All around us, people are at work following their break for Christmas and New Year. The younger amongst us are back in school; when you read this, I will be working away from Suffolk for the first time this year. These are ordinary days.
In our Christmas nativity scenes, shepherds, kings (or wise men) and angels tend to be muddled up together. We celebrate so much before Christmas that no sooner is it over than it is ‘put away’ and forgotten, until the first autumn grumbles about ‘it’s too early for there to be Christmas things in the shops.
The liturgical year is more measured. This is the last day of the season of Christmas before the Epiphany of the Lord tomorrow. Today might be a day when, if you are imaginative, in our church calendar, the three kings were on their way to Bethlehem. Mounted on camels they were plodding across the desert, following a star. Or something like that.
Today’s hymn is Reginald Heber’s ‘Brightest and best of the sons of the morning.’ This hymn is firmly a part of our tradition, it is in many of our hymn books. Originally the hymn was criticised for its focus on a star, the brightest and best of the sons of the morning. Some of the imagery is not immediately clear but the principle is obvious enough. We need guidance, we worship, we give, we pray, and we seek light in our darkness.
Back to normal today, how much are we thinking of all those messages of light and hope that were on our lips, and so much part of expectation a fortnight ago?
It is right that life moves on. It is good to be engaged in the present, in the normal. On this last day of Christmas, pause a moment and think back to all the messages of welcome; remember that there is room for all in the Church. How about in our lives? Is there room for the infant Christ as he starts to grow or is he packed away now? Are we following the mysterious light as we live, or alone and trying to work out life for ourselves?
Christ is our light; we have no need of stars to guide us as we have him. Will we recognise him as Brightest and Best of all that is part of life; will take into Epiphany and every other season, all that we have learned this Christmas?
Prayer
Hear our prayers, Lord, as we journey on. Be ahead of us to guide us, beside us to support us and behind us to catch us if we stumble. Amen.