A new something

From Helen 

Well here we are just in to a New Year. We will have had chance to think about the events of the past year, maybe with happiness maybe with sadness. We may even have made resolutions for how we will do things differently this year.

I never make resolutions as the one time I did make a resolution it all went wrong for me. I was 9 years old and I had received a girl guide diary for Christmas. It was only a little diary but it had a pencil with it that fitted in to the side of the diary. I really thought that I was quite something with this diary and so I resolved to write in it every day, which I did. However, in February I made a new friend who was such a good friend that we decided we were best friends. In my diary I saw all the lovely things one would write about their absolute best friend but then I noticed a piece of paper stapled in on which I had written, “ She is no longer my best friend look at 17^th Feb.” On the 17^th Feb I had explained how I couldn’t believe that we had ever been friends as she had called me sarky that day. Clearly the friendship was over !

New year, it is all about something new and as I looked at the readings for today I was struck by the idea of something new and something exciting. In the gospel reading (Matthew 2:1-12) we heard of the wise men seeing Jesus for the first time. Not only this but they saw in Jesus the answer to all that they had been waiting for.

They had travelled, and by making what may have seemed the correct assumption that the great King to be born would have been known of by the King of the Country-Herod they went to him. Of course, and to be honest, I can understand, but Herod was not very happy to receive this news. His later reaction in having all the baby boys killed was more than slightly extreme but he was surprised. I guess that is what can happen when people’s power is threatened.

Back to the Kings they saw in Jesus something new and not only new but a glory that meant that all they could do was fall down and worship Him.

They brought him some rather strange gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Each of these gifts though had a special meaning:-

Gold represented the kingly humanity of Jesus. Giving gold was the appropriate present for a king. Which is why even a gold piano might have been a gift or a hand me down ! Anyway back to the gifts.

Frankincense was a gift that went further than the normal gold for a King it represented God in it being used in the worship of God. This shows that the wise men were showing that there was something more about this King.

Myrrh seems at first as the most inappropriate of gifts as it was the oil used to embalm a body at death. This gift showed that the death of Jesus would bring a change to the world.

The Kings were amazed by Jesus, they brought Him gifts and they fell down and worshipped Him. The King born in the strangest of surroundings with the strangest of gifts who would change the world.

In our epistle reading (Eph. 3:1-12) we heard of great mysteries being revealed to Paul the writer of the epistle as he had encountered Jesus. Like the Kings, in Jesus Paul saw something new.

This new was the answer to everything. In Jesus the Kings saw the glory of God as they saw God Himself and they also found salvation. That is they found the answer to the greatest mystery of all which is how we can be put right with God, how we can start all over again.

The new thing was a way to get closer to God a mystery unravelled that God had come amongst us to bring us back to Him.

The Kings, Paul, all those who follow Jesus have been amazed by Him. In a tiny baby God had broken into the world by being like one of us but so much more than that. God made everything right again and all we have to do is turn to Him and live like him.

Maybe I have got it wrong on the whole resolution thing. Instead of a resolution may be we just all need to recommit ourselves every day to showing Jesus in our lives by the way we live and the people that we are.

The magi whom we celebrate saw Jesus and they had an epiphany, a sense of something new, even greater than all they had expected. When we look at Jesus so we come to worship Him as the one who is even greater than we could have anticipated.

In a very well known verse, Teresa of Avila wrote. “
“Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”

God brought something new as He became one of us, as we read the gospels and as we look at the lives of those around us so we can see that on meeting Jesus people are amazed, as they recognize the One who was both going to and has changed the world.

As Christ’s body on earth may we be those through whom Christ is seen in the world today. We will do this, showing something new every time we turn to Christ anew may what we do that is new be a continuation of what we do already, so not new at all but may we turn every day to Christ afresh and ask that by our lives we will show the amazingness and love of God. AMEN