelist John then goes on to describe how after this second encounter between the two cousins, Jesus started to call his first five disciples; Andrew, Simon Peter, Philip and Nathaniel-otherwise known as Bartholomew, and by implication the fifth was the evangelist John himself.

Jesus encounter with, and His call of Nathaniel, shows how within a matter of moments Nathaniel could turn from being a sceptic, ‘can any good thing come out of Nazareth’, to one of complete belief and trust in Jesus, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Such was the power of Jesus words then, and that power is still true for today, a power that we also see depicted in the beautiful call of the prophet Samuel.

Samuel’s call contains much which is relevant for us as individuals, as well as for our nation at large, so it deserves our attention. Not only were the eyes of God’s priest Eli growing dim, but the word of the Lord had also become rare in those days. Fortunately the lamp of God, the light of God, the revelation of God, had not quite gone out completely. Does that sound to you like the times in which we also live today? It does to me.

Where is the word of God, the statutes and promises of God being clearly and loudly sounded out to our nation, and not just to our nation, but also to this hurting and confused world in which we now live. How many eyes have grown dim, and where is the word of God being declared for all peoples benefit? In parliament, in the media, on the streets, in all the churches? Not that I see, so no wonder the people and our land languishes.

And what about us? The boy Samuel did not yet know the Lord, the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. In his duty to the old priest Eli, while serving in the house of the Lord Samuel lay down near the arc of God. What was in the arc? It was not what Indiana Jones anticipated, it contained the word of God. The book of the law, the Torah given by God Himself to Moses upon mount Sinai during the exodus from bondage. It contained all that the people needed to live a peaceful and prosperous life in the promised land, to live lives pleasing unto God. But did they?

We in this twenty first century have an even greater revelation of the word of God than was present in Samuel’s time. We have just celebrated the Epiphany, the revealing of the incarnate God, the word made flesh, in the person of our Lord Jesus the Messiah for all peoples, but have the nations responded? No.

One wonders just how much longer God’s patience and mercy will extend.

God desires is that no one should perish, but that all people should come and believe in Him, but will they? You must look around the world and make up your own mind. So how may they hear?

It took God three calls to young Samuel before God could get through. It took some time before the old priest Eli, who should have known better after all his time in the service of God, to recognise that God was calling the boy. But eventually the light did dawn and we read the final and lovely response from Samuel, ‘Speak Lord for your servant is listening’. Is God still trying to get through to you and to me? Are we taking time out so we can say to God, ‘speak Lord for your servant is listening’. Are we close to the arc, to what God has to say to us through His word in the scriptures?

Saint John in his Revelation tells us that when the time came for a sealed scroll in heaven to be opened, ‘no one was found worthy’ to open the scroll. John was sad and began to weep bitterly until he saw Jesus, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root-the descendent of king David, the one who had overcame sin and death through His cross; Jesus was the one, the only one, who could open the scroll. That brought much joy in heaven, and a new song burst forth, ‘You, speaking of Jesus, are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain and by your blood you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nations’.

I wonder how God feels when he looks at our present rebellious world? Does He weep bitterly, thinking, ‘when will this people hear, listen and respond to my ‘still small voice’, respond to my presence clearly visible in the beautiful world I have created for them to enjoy, when will they respond to my love, grace and mercy shown to all humankind through my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased?’ When? What will it take to make people wake up?

So what role do we have to play in making God’s call clear and plain so people will respond and say with Samuel, ‘speak Lord for your servant is listening’? How can we help people to recognise the amazing call God has for each one of us, a call and promise to be built into a kingdom of priests and to serve Him, our creator God, for ever in the coming new creation?

That remains our ongoing challenge as we enter yet another new year of opportunity. It is a challenge God has not left us powerless to fulfil. God has promised that through our Lord Jesus He will give us His life giving Holy Spirit, and give it in abundance, so we may make Jesus known to our needy world.
Let us not fail God in that call.

Let us pray: Eternal God, our beginning and our end; bring us with all peoples and with the whole of creation to your glory, hidden through the past ages and now made known through Jesus Christ our Lord.                  Amen

Sermon St Eustachius 9.45 & 10.30am Sunday 3 January 2021          Year B Epiphany

Isaiah 60v1-6                        Psalm 72v10-15            Ephesians 3v1-12                        Matthew 2v1-12

Let us pray:

As we come together this morning to celebrate the great feast of the Epiphany, I would like us to ask the question, what was it that motivated the Magi to follow the star?

Despite various distortions from the biblical account of Messiah’s birth that we have in our Christmas story, there certainly was a Christmas star and Magi. Perhaps you heard of the coming together, the conjunction, of the planets Jupiter and Saturn on 21 December, described by the media as ‘the Christmas star’, but that was not the true Christmas star that the Magi followed. The power of modern computers and simulation software means we can now map the sky for any place or time in history, and those simulations give us some amazing insights.

It was probably the close conjunction between the king planet Jupiter, and Venus, on 17^thJune 2BC, that caught the eye of the Magi. They would have appeared as one very bright morning star, and also close to the king star Regulus, and all this in the ‘Royal Constellation’ of Leo the lion. You will remember that the term ‘bright morning star’ is used in the Revelation of Saint John to describe our Lord Jesus, who is also described as ‘the lion of the tribe of Judah’.

It was then probably a further conjunction between Jupiter and Venus on August 27^th of that same year, that combined with a grouping of the four planets Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury, and again in Leo, that set the Magi off on their journey to Jerusalem.

The computer simulations shows that the most probable ‘star’ the Magi followed was then the motion of the king planet Jupiter which we read, the Magi had observed ‘at its rising in the east’. Then it was Jupiter’s subsequent movement westward that led them to Bethlehem. Amazingly, because of the form of Jupiter’s motion across the sky, called its retrograde motion, Jupiter did in fact ‘stand still’ over Bethlehem on 25^th December 2 BC, the place where the holy family, with the 15 month old Jesus, no longer a baby, were living.

To me as a Physicist it is quite wonderful how God used the natural events of His universe to make known the time of our Lord’s appearing, an event planned from before the foundation of the earth, a phrase that is used three times in the New Testament (Jn17v24, Eph 1v4, 1Pt 1v20).

So what more do we know about the Magi? Despite the lovely hymn ‘We three kings of orient are’, it was not three kings, but those Magi who came to the Holy family bringing their gifts, and ready to worship the new born king.

Mary Leith in her Biblical Archaeology article relates how the word Magi was technically the title of Zoroastrian priests, but its use here in the gospel describes dream interpreting astrologer-astronomers. The idea of ‘kings’ was understandably introduced much later in the thirteenth century from the reference in our psalm 72 (v10-11) where we read, ‘May the kings of Tarshis and the coastlands render him tribute; may the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts! May all kings fall down before him, all nations serve him!’ So how many Magi were there?

We do not know how many followed the star, the number three was proposed by the early Church Father Origen in the third century based on their three gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Our celebration of the Epiphany, the appearance or revelation of the incarnate God, the Christ child, to the gentiles, that is to us non Jews, is signified in that the Magi were ‘strangers from the east’. The Epiphany, one of the oldest Christian feasts, was probably first celebrated in Alexandria, in Egypt, by Origen sometime during the third century.

Many of the early Christian depictions of ‘this adoration of the Magi’, show them in Persian dress, and were recorded by paintings on the columns of the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem. It was those images that saved this ancient church from destruction by the muslim armies in the seventh century, as the Magi were recognised as fellow Persians.

During the fifth century, in a sermon, pope Leo the great wrote, “In the three Magi let all peoples worship the author of the universe; and let God be known not in Judah alone, but in all the world”. And here we are celebrating that ancient feast as it has been for at least sixteen centuries.

So what does that ‘revealing’ mean to us as Christians in this twenty first century? Well, perhaps the same as it did to Saint Paul, and to paraphrase what he wrote to the Ephesians, ‘for the sake of you gentiles, God revealed to me the mystery of Christ, a mystery not understood by humankind in former generations’. So just what was that mystery that the Holy Spirit revealed to the apostles, and has also revealed to us?

It is the greatest mystery of hope that could ever possibly be revealed to humankind. It was a mystery that Paul, who humbly described himself as ‘the very least of the saints’, was to bring to the gentiles, that we are to become ‘fellow heirs with Christ’ when the kingdom is finally realised on earth.

Can you, can I, even begin to get the slightest glimpse of what that means? For those of us who have responded to the Epiphany, to the revealing of the good news made known to us in Christ, those of us who have put our faith and trust in Jesus, then we have an amazing hope set before us.

It is not just a hope of being with Jesus in heaven, that is for the short term while we await His appearing a second time; we are destined to come with Jesus and all the saints, to reign with Him in the new creation. That is the eternal purpose that God is to carry out through our Lord Jesus.

But Paul does not stop there, he goes on to speak of ‘the boundless riches of Christ’ that we participate in now. So what are these ‘riches without bounds’ that we believing Christians share?

They are not the material or physical riches that we may or may not acquire here on earth, but the spiritual riches which come as a gift from God our Father, riches that we cannot earn but give a richness to our souls. Do you, do I feel, and experience a spiritual richness in our souls, especially after the events of this past year? So let us ask, what are those riches that we should now be enjoying?

There are many but perhaps these six give us some insight. A glimpse into the knowledge of the glory of our God, an experience of the grace of God, the truth of God’s holy word revealed to us through the holy scriptures, the wisdom that God gives to us through His indwelling Holy Spirit, the eternal life of God that we have now and not just for our future in eternity, and perhaps above all, the love of God that we see in the face of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.

As we make our new year resolutions we should ask, ‘are we availing ourselves of these abundant riches that God has promised us in Christ.

Perhaps these can be summed up in what Paul writes (Eph 2v4-7), ‘But God is so rich in mercy and He loved us so very much, that even while we were dead because of our sins, He gave us life when He raised Jesus from the dead’.

After all we have passed through during the covid pandemic of the past year, do we not all need a sprinkling, no a deluge of riches and hope?

And that hope is firmly set in the Lord Jesus. Our light has come, the glory of the Lord is indeed rising upon us as the time of Jesus return draws ever closer, and when His glory will indeed appear over us.

Words from a beautiful old early nineteenth century hymn that some of you may know, helps us to sum up the hope we have as believers and children of God, our heavenly Father; ‘My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness; no merit of my own I claim, but wholly trust in Jesus’ name’. ‘On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand’.

So as we enter a new year, not knowing what lies ahead for us all with the pandemic still raging and Brexit finally with us, it may seem that the thick darkness Isaiah spoke of does cover the earth. But as the Magi came with their gifts and into the brightness of God’s dawn, we are to be a people of hope, and ready to proclaim Jesus as the light of the world, and to sing our praises to the Lord. We take Paul’s words at the end of our reading from Ephesians to heart, “In Him, in Jesus, and through faith in Him, we may approach God with freedom and confidence”.

Let us pray:         Lord our God, Creator of the heavens, who led the Magi by a star to worship the Christ-child; guide and sustain us, that we may find our journey’s end in Emmanuel, Jesus the Messiah, who is our Saviour, Lord and coming King.