For e e spe E Spe Said H H Than H You For there To True EX Good morning and uh welcome to worship here Wesley this morning uh also we uh welcome you who are joining us at home and you who will be joining us at a later time we are very pleased to uh welcome to lead us in this worship this morning our dear
Friend uh Neil Manor and we pray the Lord’s blessing and your minister with us this morning Neil just a couple of little items uh we welcome also our friends from the Avenue and those who will be joining us up there uh online and just a little uh note about our friend Mary who
Normally sits in the corner there Mary Shaw she’s had a fall and is present in STO mandville so uh if you would remember her in her prayers and hope that she will get back home uh in in the very near future than good morning and let me add my
Welcome to lens and I pray that our worship together this morning will be a blessing to us this morning and throughout the coming week some words from Psalm 72 to reminders still at the beginning of another year of God’s care for us and for our world he rescues the poor who call to
Him and those who are needy and neglected he has pity on the weak and poor he saves the lives of those in need he rescues them from oppression and violence their lives are precious to him we’ll think in our prayers particularly about parts of the world
Which are still concerning to us and to God and which we would hope uh find Healing in the coming year let’s begin by singing hymn number 224 in singing the faith as with gladness men of Old all did the guiding star as with Joying be bright so Gracious toe as with joyful steps they SP saor to thy holy So may Wey Li most at Thad r so Joy ande All Christ toly Jesus every keep us in the Glor the heaven country bright no Th Th sing hallelu to our King let us pray everliving God we Rejoice that your love is unchanging and your spirit is always present to guide us may Our Lives get us give a steady witness to your constant faithfulness in these Ever Changing days amen amen fill us with your love Lord so that
We might be inspired and enabled to become more like you compassionate kind patient forgiving teach us your ways of mercy and peace that we may live them for the World building your peace where there is division and Discord amen and a prayer of confession and Assurance of forgiveness from the Iona
Community before God we confess to our Brokenness to the ways we have wounded ourselves the lives of others and the life of the world may God forgive us may Christ renew us and may the Holy Spirit enable us to grow in love amen and we continue our thoughts about
Confession and forgiveness by singing hymn number 432 in singing the faith oh the bitter shame and sorrow The shame androw when I And all found me there I saw you Pray Father of you and of me you and of Mery and Free with Patience you and me and OFA gr me now my all you and Of could we have our reading from Isaiah please the reading is Isaiah chapter 60 veres 1 to6 and it’s entitled The Glory of Zion arise Shine for your light has come and the glory of the Lord Rises upon you see Darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples but the
Lord Rises upon you and and His Glory Appears over you Nations will come to your light and Kings to the brightness of your Dawn lift up your eyes and look about you all assemble and come to you your sons come from afar and your daughters are carried on the
Arm then you will look and be radiant your heart will throb and swell with joy the wealth on the Seas will be brought to you to you the riches of the Nations will come herds of camels will cover your land young camels of Midian and epha and
All from Sheba will come bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the Lord thanks be to God and we sing again number 227 in singing the faith brightest and best of the sons of the Morning the son of The Shall The We the Ad Bri And his we’re going to hear in our reading from Matthew a very familiar story of the Magi questing from afar to visit the newborn king perhaps as we listen to these words again we can sit put ourselves into the story itself and wonder whether we’re like
Herod or or the priests and the scribes or are we like the Magi themselves bearing gifts and we might look at that a little bit more in our reflection thank you um Matthew 2 verses 1 to2 uh visit of the Magi after Jesus was born in Bethlehem
In Judea during the time of King Herod Magi from the East came to Jerusalem and asked where is the one who has been born King of the Jews we saw his star in the east and have come to worship him when King Herod heard of this he was
Disturbed and all Jerusalem with him when he had called together all the people’s Chief priests and teachers of the law he asked them where the Christ was to be born in Bethlehem in Judea they replied for this was what the prophet had written but you Bethlehem in
Land of Judah are by no means least among the rulers of Judah for out of you will come a ruler who will be the Shepherd Of My People Israel when heral called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared he sent
Them to bethle hem and said go and make a careful search for the child as soon as you find him report to me so that I too may go and worship him after they had heard the king they went on their way and the star they had seen in the
East went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was when they saw the star they were Overjoyed on coming to the house they saw the child with his mother Mary and they bowed down and worshiped him then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts
Of gold and of incests and myr and having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod they returned to their country by another route that’s the word of God after Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea during the time of King Herod Magi from the East came to Jerusalem and
Asked where is the one who was born to be king of the Jews we saw his star in the east and have come to worship him it was in fact yesterday January the 6th which is strictly the day of epiphany uh in the church’s calendar 12 Days After Christmas Day itself and this
Word Epiphany means manifestation appearance The Shining forth of Christ as the Messiah and of course Epiphany is normally associated with the wise men visiting the Christ child now of course traditionally we’ve used that description mayi are wise men and there is the comment isn’t there
From some who say well of course if it was Wise Women who’d come the gifts might have been slightly more useful they would have brought some spare nappies they would have probably taken the child over for a little while to allow Mary to go off and have a bark and
They’d have brought some I suppose frankincense and myrr might have worked uh but something Rose smelling perhaps and they probably brought some treats as well a box of chocolates but anyway by tradition we speak of the wise men the mai perhaps I’ll stick to because we don’t really know in any
Detail only tradition has told us a few things which is believed to be informative for the story but of course the wise men the Magi are not the only characters in this particular story we find King Herod we find the priests we find the scribes of the people the people of Jerusalem
Themselves Mary and Joseph and of course that baby lying in the manger we do know quite a bit about Herod from historical writings he was not a nice man he was a crafty and wicked King he didn’t really trust anyone including members of his own family he was very cruel and merciless
And rather jealous of any threats to his position by the time of our story he’d already killed a brother-in-law a wife and some of his own children because he was concerned at the threat to his own power the people of Jerusalem would have known this I suppose whether by fact I
Don’t know how news propagated but I suspect there were plenty of stories about the behavior of Herod and how he would react if someone was coming along and saying oh hi Herod we’ve come to find the new king of the Jews we don’t think it’s you
Okay well we know a bit from the story that they were warned not to go back don’t we but I think the people of Jerusalem might have been quite scared themselves as to how their King was going to react to someone coming along and saying we think there’s another king here
Somewhere we’re not told much about the chief priests and the teachers of the law in this story but again from historical accounts and from other stories within our gospels we know that they were experts on the scriptures and they would have been known from Isaiah’s story and from other
Accounts in the prophets where it was thought that this Messiah would have been born they knew he would come from Bethlehem but perhaps time had gone by and it was so long since these predictions were made that they’d stopped looking they weren’t expecting this Messiah to turn up anytime
Soon there had been many years with no further predictions of his arrival perhaps they’ve given up wondering and waiting since the time of Isaiah 600 years earlier when he predicted that someone who would bring light to the world would come and that shining and Glory would be
His of course they would have read their scriptures we call it the Old Testament but it was their book they would have been very familiar with its contents and they would have read the stories in Isaiah and Micah in particular time and time again but perhaps they had just not
Wondered whether this was the time after many years they grown weary of waiting we are told that these Magi came from the east of the world as regards uh the Holy Land Israel Over perhaps towards what is now Iran perhaps even further into Afghanistan we don’t really know there
Are lots of stories lots of traditions which tell us perhaps what might might have been we assume there were three because there were three gifts but we don’t really know I expect if they were this as important as we think they are they would have had many servants supporters
Assistants uh a media team perhaps to uh put out the information about who they were and why they were there these have been debated over time and some traditions given us names for the three wise men but I think from the story we can ascertain that theyd come from a long
Way and were wise people because they could interpret the dreams of their own leaders which is what they were suggesting I remember a holiday in India where the palace grounds contained many of these basic astronomical instruments ways of watching the sky and determining how those celestial bodies were moving
Both planets and stars and if you’ve ever been to a dark sky area uh where there’s much less light pollution you’ll know that in fact the sky is full of stars we see very few do we I think you can just about see Orion at the moment
And the plow above us but very few other stars are visible ible but if you’ve been to somewhere where the sky is much darker the Milky Way is there and there are many stars uh in the little group we had during Advent uh Kate had investigated
And I think the current thought is that it was actually a conjunction of Jupiter and Venus in the sky that only happens every many years and it just happen happens that the experts nowadays have worked out because these things come on a cycle that at the time
We think about four years BC in fact when the historical accounts meet the astronomical information there was this conjunction where the two planets which they wouldn’t necessarily have understood were together in the sky and sha very brightly in the night uh as to them a star but it was because as you
Know the planets often shine more brightly because they’re that much closer when they catch the sun’s Rays I don’t suppose it really matters unless you’re uh terribly interested in the detail what matters is that these people saw this star and thought it was important and chose to follow why because they thought
Something important was due to happen and of course we know from our own Traditions that while in our manger scene there’s usually a camel or two for them to have come up we all know as children that one came in a car one came in a taxi and one came on a
Scooter I don’t suppose it’s that important the detail what matters is why they decided to make that Journey though it’s always interesting isn’t it to find out more it’s our human nature to want to know a bit more detail and that’s good it’s not doubt it’s just inquisitiveness Matthew tells us several
Times that They Came To Worship this newborn king where is the one who was born to be king of the Jews we saw his star in the east and have come to worship Him on coming to the house they saw the child with his mother Mary they bowed down and worshiped
Him in the original Greek the word used for worship is to bow down or prostrate we don’t do very much of that in the Methodist Church do we it’s not part of our tradition but if you’re familiar with others there are times within Services where people do lie
Completely L before the altar or before the cross and I expect that might be an image they were wanting to lay themselves low despite their own importance they saw something in this small child that meant more to them than their own importance as we say these were grown
Men grown people adults they were probably very wealthy they may well have been extremely influential and leaders in their own communities and clearly accepted as wise teachers but they chose to bow down to a baby in a manger and to open their treasure chests and offer gifts to this newborn
King sometimes at this time of the year and I think this morning Sunday service on Radio 4 went into the detail of the three gifts and their significance but I thought it might be a different way of looking at it as I said before our reading thinking about the reactions of
Some of the characters and where we might feel we are in this story and I suppose it might take a little bit of honesty on each of our behalves now I’m not going to ask you I’m not going to bring the mic around don’t worry but where are we in
This story who do we most identify with if we’re being honest are we like Herod reacting with hatred and hostility are we like the Chiefs priests and the scribes with something of complete indifference to what was going on or do we react like the Magi adoring and worshiping this
Child let’s take a look at each in turn I expect the Magi when they were on their Journey perhaps had a much more conventional idea of the king they were coming to see which is why they went to herod’s Palace uh they were looking for a king in their
Own country I assume whoever was the leader would have been in a grand palace and that was where they went but the star didn’t stop there so they knew that wasn’t the place They carried on to what we imagin must have been a much humbler place a
House which we don’t know the exact location of I don’t think it would have been somewhere possibly in Bethlehem where the family had stayed we imagine it’s a little time after the actual ual birth but again we don’t really know all this is lost in
History but it is a place in that land which is currently torn by conflict uh and I suspect we should think humbly about the place that religion has played in that conflict we don’t think we think our faith is one of peace and justice but so often it can be twisted and
Broken we know we think that Herod flew into a tremendous rage when we heard about this new king he would have felt his position was being threatened might he lose power might he lose his influence might he lose all his own possessions If we’re honest are we sometimes a little bit like
Herod do we react badly when our own power and influence is threatened Herod responded even with a little trickery trying to get the Magi to come back and tell him exactly where this King was and we know what the consequence was of them not doing so we remembered perhaps on the 28th of
December the slaughter of the Innocents every young child particularly the boys being killed because that would have made sure they got rid of this threat a rather blunt instrument but that’s often the case with dictators and the powerful let’s think about the chief priests and the scribes and their
Indifference they knew the prophecies they knew the information that they had to hand but were not really that bothered they didn’t really care apart from I expect making sure that they didn’t fall victim to Herod perhaps when asked where this baby was due to be born oh well somewhere over there somewhere
About five or six miles away because if you look at the geography of Jerusalem Bethlehem and where herod’s Palace was it was very close by even in those terms of where you’d walk or go on a horse or in a carriage it wasn’t very far away but but
They had waited so long and had lost interest again If we’re honest are we sometimes a little bit like the chief priests and the scribes can we be a bit comfortable and complacent If we’re honest what would we do if we were told that the Messiah was
Going to be born in amam or Henley would we make the journey to find him there or would we think well it’s been so long since the prediction is made it probably doesn’t really matter and finally the wise people as I said we’ve sort of limited them to three assuming that they brought
One gift each but I expect there was a large Entourage we know that important people in our own time travel with many companions supporters servants assistants so there were probably many people in this group following the star what was the point of their Journey why did they make
It well they firmly believed that there was something important told by this star something important was going to happen because that’s what they believe these events in the sky meant something to them and while today I suppose we dismiss these the Superstition if we put ourselves back to
Their time this image in the sky this event because they believed that the stars and the skies meant something they took to heart so I thought think perhaps we should be grateful for their belief that these things meant something because on this occasion it clearly did if it helps us let’s Place ourselves
In the position of one of these characters again if we are honest with ourselves can we at times be a bit insecure or jealous like Herod do we want to be the king or the top dog do we get a bit I won’t necessarily say hatred or hostility do we get a bit
Tety or knocky when things don’t go our own way and are we ever like the chief priests and the scribes we hear that story every year Have We Become a little bit indifferent to it do we listen but not take much notice sometimes perhaps we’ve lost our sense
Of magic and the real meaning of Christmas this event 2,000 years ago that should mean so much to us God becoming one of us but do we want to be like the Magi again perhaps if they’re honest this is what we want to be like we want to be ready to
Follow we want to come and worship you’ve demonstrated that by being here this morning and we want to give of ourselves and give of what we have let’s think about that perhaps in the weeks to come about following the star that led to Jesus merely a baby but so much
Promise think about kneeling to worship that God a mere baby but God himself and while we know about the gifts and their significance are we willing to give something so precious to God again of ourselves and what we have as we think about this story are we ready to
Follow are we ready to worship are we ready to give when I was last here on Christmas Eve I inflicted a video of this following himm on you but today I thought as we’re sort of getting out of Christmas and I suppose from next week on we won’t be
Able to sing carols anymore I thought we’d sing together in The Bleak Midwinter which is number 204 in singing the Fai The wind Wind Water Mighty Jesus Christ Ang I am I A Let’s us pray yet what I can I give him I give my heart a prayer for Israel Palestine for Ukraine and all places of conflict in a world that God made good let us pray for people seeing things no human being should see for people seized by Terror no human being should
Experience for people whose depths of suffering no human being should know God of unquenchable Hope confirm our belief that this is not how things should be affirm our belief that things can and will be different strengthen our belief in Jesus who opens the way from Death to
Resurrection help us as his disciples to be your agents for change in our broken world Amen and we pray for the United Nations the Red Cross and red crescent organizations and all relief and development Charities who seek to help those in places of conflict natural disaster famine drought and
Poverty and may we in each way we can donate what we can to support those groups we pray for our government and all politicians that they will seek to save the many and not the few and look to the most needy who need support and help at this
Time particularly as the weather gets colder we think of those in places which are are already flooded or are threatened with flood and we pray for them and the Emergency Services helping to support them we think of our local community here in High Wickham our sister churches in the
Town and all Community groups particularly one can the homeless connection and the refugee partnership we think also of wiom Youth for Christ and their four weeks of prayer and we pray that their work with children and young people will flourish we pray that we will all be good neighbors to each
Other we pray for Kate Georgina and Rachel and for all who serve the Methodist church across the high Wickam circuit and we pray that we will each find Opportunities to share the good news of Jesus Christ with others through what we say and what we do we pray for those who are suffering
In mind body or spirit and we ask you to be with Mary shaww in stank Manderville hospital after her fall and also with those who are caring for her we pray for Nigel and pamu and in a moment of quiet let us bring before God the names of those
People and places written on our own hearts and ask for God’s comfort and strength to be with them in their need Heavenly God you’ve promised to hearers when we ask in the name of your son we ask you to accept and answer our prayers not as we ask in our
Ignorance nor as we deserve in our sinfulness but as you know and love us amen let’s say the Lord’s Prayer together Our Father who art in heaven Hallowed be thy name name thy kingdom come thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily
Bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but Deliver Us from Evil for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever and ever amen could we have our offering for God’s work in this place and across the Wickam Circuit C Lord we ask you to BL these gifts all the regular giving and all the time and energy devoted in this place bless us to share your good news through what we say and what we do amen I thought we would close with another Carol uh Charles Wes’s most famous heart
The Herald Angels Sing and I suppose it’s time we should look for the angels in our midst and be prepared to hear from them whether they be Celestial beings come down from above or simply people Among Us who are messengers of good news and listen for their message so let’s Sing to the new kingace on Earth Mery Tri the Christ theal Angels Sing glory To Christ Lord all Anging glory to K right And Glor all the Angels Sing glory to the new Lord send us out into the world with a willingness to follow to worship and to give seeking both as individuals and as a community to serve you and to serve our neighbors amen You H J