Sunday Worship 5 January 2025

January 5, 2025 colind

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Today’s service is led by the Revd Andy Braunston

Welcome

We explore, in worship today, themes of light shining in the darkness, mysterious visitors bringing the Holy Family even more mysterious gifts, and consider how a people struggling in exile and defeat were enlightened with God’s glorious light. My name is Andy Braunston and I am the United Reformed Church’s Minister for Digital Worship. Living in Orkney, off Scotland’s far north coast I know a thing or two about living in darkness in these short winter days but, there again, I know something of living in the light as, in June, it doesn’t really get dark. Our readings explore themes of light and dark as we focus on Jesus whose light radiates in the gloom of our world. Let’s worship God together.

Call to Worship

In the gloom of our world, when all seems desperate and dangerous: we arise and shine for our light has come! In the hopeless situations that surround us, the news that terrifies, the nations at war, and truth itself is silenced: we arise and shine for our light has come! When gifts have strings attached, when estrangement is part of life, and when dangerous leaders tempt us to despair: we arise and shine for our light has come! So, we arise and shine, for the glory of the Lord is upon us; our hearts will thrill and rejoice as the work of Christmas continues – to shine the Lord’s light in our darkened world.

Hymn O Worship the Lord in the Beauty of Holiness
John S. B. Monsell (1863) Public Domain BBC Songs of Praise

O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness;
bow down before him, his glory proclaim;
with gold of obedience, and incense of lowliness,
kneel and adore him: the Lord is his name.

Low at his feet lay thy burden of carefulness:
high on his heart he will bear it for thee,
comfort thy sorrows, and answer thy prayerfulness,
guiding thy steps as may best for thee be.

Fear not to enter his courts in the slenderness
of the poor wealth thou wouldst reckon as thine:
truth in its beauty, and love in its tenderness,
these are the offerings to lay on his shrine.

O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness;
bow down before him, his glory proclaim;
with gold of obedience, and incense of lowliness,
kneel and adore him: the Lord is his name.

Prayers of Approach, Confession, and Grace

We come to worship You, O God, with obedience and humility,
as we adore Your most holy name.
We lay our burdens at Your feet, not just for our own good,
but to allow space for You to guide our steps;
that we may relieve the world’s pain.

As we come and see the beauty of Your holiness,
we become conscious of the ugliness of our sin;
we love the gloom more than the light,
the sorrow more than the joy, lies more than truth.
We are conscious of our slender wealth
against the riches of Your grace.
Give us time, O God, to appreciate Your tender love,
to live Your beautiful truth,
and make our lives temples to Your glory.

Give us the grace to forgive others when they hurt us,
the beauty to forgive ourselves and leave our guilt behind,
and the faith to trust in Your forgiveness
which changes and challenges us. Amen.

Introduction

Our reading from Isaiah is set during the exile of the Jewish people in Babylon. It was a time of great gloom and despondency when the very future of the Jews as an independent nation was in grave doubt. Yet, in the midst of the gloom, there’s news of recovery – a recovery that would bring nations and their rulers to pay tribute to Israel and bring costly gifts. Our Gospel reading tells of the mysterious visitors “from the East” who bring costly gifts to a peasant child believing him to be a king. Pagan outsiders perceive what God is up to long before those who should have know what was going on. Let’s pray and then we’ll hear ancient and contemporary words as we think about those readings and how we might find them useful now.

Prayer for Illumination

Come with speedy support O Spirit, to give us songs for sighing, that, as we hear You in ancient and contemporary words, You might turn our gloom into light, and remind us that we are precious in Your sight. Amen

Reading Isaiah 60:1-6

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For darkness shall cover the earth and thick darkness the peoples, but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you. Nations shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of your dawn. Lift up your eyes and look around; they all gather together; they come to you; your sons shall come from far away, and your daughters shall be carried in their nurses’ arms. Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice, because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you; the wealth of the nations shall come to you. A multitude of camels shall cover you, the young camels of Midian and Ephah; all those from Sheba shall come. They shall bring gold and frankincense and shall proclaim the praise of the LORD.

Hymn Hail to the Lord’s Anointed
James Montgomery (1821) Public Domain Sung by Lythan and Phil Nevard and used with their kind permission.

Hail to the Lord’s Anointed, great David’s greater Son!
Hail in the time appointed, his reign on earth begun!
He comes to break oppression, to set the captive free;
to take away transgression, and rule in equity.

He comes with succour speedy to those who suffer wrong;
to help the poor and needy, and bid the weak be strong;
to give them songs for sighing, their darkness turn to light,
whose souls, condemned & dying, are precious in his sight.

He shall come down like showers upon the fruitful earth;
love, joy, and hope, like flowers, spring in his path to birth.
Before him on the mountains, shall peace, the herald, go,
and righteousness, in fountains, from hill to valley flow.

Kings shall fall down before Him and gold and incense bring;
all nations shall adore Him, His praise all people sing;
for He shall have dominion o’er river, sea, and shore,
far as the eagle’s pinion, or dove’s light wing can soar.

O’er every foe victorious, he on his throne shall rest,
from age to age more glorious, all-blessing and all-blest.
The tide of time shall never his covenant remove.
His name shall stand for ever: that name to us is Love.

Reading St Matthew 2:1-12

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, magi from the east came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star in the east, and have come to pay him homage.” When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him, and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it has been written by the prophet: ‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.'” Then Herod secretly called for the magi and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” When they had heard the king, they set out, and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen in the east, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

Sermon

Imagine a people without a land, a nation whose capital lay in ruins and a tribe deported to a faraway country which didn’t understand their language, faith, rituals or identity. Imagine the pain, dislocation, grief and stress. This was the situation of the Jewish people as the final chapters of the book we now call Isaiah were written. The political and religious elite had been deported to Babylon and their homeland, temple, houses, fields, and trades were left in ruin. How could they sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? Of course, these ancient tragedies have a contemporary ring as Palestinians exist without their own land, with their heritage, faiths, and very existence threatened by an expansionist Israeli state. History repeats itself as few listen.

The writer of those prophecies from Isaiah, though, does not offer comfort for the bad times but hope in a different future. A future where the poverty of defeat and deportation would be replaced with the nations bringing their riches – all that gold and frankincense – to Israel. Kings would, instead of laughing, pay homage. The nations that once dominated Israel would now pay homage to it. The sea to the west and the lands to the east will pour in their wealth. No wonder the writer told the readers to arise for their light had come.

The light, however, wasn’t for Israel alone. This isn’t a passage where Israel can laugh at the poor benighted pagans as they come to bring homage. Instead, Israel’s light has a purpose – nations would come to the light, kings to Israel’s dawn. Throughout the Old Testament God uses the most unlikely people – often pagans – to achieve his purposes. There’s Ruth the pagan woman in Jesus’ lineage, there’s Rehab the sex worker who sided with God’s people – also in Jesus’ genealogy. Then there’s Cyrus the pagan ruler who freed the Jewish people. It took some time for the biblical writers to understand but God was God of all the nations not just of Israel. There’s a growing awareness of it in various Old Testament texts – after all, humanity was to be blessed through God’s covenant with Abraham and Israel saw itself as a light to the gentiles. For Christians it’s when this text is paired with our passage from St Matthew’s Gospel that we can see these themes more clearly.

In our Gospel passage we see pagan priests come to worship the new-born Jewish king. We know very little about the magi – the name itself might mean “Persian priest or sorcerer”. By the time of Darius the Great the term magi was used to denote a Zoroastrian priest or earlier Iranian religions. They were thought to practice magic – by which was meant astronomy, astrology and alchemy. They were thought to have esoteric knowledge. Now we might see them as astrologers, but they were more than that; they not only discerned meaning in the stars they were seekers after wisdom – even wisdom beyond their own faith.

We are used to the term “kings” from the Psalm which we sang, in part, in the hymn Hail to the Lord’s Anointed and which we’ll sing in We Three Kings later on. Yet the term “king” isn’t in the Matthew passage. “Wise Men” is a rather sanctified version of magi – which should probably be translated as sorcerer or magician. Maybe that’s a bit too Harry Potter like for contemporary tastes. Yet these pagan priests came to acknowledge the Light of the World. Herod’s people, who should have known what was going on, hadn’t got a clue. The pagan outsiders did. Matthew, instead of having pagan nations coming to pay tribute to Israel, has pagan priests worshipping the Jewish messiah. Instead of the riches of east and west pouring into Israel, the sorcerers bring valuable gifts full of meaning: gold for a king, frankincense for a priest, myrrh for a sacrifice. No doubt the gifts were useful during the Holy Family’s own exile.

Even in his infancy, Jesus was for all people – Jew and gentile. Jesus draws all people to him – sorcerers from the East, the Syrophoenician woman from the north, Egyptians from the South met him in exile, Romans from the West listened to him and, of course, Jews from all around followed him. This is the moment when the Light of the World is revealed to humanity. In Jesus Matthew sees fulfilment of the ancient destiny of the Jewish people to be a light to the nations. Through Jesus God invites all to bathe in the light, to change the world, and to feast together.

So, what might we do with these readings now? We live in a world which isn’t always bathed in light. In these gloomy days of winter, it’s easy to think of situations of gloom and evil in our world: the war in Ukraine drags on and we’ve no idea how Mr Trump will seek to change things. Israel still pummels Gaza, makes delivery of aid nearly impossible, and some members of the Israeli Cabinet are determined to annexe at least part of Gaza for colonization; again Mr Trump’s intentions are not clear but he’s appointed people to high office who seem to uncritically support Israel’s ambitions. In Europe we’re faced with populist leaders seeking to emulate dictators and undermine the rule of law – just as the EU, and ourselves, seek to make life for refugees more and more difficult and demeaning. God’s light might be exposing the evil rather than helping us avoid it. God’s light might be seen more in the bedraggled folk trying to cross the Channel than in the churches quietly singing their hymns and avoiding the realities of the world. Like Herod’s priests many of our religious leaders go along with the status quo hoping to deflect attention from the Church’s manifold failures; best not criticise in case the press are unleashed to examine our faults!

And yet the light shines from the vulnerable baby. Strength is seen in weakness. Truth is seen on the edge. The light, strength, and truth of Jesus is there, of course to comfort, but not to offer cheap grace. The light, strength and truth that Jesus shows the world is there to change it. So, this Epiphany as we think of the Holy Family fleeing to Egypt we must also think of those on the move seeking safety and security and learn to help them. As we recoil from Herod’s murderous rage we think of contemporary tyrants who don’t care for their people and murder and maim more than Herod ever did and learn to oppose them. As we think of the light coming into the world, we realise the light is there not just for us in our cosy religiosity but for all to be led into truth. The light shines in our gloomy places to expose corruption and injustice. The light reminds us to shine too. God’s grace not only reaches out with love, not only serves as light to lead and expose, but also demands that we act, we lead, we expose so that the light of the world is, again, embodied in us. Let’s pray

Light of the world, expose the hidden places of our societies, the corruption in high office, the murderous rage of tyrants, the injustice hiding in plain sight, the hatred and racism bubbling below the surface spilling up when dangerous men cease power. And help us, O God, to see more clearly in Your light, that we might act, lead, and serve as lights which shine on You even as You shine on us. Amen.

Hymn The First Nowell
Anonymous (1833) Public Domain Recorded live by Sunday 7pm Choir at St. Francis de Sales Church in Ajax, Ontario, Canada and used with their kind permission.

The first Noel the angels did say
was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay.
In fields where they lay keeping their sheep
on a cold winter’s night that was so deep

Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel
Born is the King of Israel

They lookéd up and saw a star
shining in the east, beyond them far
and to the earth it gave great light
and so it continued both day and night.

Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel
Born is the King of Israel

And by the light of that same star
three Wise Men came from country far
to seek for a King was their intent
and to follow the star wherever it went.

Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel
Born is the King of Israel

Affirmation of Faith

In the beginning God spoke and there was light. In the fullness of time Mary spoke and Jesus, the light of the world was born. At Pentecost the Holy Spirit spoke as fire, as light in the darkness. As God’s people we seek to speak as those who live in the light; to expose the evil that hides in the gloom. Through works of love and mercy we speak truth and shine in the night.

Intercessions

Light of the World we bring You our prayers for our world dwelling in gloom and despondency. Lighten our darkness, Lord we pray.

We pray for the world at war,
or if not at war busy preparing for it.
We pray for the people of Ukraine wondering what the New Year brings,
for the people of Gaza living ever in fear,
for the people of Israel dreaming of security,
for the people of Lebanon living on a knife edge,
for the people of Syria living with a loathed government,
and for all who live with bellicose leaders,
insecurity, and crushing poverty.