The Epiphany of Our Lord Jesus Christ - 6th January 2026
Epiphany Crib 2024
This season is a season of light in the midst of darkness, especially for us in these northern climes when the nights are long and cold. But we know that the shortest day is past and that the light and warmth of spring will return. The Neolithic monuments in this country speak to the importance for humans of understanding and predicting the movements of the celestial bodies from the earliest times. And so it has been throughout the ages in cultures around the world. We want to know our place in the universe and the meaning of the events of our lives, not to mention when best to sow and harvest.
In the Western church this feast of the Epiphany, the showing forth of the son of God, is especially connected with the visit of the Magi to the infant Christ. They were astrologers who studied the skies, believing that everything is interconnected and that events on earth are linked with the movements of heavenly bodies. The place and time of a person’s first breath, that moment when they become a person independent of their mother, is when these forces come into play and shape the unfolding of their life. No other person can share that place and time, giving each person a unique calling in life.
This world view places us in the hands of forces outside our control to which we can only surrender. We see this in Greek tragedy where the protagonists are caught up in a tragic fate from which they cannot escape. The astrologers and magicians were those who could interpret and perhaps manipulate events, who could advise how best to live in response to these cosmic forces.
In the story of the Magi, we see these astrologers reading the heavens and being led to an ordinary house where there was an unremarkable couple with their baby. They bowed down and worshipped the child, knowing him to be the fulfilment of what they had been looking for in the heavens. From within their pagan world view they came to acknowledge the mystery of God incarnate, thus fulfilling the prophesies that spoke of all nations coming to the light. Whatever the reality behind this story it is saying that here is the long-awaited light of God, present in this new-born baby.
Here they encountered something very different from the remote and capricious Greek gods who treated human beings as their playthings. God incarnate came to be in a personal relationship with people, in humility becoming a baby utterly dependent on his mother. As an adult he transformed the lives of those who met and trusted him. He saw the reality of people in their sinfulness but then loved them into fulness of life. As St John says in the prologue to his gospel, to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.
Understanding the universe within which we live is an important task for us as self-conscious beings and the ability to predict and control enables those of us privileged to live in the rich world to live lives of great comfort and convenience. But that comfortable lifestyle has come at a huge cost to the natural environment on which we depend, not to mention the global majority who are excluded from our wealth. Our wisdom needs to be surrendered in humility to the Christ child who calls us to love one another. As our Lauds hymn puts it:
The wise are mute
Before the child, before the word made flesh,
The folly of the cross.
The folly of the cross is something we so need today in a world that is dominated by people greedy for political or economic power. We need people who show forth the light of Christ in our current age, who live lives of self-giving love, who show that happiness is not bound up with power or status or wealth. In our small way here can we be such people?
We cannot do it through our own efforts but through the power of the Holy Spirit we can be transformed into children of God who shine like lights in a dark world. We do not need to scrutinise the heavens to find clues about meaning of our lives. We simply need to open our hearts to Christ and let ourselves be loved and called into the life that God wishes for us.
Mother Anne - 6th January 2026