Feast of Epiphany: A cold coming we had of it...

That is how T.S.Eliot opens his story of the Journey of the Magi.  It was cold, long, miserable, difficult and alien.  But they persevered, and eventually found the Infant Christ in Bethlehem.  Most people who know about journeys at that time, and the distance between the Arabian countries the Kings lived in and the inhospitable hills of Judea, would say that it must have taken the best part of a year for these Eastern kings to arrive at their destination.  Months of hardship, months of missing their homes and the comforts of civilised living, months of putting up with strange customs, and even stranger languages.  A whole year of wanting to turn back, thinking they must have been mistaken!! 

Not our image is it?  We usually put the Kings beside the Crib, picturing them as waiting with their exotic presents, surrounded by their camel boys and their charges, those rather strange-looking animals with their humped backs and long, narrow aristocratic faces which seem to disdain human beings.  We see the silken coverings the kings wore, the splendour and uniqueness of the presents of gold, francincense and myrrh the servants carried for them, the  colourful turbans, the gleaming white teeth in the dark faces...  It is all so exciting and so different.

But the reality?  It would seem to be more in tune with Thomas Stearn Eliot's view than with our own,  more romanticised one.  Look at the familiar lines of the opening stanzas:

A cold coming we had of it,

Just the worst time of the year for a journey, and what a journey!

The ways deep, and the weather sharp.

the very dead of Winter.

And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,

lying down in the melting snow.

There were times when we regretted

the Summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,

and the silken girls bringing sherbet.

Then the camel men, cursing and grumbling

and running away, and wanting their liquour and their women

 And the night fires going out,  and the lack of shelters.

and the cities hostile, and the towns unfriendly.

and the villages dirty, and charging high prices.

A hard time we had of it.

So the quest to find the King of Judea was not an easy one.  Is it ever?  If we look at the journey of the Magi, then we have to say that, like all of us, they set out in hope and a certain excitement to follow this unusual star that had appeared in the East, but, as the journey progressed and reality bit in, they almost gave up.  They were obviously intelligent and gently-nurtured men who were not used to the rigours of such a journey.  They missed their homeland, and the comforts it offered them.  That of course is natural, but what is remarkable about their journey is that they were faithful to the inner prompting that made them go on when they were dog tired, cold, hungry and disillusioned  That is courage.

Their courage was rewarded by the  sight of the star stopping over, of all things, a stable.  What an exercise of faith that was required of these three royals! They went in and saw the child Jesus with his Mother, and they offered their gifts, the best that their country had to offer, to her for the support of this refugee family.  It must have been a wonderful experience for them, the fulfillment of all their hopes and dreams.  When they got back to their old country, according to the poem, they "were no longer at ease in the old dispensations". In other words, they were so changed by meeting Jesus in the flesh that they realised that the things they had believed in before meeeting him were no longer of  use to them.

 

They saw their own people through new eyes, as "an alien people clutching their gods".

Isn't that part of our journey too?  Aren't we so touched by Jesus and his teachings that, to quote the New Testament account of the Transfiguration , we too "see no one but only Jesus." The following of our star is also our conversion experience.  At the end of it, we are led to the beginning, the coming of our Saviour to meet us and to bring us to his world.  Then our journey is complete.

Until then, we have to go through the rigours of the journey, searching for signs of his presence in our lives.  We see them in the most unexpected places, and in the most surprising people.  Jesus isn't fussy where he lives - he speaks to us all the time, but especially in the poor, the lonely, the disenfranchised, the ones who, to use Liverpool parlance "aren't much cop."  They are of no account in our world, but Jesus loves to show them the way to him, so that we can, in turn, be evangelised by them.  Try it some day!  


In the meantime, have a lovely Epiphany and remember to follow that star, no matter where it leads. Wise men did so and look what they found.  Wise people still do so, and they too have found Jesus with his mother Mary . Not forgetting the wise and gentle Joseph.

So with the three Kings, now enjoying the delights of Heaven, we pray: 

"Guide us to thy wondrous light! "

Feast of the Epiphany - Follow your star!

Before the feast of the Epiphany, or to use an English word “showing” I try to read T.S. Eliot’s poem  “The Journey of the Magi” because it teaches me a very valuable lesson which I keep forgetting.  It teaches me that to follow one’s star until the very end, means that one has to accept disappointment, pain, tedium, regret, cold, the loss of all that we want most at times.  And only those who persevere and keep the dream alive in their hearts find that star.

We put the three kings in the Crib, and we sigh sentimentally.  “Don’t they look sweet!” we sigh.  “Oh look at that young one, he’s so handsome! I love it when he comes into the Crib.  I wonder what Jesus made of all those exotic clothes and presents, and those crowns!“  And so we go on....  But we forget the journey don’t we, the long, cold nights, the weary pain-filled days, the disillusions on the way, the homesickness...  Theologians tell us that it must have taken the best part of two years to travel in those days from the East to Bethlehem. Easy Jet was a long way into the future, and 24-hour journeys were unknown!  It must have been a nightmare from start to finish.   

 T. S. Eliot, with his American freshness of outlook, tells us about it. He imagines one of the kings in old age sitting down in his Eastern palace one night when the stars are out, and as he gazes into the heavens, he remembers what it was like.  He recalls the journey that changed his life and the lives of all those around him.  He remembers the agony and the ecstasy of it.  The poem begins:

                       “A cold coming we had of it,

                        Just the worst time of the year for a journey, and what a long journey.
                        The way was deep, and the weather sharp
                        The very dead of Winter.
                        And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
                        lying down in the melting snow.

                        There were times when we regretted
                        the Summer palaces the stopes, the terraces,
                        and the silken girls bringing sherbet.
                        Then the camel-men, cursing and grumbling,
                        And running away, wanting their liquor and their women..."

Reading this we say to ourselves: “What has changed in all those years since this happened?” Not a lot, if we go on further in the poem:

                        "...and the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
                        and the cities, hostile, and the towns unfriendly
                        and the villages dirty, and charging high prices
                        A hard time we had of it.
                        At the end, we preferred to travel all night
                        sleeping in snatches
                        with the voices singing in our ears, saying
                        that this was all folly..."

Temptation!  They were at their weakest, and they began to regret the venture.  Familiar territory for us?  We have all experienced that!   We, like the kings, set off on our journey, following our dreams, with high hopes, but the reality is very different.  We begin to think that the price we have to pay is just too high.  That was the time the kings had to grit their teeth and just go on, blindly following their star.  And we know the end of the story.  The star stopped over a stable (what did these eastern potentates make of that, I wonder!)  and they found the baby with Mary, his mother (and presumably St. Joseph as well).

T.S. Eliot ends the poem with a challenging and provoking question: “ Was this a birth” he said “or a death?”

What do you think he meant by that?  Think about it.

It was certainly a birth, but it was also the death of the old way of thinking and acting, the death of the old interpretation of the law:  the death of so many things....  Think of what that means in your own life.

So I’ll end where I began.  Epiphany means the showing of the Christ Child to others beside his own people.  It is all about going out, bringing the Gospel message to the ends of the earth.  Following the star.

What is your star?  What dreams do you have for your life?  Are you prepared to follow your own particular star with the same determination and courage that the three kings showed?  If not, then you won’t reach your star, and that would be a shame, wouldn’t it? 

So we pray:

Lord, at this time when we celebrate the journey of the three Wise Men, we pray for their perseverance, their courage, their determination to go on, making the dream possible, in spite of so many things that militate against it.  Help us each day to put our hands in yours and to start afresh on our journey, so that, one day, we will, with all those who started along the long, winding road with us, glimpse the star shining over another stable, and come in to see you, with Mary your Mother.  We ask this through Christ our Lord.  Amen.

A very happy Epiphany!  I suppose you will be keeping it on Sunday, but today, on the 6^th January I wish all our readers the joy of journeying and one day reaching the end, together!  God bless.