Sermons
from St Faith's
The Morning
Star
Fred Nye, Epiphany 2009
‘O come thou dayspring’ - ‘Fairer
than the sun at morning’
Our Epiphany hymns sound like an astronomer’s anthem of praise to
Venus, the morning star. Venus, who heralds the dawn, far
outshining in beauty any of her companions, and on a moonless night the
only light in the heavens bright enough to cast a shadow.
It is typical of Christian symbolism that it took over this ancient and
iconic pagan image, and turned it first into the star of Bethlehem, and
then into a metaphor for the Christ Child. There is even a passage at
the end of the book of Revelation where Our Lord describes himself in
the same poetic language: ‘I Jesus….. am of David’s line, the root of
David and the bright star of the morning’.
There are two stumbling blocks to true Christian belief and commitment,
two ideas that are genuinely difficult to accept. One is the assertion
that God really can intervene in the affairs of earth, and the other is
that his love is so great that it includes everything and everyone in
its embrace. But the image of Christ as the morning star proclaims just
those two truths. His glorious new light dawning on the world is
visible to everyone, illuminates everyone. ‘And we beheld his glory,
the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and
truth.’
Full of grace and truth. I find it extraordinary that in the
‘Arabian Nights’ story of the star and the wise men we are shown what
to expect from these gifts of Grace and Truth. Again, Christians have
seen layer after layer of meaning in the presents these strangers gave
to the infant Jesus, presents from Arabs to a Jew who was himself the
founder of the New Israel, the Christian church.
It is the last-named present, the myrrh, which provides the key to the
mystery of the gifts. Myrrh was an exotic aromatic resin, certainly a
present fit for a King. But for the disciples of Jesus down the
centuries it has quite another connotation. At his crucifixion Jesus
was offered, but refused, wine spiked with myrrh to try to deaden the
pain. And St. John tells us that the wealthy Nicodemus brought a
mixture of myrrh and aloes to anoint Jesus’ body as it was laid in the
tomb.
So myrrh has come to represent failure, pain and death. Or rather
it reminds us that Jesus shares with us mortals the tragedies of
failure, pain and death. In the West we are so obsessed with
success that we have lost sight of the fact that Emmanuel, God with us,
can ever be found in the dark places of our lives. In Africa, it’s
different. Those of us at St. Faith’s who have had the privilege
of visiting the poorest parts of that continent will know that
the people suffer from hunger, poverty, disease, deprivation and the
worst forms of human abuse and insecurity. And yet they dance, they
dance, men and women and children. They give and share, generously and
sacrificially. And they tell you time and time again, and apparently
against all the evidence, that God is good! Perhaps the worst form of
evil is not failure or death or disease or poverty, perhaps it is
despair. Once we recognise Emmanuel in the dark places of life, and of
the world, we are given the hope and strength to transform them.
Incense, as they say, needs no introduction if you are a regular member
of St. Faith’s and St. Mary’s. In the iconography of the Epiphany it
stands for the Priesthood of Our Lord, reminding us that Jesus, like
the sweet smoke drifting upwards, unites earth with heaven. Through his
perfect human life, offered to God and to all humankind, he has
transformed our whole relationship with our Creator and with one
another. We are forgiven and reconciled, we breathe together the sweet
air of heaven, we share with everyone on the planet the God-given
breath of life. But it all comes at a price. Our Lord achieved our
redemption, our reconciliation, by a sacrificial life, and a
sacrificial death. And by his example we are called to follow him.
There can be no peace between human beings without costly and
self-giving sacrifices. That truth has to be recognised everywhere,
from Mumbai to Darfur, from the Congo to Israel and Gaza. But
before we all get too complacent here at home let’s remember that so
often our prosperity has been built on other people’s money, our trade
on other people’s poverty, and that our comfort has so often been
bought at the expense of global climate change and the ruin of our
environment. In the end we will all have to give, to give rather than
to take or to borrow, if human kind is to be reconciled and if the
world is to prosper.
‘Gold the King of Kings proclaimeth’. In the gift of gold, Christ is
recognised as King of Kings and Prince of Peace. His birth, life and
death ushered in God’s reign, and earth became the realm of heaven. And
through his life and death Our Lord has taught us that we, as the
citizens of this Kingdom, have to keep only one rule, only one Law, the
law of Love. Jesus accepted everyone he met as equally valued and loved
by God his Father. Jesus offered forgiveness and acceptance to
all, to the respectable and well to do, to traitors and petty crooks,
to strangers and foreigners, to the dissolute and the despised.
Christians have always seen in the story of the Epiphany the welcoming
into the Kingdom of even the most unlikely people - pagans and
gentiles, strangers and foreigners with exotic and disturbing habits
and customs - men and women with strange faiths and beliefs or with
none at all. In the Kingdom of God all are welcome, all are loved, and
all are equal.
‘O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness’. At the feast of the
Epiphany we see Jesus revealed in glory, in the glory of vulnerability
and self-giving. He is revealed in the dark places of the world and of
our lives, in the costly reconciliation that brings peace between human
beings, and in the scandal of holy love which is offered equally to
everyone. In 2009 and beyond it is likely that we will have to cope
with genuinely unprecedented crises and evils: the re-emergence of
so-called holy wars: the collapse of capitalism: and the destruction of
the natural processes which hitherto have preserved life on earth. No
doubt the usual remedies will be proposed: more separation and
alienation, more measures to preserve wealth at the expense of people’s
lives and of the natural world, more troops and more bombings. But we
need instead the gifts of Grace and Truth as found in Jesus, the
morning star of revelation. And today we have seen the dawning of that
star, and have come to worship Him.
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