Parish of St Helen Witton Northwich Cheshire

September 2010 - BCP: Tough walking boots for today's world

After forty years of major liturgical revision, many Church of England worshippers would no doubt find Book of Common Prayer services difficult to return to. Lip-service is sometimes paid to various Prayer Book features. Older church members often profess affection, for example, for 1662 Evensong (an affection very seldom translated into attendance, it has to be said). On the whole, however, most people seem thoroughly at home with our comfortable and adaptable modern-language services and have little desire to return to the more demanding style and content of the old forms.

In the meantime, a whole generation has grown towards middle age without the slightest knowledge of Prayer Book language and worship. As a member of the Prayer Book Society I am brought into regular contact with Prayer Book worship done uncompromisingly and unapologetically. I am grateful for this reconnection with the liturgy that was written by Thomas Cramner.

I have to say that with the BCP we can miss the variety and flexibility on offer with modern services. And much as one admires the language of the Authorized Version, there is no denying that it makes some Bible passages (in St Paul’s epistles, for instance) frustratingly obscure for the modern reader. On the other hand, there are verbal felicities galore in the BCP and the Authorized Version that are more than compensation.

I am grateful for other significant gains. The old language does not reduce God’s gracious friendship with man to easy mateyness. He is no undemanding chum. I and thou is very different in feel from me and you. Compared with the Prayer Book, our modern services are remarkably light on the sheer majesty and power of God, the grim tragedy of human sinfulness and our utter need for great mercy from God if we are to be saved.

One instance: ‘The remembrance of them is grievous unto us; the burden of them is intolerable.’ That is how we describe our ‘manifold sins and wickednesses’ in the form of confession used the Prayer Book service of Holy Communion. This may not wholly reflect how we personally feel about our sins. But perhaps the fault is not in any inappropriateness in the language of the prayer; it lies, rather, in our woefully diminished awareness of sin. These days many of us see our failings as muddles and mistakes to be sorted out, rather than sins needing to be thoroughly repented of if we are to receive forgiveness and stay on course for salvation.

The modern services can surreptitiously leave you feeling that you may need to be improved a little, but that you’re not so bad, really. The BCP services leave you in no doubt that you are a sinner who needs to be saved and not by any pieties from our side, but through absolute reliance upon Christ’s saving sacrifice as evidenced in thorough-going repentance. And that is another area where the BCP is strong. It repeatedly emphasizes, not just our sinfulness, but also the centrality of the Lord’s death and passion as the fountain-head of salvation and forgiveness.

I love the works of St Cyprian’s ‘The Lord’s passion is the sacrifice we offer’ – not that we in any way repeat that total once for-all self-offering, of course. But, as St Paul puts it, in the Eucharist we ‘show forth the Lord’s death until he comes’, we plead the merits and death of our crucified Saviour as we seek to approach his holy table in penitence and faith. In this area the Prayer Book is sublime. It never allows you to wander off into supposing that God is a soft touch, heaven more or less a foregone conclusion and salvation little more than a matter of therapy to make us feel good about ourselves. All this I have found immensely refreshing and I commend to you re-evaluation of these soundly Biblical insights.

Perhaps the modern liturgy has become a little too comfortable – like well worn indoor slippers when what we really need are tough walking boots in which we can venture forth into the real spiritual world.

Your faithful servant, Malcolm

August 2010 - What is the church for?

I’ve been giving that a lot of thought recently as I’ve been thinking about the GAP process, both reflecting on our GAP initiatives of last year and the possible initiatives for the coming year. I remember a little motto given at a PCC away day attended some years ago - “The important thing is to make sure that the main thing is the main thing”. It sounds simple, but we know it is not always easy to achieve! This Bible verse reminds us about the “main thing” for us:-

With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and much grace was upon them all. - Acts 4 v32.

Here was a group of men and women, living in a hostile environment, with no human rights to protect them, who lived simply and in complete trust of God. They loved the message – that Jesus Christ was risen from the dead – and knew that when he was proclaimed, the news would get out! And the news was staggering. It was that a victim of murder had come to life and was confronting his murderers! The twelve apostles were on the jury giving a unanimous verdict on the case.

It is such a shame when the church is perceived to be a bit stale, or on the back foot, or taken by surprise by events. There are many who believe that is where the church is, yet when questioned in the last census, about 70% of British people described themselves as “Christian”. That is now almost 10 years ago – and things have changed quite dramatically. I don’t think for one minute that the church is stale or out of date! Not here, anyway, where there is a vibrant, lively, warm fellowship. You never see concert goers coming out of The Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool, saying, “Boring – same old Beethoven again – it’s always the same!”. Certainly that wouldn’t be the case if the musicians really played their music with conviction and passion and believed in what they were doing!

So, likewise, in the New Testament, we see the first Christians alive with energy as they spend their lives proclaiming what they have come to know and believe. So, what about us who are called upon in our generation to witness to the good news of Jesus Christ? Are we driven by passion and energy and is the main thing the main thing, or are there other things that have got in the way? It’s an important question. It seems to me from the Bible verse above that when we follow God’s agenda, rather than inflict our agenda on him, grace follows and blessings flow.

We must be clear and understand that if there is to be any lasting gospel work here, any effective ministry that leads to people being converted and renewed and grafted into the life of the church, then prayer must be the priority. Whether that is privately, at home, or in prayer groups, or in home groups or smaller or larger gatherings, prayer is one sure way we say to God, “We cannot do this alone – indeed we cannot do this at all, without your grace.”

So this month, I want to encourage you to “keep going”. Make the main thing the main thing. And join me in praying for our church life as we consider the future and various new directions under God’s leading. They are exciting times for the Church, as well as challenging times. But God is greater than any challenge and he has promised to be with us always to the end of the age.

Your faithful servant, Malcolm

July 2010 - In our deepest darkness shines the light of Christ!

For many of us these are worrying times. However hard we try to put anxious thoughts “on the back burner”, the financial crisis looms as a constant concern for those who wonder if the place they have put their investments is secure. If their pension fund is safe, or if they'll ever be able to sell that house they have had on the market for months.

Weathering the storms of life seems to be something most of us have to do at some time, whether they be financial insecurities, or personal grief and tragedy. Often our suffering seems unfair and I have known many who have asked me why bad things happen to good people, if I believe in a loving God.

I do not know the answer to that question. Its probably the first one I'd like to put to God, when I meet him face to face. Although I suspect he might want to challenge me about a few more important things first!! What I do know, however, is that my faith has never been based on the assumption that life will be plain sailing. I, like many of you, have known really dark times and found it difficult to see even a flicker of light in the darkness.

So my faith as a Christian is not based on the premise that “if you are on God's side, everything will be Ok”, but rather on the knowledge that God is there in all the darkest places we might find ourselves. This is the God who, in his son, suffered humiliation, rejection, betrayal and death, in order to show us his love. Remember that beautiful bit of the prologue to St John's gospel which is read at every traditional carol service and at the midnight Christmas service at “St Helen” each year. It reads “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it”.

For many of us, God shows his love for us through the love of others. Others speak of a sense that however low they sink, there are the everlasting arms underneath before they fall into eternal blackness. We might do well to look back over the dark times in our lives and see how we have been enabled to survive them.

The story of Jesus calming the storm on Galilee is more than a factual account. It has eternal significance and perhaps particular meaning for those of you who are feeling tossed about, for whatever reason, as you read this newsletter. The storm will still. God fully understands when we get anxious, or angry, or cry out to him in sheer desperation. The psalmist did it. The disciples did it, Even Jesus did it with those memorable words, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

But perhaps, in all the clamour of the tempest, we might just manage to hear the message of hope... after all, there is both death AND resurrection in our Christian story. Thank God!

Your faithful servant, Malcolm

June 2010 - Love, cherish and worship one another ?

It's the wedding season again! The words of today's Marriage service, composed for our new liturgy which was published in the year 2000, seem really to catch our understanding of what as Christians, we believe marriage to be. I am glad that we now consider the marriage commitment to be identical for Bride and Groom. So the vows couples usually make are the same, although of course the Bride can still say "obey" if she wants to. But what perhaps we need to remember is that in the old prayer book when the Bride promised to "love, cherish and obey" her husband, the groom promised to "love, cherish and worship" his wife.

"Worshipping" seems rather a strange way of responding to one's spouse in today's world. But maybe we would do well to remember that it really means "giving someone their true worth". It seems to me that is something we most certainly need to do, not only in our married partnerships but in all our human relationships.

As I write this letter I keep reflecting on the News program I was listening to as I woke up this morning. It was the news of the anticipated football transfers now the season is drawing to a close and the many millions of pounds which will be spent on one footballer to kick a ball around a pitch for ninety minutes each week, as well as the story of a desperately hungry twelve year old girl in Zimbabwe selling her body as a prostitute for a meal. What I wonder is a human life worth and what makes these two stories apparently have such a different worth in the world we and they share?

Over the years I'm not sure the Christian church has always lived out the teaching of the one who constantly emphasized that every life is infinitely precious to God. We have perhaps been too keen to leave people feeling guilty, or that they are failures in one way or another. We have failed to give others their worth and acknowledge our own. Yet the record of Jesus' dealings with people in the gospel accounts is all about raising people up and encouraging them to see their potential as God sees it, rather than pointing a finger of blame, which humiliates and stunts people's growth.

So how about us all doing a bit of "worshipping"? I don't mean just coming to church to acknowledge God's worth. I mean responding to one another with loving encouragement and constantly looking for the good in each other, rather than focusing on each other's failings.

Your faithful servant, Malcolm

May 2010 - One World Church

Just recently, I came across a most fascinating and enlightening study course. Each week the participants 'visited' a different Continent to hear about the work and challenges facing the Church in that part of the world. The speakers spoke from first hand knowledge of the Church in Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America. It is an enlightening and inspiring experience to try to 'think yourself into' what it means to be a Christian in such different situations and yet to be conscious that we belong together as God's people in God's world. 'Ecumenism' means 'belonging to the whole inhabited world' and 'Catholic' means 'universal'.

It has been said that if you touch the church in one place; it trembles in another. The stories from Zimbabwe in Africa, the Philippines in Asia and Colombia in South America, could certainly make you tremble. It is a very humbling experience to hear of what it means to them to be true to their faith and to compare that with our own witness. In May we have a chance to show our solidarity with 'the whole inhabited world' the week dedicated to Christian Aid allows us to play our part in helping to bring the fullness of life that Christ intends for all his people. The policy of Christian Aid is to support local groups all over the world and to help fund their efforts to relieve suffering and chronic hunger.

To me it is a wonderful opportunity and one of the most important things we do as Christians, to be able to identify with the work which is being done in our name. By being a link in the chain, we are united with the church universal, in sharing the gifts God has entrusted to us as his people.

Ascension Day is Thursday 13 May, and is one of the major festivals of the Church's year. It is Ascension Day which places Christian Aid Week and all else we do as Christians, in its proper context. Ascension is the 'coronation' of Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. It means that all that the man Jesus did and taught is authenticated as the principle on which the whole world is created. It now becomes pattern and purpose for our lives and the 'yardstick' by which all else is measured. As Christians we stand under the commission of our Ascended Lord to feed the hungry and heal the sick; to establish justice and peace for all the world and to recognise our stewardship of all God's creation.

That is the task and Pentecost is the power. Whitsunday (or Pentecost) is 23rd May, when we celebrate the coming of the Spirit to transform the first disciples from weak and scared individuals into the Church which changed the world. Pentecost brought power, unity and purpos, and still today the Spirit comes to transform us from weak and scared individuals into the Church universal. As we look forward to that day of Pentecost, may we be drawn together as... One Church, One Faith One Lord and be sent out by the Spirit in power, unity and purpose to be God's people in God's world.

Your faithful servant Malcolm

April 2010 - The way of the Cross

If you visit the Holy Land, one of the many things which pilgrims really ought to do is walk the Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sorrow.»» This is the route through the Old City of Jerusalem traditionally taken by Christ from Pilate’s Judgement Seat to Calvary, now the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

It was recently shown on a television documentary and I was struck partly because the pilgrims had to work their way through the crowds – those people going about their daily business, rushing to and from appointments, buying and selling goods, passing the time of day with friend and neighbour. In all of the hustle of daily life, this small procession wound its way, pausing at each station marked in the walls of buildings. I was also struck because it would have been much the same when Christ walked that same route to Calvary. The locals were obviously quite used to pilgrims ‘doing’ the Stations of the Cross and generally ignored them. Yet there was something about the Divine engaging with the things of earth; as the world carried on around those making this most special pilgrimage, with offerings of prayer and reflection to God.

Christian pilgrimage is such a time, too. It’s often pictured as a time of wilderness, of being in ‘the desert’, images which are, of course, quite useful. However, as it is also a time of spiritual growth, an image of us engaging with God perhaps more than we normally do is just as useful and it’s no co-incidence that it corresponds with spring. At the end of Lent, Passiontide, our thoughts focus in more and more on the Cross. Holy Week, which started on 28 March (Palm Sunday) is a week of a vast array of spiritual emotions as we journey with Christ from the Entry to Jerusalem through to Easter Sunday via the Last Supper, betrayal and arrest, trial, flogging and Crucifixion.

It’s such a pity, to me, that in churches up and down the land, many folk come on Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday but to nothing on the days in between. Theologically, that doesn’t seem right, for we cannot truly experience the overwhelming joy of Easter Sunday if we’ve not gone through the pain of Good Friday.

Walking the way of the Cross, can be a painful and difficult journey, each of us can face times of loneliness, anxiety or despair, and the cry of “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”

The so-called "footprints" story – so simple and obvious – should by rights have become rather hackneyed, but it continues to speak. If you are one of those who has never heard it – and there may be a few out there – it is the story of a man who in a dream sees his life like footprints on the shore. Alongside is another set of prints – those of the Lord, But at the hard times of his life there seems only one set of prints. Where was the Lord then? They are his prints that was when he carried us – underneath are the everlasting arms.

Time and again as I have gone into the depths – there I have found him – the God whose human face is Jesus and whose human image is the crucifix. That's one of the reasons why I am a Christian. And time and again I find myself coming back to those words from Saint Paul's Letter to the Church in Rome. Paul knew that his life and ministry would mean great danger and risk, even the possibility of sudden and early death (which, as far as we can tell, is what happened), but he is so aware of the love of God in Jesus Christ that he can say:

"I believe that neither death nor life, nor heights, nor depths, nor powers, nor anything present nor anything to come, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord"

In the meantime, it is my prayer that we will each continue to deepen our relationship with God as we continue our Christian journey, that we may continue to be built up as disciples in His name.

Your faithful servant Malcolm

March 2010 - O Lord: What, When and Why?

I‘ve been sitting at my computer for ages trying to write this month’s letter - it’s now Sunday evening of Magazine deadline day. I've just finished Evensong and having spoken with Frank, who is rather keen to have all the articles for publication today, as he has to meet with Rachel and Paul Clarke (our new Magazine editors) to compile this month’s magazine, I am only just finding the words to put on the page.

No pressure then !!!!

The reason is that I’ve a bit of writer’s block, well more than that really, more of a message block. What bit of pearly wisdom do you need to hear this month? Which biblical gem will speak to you in just the right way? And I realised that I’ve never asked you. Not in the whole two and a half years that I have been writing in this magazine have I ever asked the people, “What it is that you want to know about God?”

But there’s a problem: A while ago, while on holiday, I visited a place of worship of another faith and was introduced to one of the young enthusiastic leaders who, knowing I was a priest, began to criticise the Christian faith. “None of it makes sense, look at the Trinity – the Christian God is three people and yet one person – How can that work, it is ridiculous!” We talked, we laughed and we bantered a bit more.

But perhaps I should have said, as my brother did when I told him of my experience, “Who wants a God that even I can fully understand? I want a God who is so massive that I will never get to the bottom of his mighty and unfathomable ways.” The trouble is that I want to know all I can about God, we all have questions:

“Why does that person I love have cancer?”
“Why did I not get into the school I wanted?”
“Why are my kids going off the rails?”
“Why am I going off the rails?”
“Why did that happen?”
“Why did that not get fixed?”

All those questions about life, in the end, find themselves stacking up in God’s hands. Like the child who asks “Why?” to every answer so we eventually have nowhere to go but to God and ask...

“Why God? I don’t understand you, I don’t get it? I thought you were like this or that. I thought you were just, but the bible talks of hell, I thought you were powerful but the bible tells of your death on the cross, I thought you brought freedom but you have so many rules?”

To make matters worse we have, from somewhere, picked up the idea that we should never turn to God and ask “Why?”. It seems to be that we feel it would be impertinent or pathetic to cry out “Why ME?!” or “Where are you God?!” or even “What do you think you’re playing at, Lord?” What is it that you want to know about God? What should I have addressed in this letter that might have tried to play some part in answering your questions?

From the 13th Chapter of 1 Corinthians...

“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

I must warn you, though, I know so few of the answers myself. What I understand of God is just a poor reflection as in a mirror. At times it frustrates me that I cannot get a crystal clear image of Him and at times it makes me weep as I need to understand “WHY?!” And so I maintain my scrutiny of the image before me, I polish the mirror, I ask “What’s this bit?” as I peer into the poor reflection. It was St. Paul who wrote these words and with them he is encouraging us to ask and explore and develop our understanding about God and not to be satisfied with the small amount we think we know. He knows that God is too magnificent and too awesome to comprehend in this lifetime but that should not mean that we do not do everything we can to further develop our relationship and our understanding of God.

“In the end,” says St. Paul, “all will be made clear when we meet God face to face.” If we have asked our questions and listened and responded to His answers with love and acceptance deep in our hearts then that meeting will be like the lifting of a bridal veil or the uncovering of a masterpiece. There we will see God in all His glory and the parts of our understanding that were always fuzzy or dimly lit will sharpen and brighten.

Until then we keep asking, “Who are you, Lord? Why this way, Lord? When will you, Lord? What’s next, Lord?”

Your faithful servant, Malcolm

February 2010 - Where is GOD is the midst of all this?

The tragic events of recent days in Haiti have affected each of us, be it the saddening and disturbing images on our television screens, or perhaps a relative or friend caught up in the devastation. Understandably perhaps, many commentators have voiced concerns, raised arguments and have asked many searching questions, perhaps the most difficult for some is “If there is a God, where is He is the midst of all this?” A good friend of mine, who is both a scientist and priest has written...

There are several theologies of suffering embedded in the Old Testament, the most common of which is that suffering is punishment from God for human sinfulness. This is the theme, for instance of the Book of Job, where Job’s friends blame his predicament on some secret sin. It is still frequently encountered today. Some years ago the controversial cleric David Jenkins was consecrated Bishop in York Minster and a short time later part of the Minster was destroyed by fire. Some Christians held that this was divine punishment inflicted on the Church of England for promoting such a man to a position of leadership. Again when Princess Diana was killed in 1997, some Christians again claimed it was punishment for her lifestyle and each time a volcano erupts someone somewhere claims it to be punishment. In 1980, for instance, the Mount St Helens eruption in the USA was in the view of one radio evangelist, the punishment for consumption of strong liquor. There are many others which could be cited.

Such a theology of suffering as divine punishment is problematic. Indeed, it is in fact fundamentally flawed. If God kills sinful people by means of the Mount St Helens eruptions, or partially destroys York Minster, or has a hand in the death of a young princess and mother, why did he not intervene to protect the innocent in the Holocaust, the killing fields of Cambodia and in many other places and situations. Is such a capricious God morally acceptable and worthy of worship?

If the books of the Hebrew Bible are placed in date order, rather than in the order they appear in our pew bibles, then a new theology of suffering can be seen to be emerging. This is expressed in the so called “servant songs” of Isaiah where the servant figure, who for Christians is often equated with the future Messiah is described as a “man of suffering” who is “acquainted with grief”. This idea of a suffering God is even more clearly drawn in some of the later books contained in the Apocrypha. It is, however, the life and teaching of Jesus that gives the lie to God being a figure of punitive violence. On two separate occasions Jesus upbraids the disciples for expressing such a mistaken understanding of God’s action in the world.

“Those eighteen who died when the Tower of Siloam fell on them – do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?” The disciples ask, “I tell you no! Jesus replies (Luke 13:4) “As Jesus went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” Neither this man nor his parents sinned said Jesus (John 9:1-3).

It is not only in Christ’s teaching that the idea of punishment is refuted, but the crucifixion is also central to any Christian understanding of human suffering. Working in the shadow of the Holocaust and within the context of the collective guilt of the German people for the Nazi regime, the theologian Jurgen Moltmann argues that the cross is the Christian answer to suffering . In his book “The Crucified God” Moltmann argues - in what to my mind is the most significant theological book published in the last 50 years – that when Christ in utter desolation cries out “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me”, this represents the supreme moment of God’s identification with the human condition. This is God’s son on the Cross, we too are his children, God does not will suffering, but shares in it, as any loving parent would share the suffering of a child. Although we will never fully understand why a child dies, why there was no divine intervention to prevent the Holocaust and why so many die in disasters, we can have absolute assurance that God shares in our suffering, grief, illness and despair. As we know that this is not God’s last word on the issue, for we can look forward to the light and eternal life promised by the Resurrection.

I ask you to reflect on two passages of Scripture that we often read at funerals. St Paul writing to the Romans states... “I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present , nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. God loves us in our suffering”.

From St John “Jesus said, I am the Resurrection, and I am the Life”. This is our hope for the future.

Natural disasters – like that in Haiti—occur through the operation of geological processes, though even here human sinfulness in the form of poor living standards has a hand in many catastrophes in countries of the so called third world. There is clear corporate sinfulness in disparities between rich and poor at the global scale and this is reflected in disaster losses. The people who died in Haiti were vulnerable because they were poor and lived in unsuitable housing. As the theologian Dorethee Solle has pointed out, original sin involves the sin of passive association with the forces that produce riches and safety for the few and degradation, hazard, death and misery for the majority. This argument however, does not account for those who would have suffered even if the finest measures of hazard mitigation had been in place. After all, people still die in small numbers when an earthquake occurs in California or Japan.

Without earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, however, no life on Earth would be possible. Life on Earth developed simultaneously with the geological evolution of the Planet. For instance the original atmosphere was produced by de-gassing from volcanoes, but excess sulphur and carbon were removed, respectively through the operation of global plates and storage within water, carbonaceous rocks and other reservoirs.

Physical laws control the universe and it may well be that the Earth is the best possible world it is possible to create. Perhaps in this regard God is as vulnerable as we are ourselves? Perhaps the First World War poet, Geoffrey Studdart-Kennedy was correct when he observed: “The sorrows of God must be hard to bear if he really has love in his heart. For the hardest part in the world to play, must surely be God’s part”.

This is the answer to undeserved suffering.

Your faithful servant, Malcolm

Janurary 2010 - Epiphany: “Return Another Way”

On January 6th the church keeps the feast of the Epiphany, although this year many churches (including St Helen) will keep the feast on 3rd January 2010. It is the coming of the wise men to pay homage to the infant Jesus. Indeed no nativity play is complete without three Kings coming to visit the baby Jesus, usually with tea towels and dressing gowns for authenticity although you may have read in the press that last year, parents ditched the traditional tea towels and dressing gowns for “designer” costumes!!!

The story of the three Wise Men, or Magi, is told in Matthew Chapter 2:1-12»». The story is well known. They see a star, telling of the birth of the King of the Jews. They follow the star, first to Jerusalem, where they seek the new born King at Herod’s palace, but are directed on to Bethlehem where the star stops to show them where Jesus is. They are overjoyed, worship Jesus and present Him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Over the centuries, this basic narrative became enriched by several traditions. Tertullion first referred to them as kings in the second century and this became general in the sixth century, being linked to Psalm 72:10-11 which says, The Kings of Tarshish and distant shores will bring tribute to him; the Kings of Sheba and Seba will present Him gifts. All Kings will bow down to him and all nations will serve him.

While Matthew gives no number, Origen in the third century said there were three, probably because they had three gifts; and this too became general. By the sixth century, they had been given names: Caspar, Melchior and Balthaser. By the Middle Ages they had become venerated as Saints and their alleged relics were brought from Constantinople first to Milan and then to Cologne. A shrine to them can still be seen in the magnificent Cathedral of Cologne. The Magi adoring Christ has always been one of the most popular subjects for religious art, St. Helen's East end window (left top)
The Epiphany (indeed part of the East Window at St Helen shows the Epiphany) the earliest depiction being a second century fresco in the catacombs in Rome.

But Epiphany is more than just a picturesque story, these gifts have significance, Gold showing Christ as King, Frankincense showing Christ as Priest and Myrrh showing Christ as Sacrifice. Even more important is that they show that the birth of Christ is good news to Gentiles as well as Jews, that Christ has come to all people of every nation.

As we prepare to celebrate the feast of the Epiphany, let us remember that the Magi, returned home another way (New English Bible). It has been suggested that “Another Way” may not simply be by a different route, but changed, transformed by their encounter and experience. My prayer for each of us, this Epiphany is that as we celebrate and engage afresh in the wonder of this story, we too may return “Another Way”.

Your faithful servant, Malcolm