Arrival!

I wish you a Merry Christmas and a hopeful New Year. In the gospel of Matthew, chapter 2, we read of the journey of the wisemen from the east. When they actually arrived is not known, but we should not be surprised to learn that it may well have been some days or many weeks after the birth of the child. However, let us not fuss about the timing, the important truth is that they arrived! Have you arrived at this divine story? What has the path been like that has led you to this truth of faith? Having arrived, the next step is to move forward, transformed by what you found, and to know that as you journey forward there will be more moments of arrival, more epiphanies, that will keep the flame of faith kindling within yourself. Amidst displacement and despair, amidst worry and war, amidst suffering and sorrow, we might find it hard to be hopeful for the future, yet we must take courage because we worship the one called the Light of the World. May this Light overcome all the darkness you and I face. 

This link should open for you with Eliot reading his own poem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCVnuEWXQcg

The Journey of the Magi
A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.’
And the camels galled, sorefooted, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times 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 liquor and 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.
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.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arriving at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? 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,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death. T.S. Eliot

Prayer:
Lord God hear our prayer.
In this season when we remember
Mary and Joseph and their journey to Bethlehem.
We remember the wisemen bringing gifts and returning
by another route.
Our world today has all too many stories of
harried and hurried journeys.
Journeys begun because of fear and despair.
Journeys begun in search of safety from attack.
Journeys begun because there was
nowhere else to turn,
no way back,
and sadly for all too many,
no way forward.
Migrant and refugee, desperate to be called by name,
to be offered welcome, food and shelter, yet onward walk.
Displaced peoples, their journey, at every step, so uncertain.
What kind of world do they find along the way?
What hope, O Lord, do they hold?
Gracious God, stir us from our comfortable sleep,
wake us up that we might change the world.
We pray today for those who,
along whatever “border”
and in towns and cities destroyed by war,
will be present to offer the stranger and the suffering
a word of hope,
a touch of compassion,
a shoulder to lean on and arms to embrace them,
a place in which to shelter,
a meal to give the body strength,
a blanket to provide warmth,
a smile to invite a smile in return.
We know we must do more,
might we become part of the answer
to the prayer we pray. Amen.