A strange place to kneel down. And yet on the bare floor of this stable, his knees fell to the floor. It was like the clouds opened and as the star shone down it all made sense. And Melchior fumbled in his cloak and brought Gold to bring to the King - to the King who wasn’t the sort of monarch he was expecting. And yet now it all made sense. An Epiphany. This was to be a very different sort of King.
…...
Gold. A Golden age of English intellectuals. Clive Staples Lewis - CS Lewis - Jack to his friends - sat among the Gold and Ivory towers of Oxford writing his books. Wise men came from the east... to Oxford. Wise men came from the North.Wise men came from the West. Wise men came from the South. From all over the intellectual cream came to Oxford, just like the Scribes and wise men had come of old to Herod’s palace. And Lewis was one of them. A great scholar of English literature. And a proud atheist in the Bertram Russell tradition.
And yet like Melchior gazing up at the night sky, Lewis couldn't help but be drawn by something. Someone - someone gave him a book by Chesterton “The Everlasting Man”. Lewis loved the book and its ideas. … and yet… Well as Lewis put it "Christianity was very sensible... 'apart from its Christianity'" There were so many things about the Christian worldview: its attitude of gratitude, it’s seeing the beauty in the little things, its concept of love - it’s radical proposal of forgiveness. It was a beautiful way of living. "Christianity was very sensible... 'apart from its Christianity'" Everything about it seemed right apart from...the God thing.
It was down the pub that the next stage on his metaphorical journey from the desert to the stable began. CS Lewis liked the Eagle and Child. It served a good pint. And he would meet with his friends there - Tolkein and Dyson and others - and chat about stories and adventures … and sometimes Jesus.
Lewis was attracted by what his friends said. But God just didn’t make sense to him. Or perhaps he didn’t want it to make sense. Like the Magi who desperately wanted the King of the Jews to be born not in stable but in a Palace, perhaps Jack wanted the universe to be the way that fitted with the way he lived. But the conversations kept gnawing at his mind drawing him ever further into that desert.
Then a journey. He was on the top floor of a double decker bus, He got on that bus pondering atheism, sure he could defend it.It was as if the clouds opened, the star shone down - an epiphany - "kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting [my] eyes in every direction for a chance to escape" Lewis “the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England” gave in to the idea of God. [1]
And Lewis, together with Tolken and TS Eliot and that golden crop of mid twentieth century intellectuals - laid the treasures of his mind at the foot of the manger. The lion the witch and the Wardrobe. The Screwtape letters. The Problem of Pain. The Great Divorce. Mere christianity. “Gold I bring to crown Him again, King for ever, Ceasing never Over us all to reign.” [2]
…………......................................................................................................................................................
A strange place to kneel down.
And yet on the bare floor of this stable, Caspar’s knees fell to the floor. For years he has been a priest - a high priest, in eastern palace offering incense to the Almighty out of a sense of duty, like former generations had done before him. Through all this God had seemed far off. Not someone you could relate to. Not someone you could touch or who could cuddle you as he sat on your lap. Caspar hadn’t expected that as the virgin Mary passed him the baby to hold - he hadn’t been expecting that. And yet on that day in the observatory as they peered through their telescopes, everything had changed. The star. “We have seen his star rising" in the east [Matthew 2:2] - And suddenly what “to former generations of humanity had been a mystery”[Eph 3:5] in an instant became clear to them. At once they saddled their camels and set off. And in a far off land they encountered a God who was much less far off than they could have imagined. An intimate God who through grace and forgiveness brought love to us. A god who would weaken himself to become a baby - because he loved you and I that much.
And Caspar fumbled in his cloak and brought out incense to bring to the King - Incense owns a deity neigh. Only this wasn’t the sort of deity he was expecting. And yet now it all made sense. An Epiphany.
……………….
1738. 24th May to be precise -around 8.45 in the evening - “the mystery of the boundless riches of Christ was made known”. The Revd John Wesely MA was an educated man who knew many things, but this most important of things had until then been a mystery to him. By 1738 John had been a priest for ten whole years praying and studying and writing sermons yet it was like he was an ancient priest offering incense to a far off deity out of a sense of duty just because his father had done it before him. He had even gone to be a missionary to America - great disaster that that had been - messed up love affair and jealous reaction - perhaps because he had never truly known God. He got on a boat and travelled across the ocean but his heart had never got on a camel and journeyed to the manger.
Travelling to America they had been caught in a storm and John Wesley had been amazed at faith of some Moravian missionaries in the ship. They had had such utter confidence - singing hymns and praying all through the storm while Wesley and the other passengers were terrified. He wanted something of what they had - but it was not till he returned to England, till 24th May 1738 that he crept into a Moravian meeting. And there someone read from the writings of Martin Luther.
"In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther's Preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death."[3]
It was a if John was there in the stable with Jesus. And it all made sense. Like a man in an observatory seeing a supernova burst through his telescope, John saw it all. He didn’t have to earn God’s love. God just loved him. An intimate God who through grace and forgiveness brought love to us. A god who would weaken himself to become a baby - because he loved you and I that much. And in his heart, John knelt before the manger
And he though “ the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to me to bring to the nations the news of the boundless riches of Christ, and to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things” riding more than 250,000 miles, giving away 30,000 pounds, ... and preaching more than 40,000 sermons - to bring others to experience that revelation, that epiphany. “Prayer and praising, All men raising, Worship Him God on High." [2]
…...........................................................................................................................
A strange place to kneel down. And yet on the bare floor of this stable, Balthazaar’s knees fell to the floor. It had felt odd buying the Myrrh. You could see it in their eyes as they sold it to him. “We are so sorry for your loss. Who’s died? Who is the Myrrh for”. How could he explain that he was bringing it as a present to a baby? “Myrrh is mine; its bitter perfume Breathes a life of gathering gloom; Sorrowing, sighing, Bleeding, dying, Sealed in the stone-cold tomb.”[2]
It had felt very odd buying the Myrrh - Trust the star to give him that task. His companions got to bring shiny gold and odorous frankinsense … and he got to bring … embalming fluid. He knew all along that he was to bring this prophetic gift to show how the child’s eventual death would change the world.
Yet as Balthazar knelt down on the bare floor of the stable - as he gazed into the life giving eyes of the baby - Balthazar knew at once that part of him had died.
He sighed “Birth or Death?”Balthazar thought “There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,” [4]
Balthazar sighed. As he knelt down on the bare floor of the stable proffering Myrrh he knew that it was his old self too that must be embalmed in those spices. His old self, the handsome princeling, the dashing man about court was dead - left behind in Arabia and a new man would return home - changed forever through an encounter, a revelation an epiphany.
…………………………………
1521.May. In the castle of Loyola Ignatius lay there in agony. The servants might as well already have been annointing his body for burial. Once he, Sir Ignatius Loyola, had been the stuff of ballads, the one all the ladies wanted to dance with, the brave Spanish knight defending Pamlona against the French - until a canonball shot through his leg. Aged 31 it was as if he was dead - his life as a hero was over. He lay in his father’s castle as the surgeons brutally broke his leg again and again to reset it. Infection was a constant danger. Would he die? And if he lived would he live as cripple?
Ignatius lay there for months. He was bored. There were only a couple of books. One was heroic tales of knights. He would read it and imagine himself as one of them. And as he imagined doing these great deeds he would feel great … until the story was over and he would just feel empty. The other book was a stories of the saints - stories of Christian heroes. Iganatius found as he read them he was just as excited as the other book except when he put this book down realised he didn’t feel empty. He felt full. Even as he lay almost dead on the bed, he felt alive.
And like the clouds parting and a star shining through, he saw the light. An epiphany. He saw that the death of Jesus on a cross was Victory. He saw that he could “never be at ease in the old dispensation” [4] carrying the favour of a young lady, swearing his loyalty to the Duke. Rather he would carry the favour of our lady and swear loyalty to the King, to King Jesus. He would be a new sort of knight.
His old self was dead, wrapped in Myrrh, sealed in a stone cold tomb. But through the death and resurrection of Jesus a new self had arisen. And for the next 35 years Ignatius Loyola would fight to tell people of the love of Jesus that they too might be “sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” [Ephesisans 3:6] training an army of heroes a Jesus, soldiers of the cross who with military discipline would go to the ends of the earth “to bring to the nations the news of the boundless riches of Christ, and to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things;” [Ephesians 3:8-9] [5]
……....................................................................................................................
Melchior, Caspar, Balthazar- their long journey behind them - knelt.
“Wise men come from the east”.[Matthew 2:1] So easy to pigeon hole them.
Yet each of them knew how foolish they had been. As they strode into the Palace of Herod they thought they knew everything. “You know nothing Melchior, Caspar, Balthazar”. Their foolishness had endangered the very baby they came to honour. They brought gifts of Gold and Frankincense and Myrrh, and in their pride they thought they knew everything there was to know about this special baby - "King and God and Sacrifice." [2]
Until they knelt on the cold floor of that stable.
And you [pointat congregation] kneel beside them.
And the star shines clear on the manger. And they see the light. A revelation. An epiphany.
And you kneel with them - gazing - And the clouds open. what do you see? What becomes clear to you?
[long silence]
...........................................................................
[1] cf "Surprised by Joy" for CS Lewis's account of his conversion, including the quotes from him. Other information extracted from the internet.
[2] quote from traditional Carol "We three kings" - the names of the wise men used in this sermon are the traditional names found in that Carol - and while the wise men are neither named nor numbered in the bible - it is the biblical gifts that are crucial to this sermon and the names simply improve the story telling.
[3] quoted from John Wesley's journal. cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wesley
[4] quote from TS Elliot's "The Coming of the Magi"
[5] Information on Ignatius Loyola extracted from the internet.
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