Happy New Year everyone!

I do hope that you had a great Christmas and New Year and are thinking about getting back into the routine of things this week.

Starting later this week we begin the season of 'Epiphany.' While all our recent nativity plays had the wise men entering stage right with everyone else, actually, we think about them this week! 
Matthew's gospel tells us about them, but we don't know much, except one important detail—that they 'came from the East.' 
They were non-Jews (Gentiles) and were star gazing astronomers. 
This is striking. 
The first to worship Jesus, were a bunch of shepherds (a noble profession, but not the political movers and shakers of Jerusalem) and now, a bunch of magi, with no heritage of Jewish faith.

Friends, what a God we have! We've just celebrated the extraordinary truth of Christmas, 'Immanuel, God with us.' Now we're reminded, that just like the wise men, we too can put our trust in Jesus. 
Some of us have the prayers and example of Christian family to thank for raising us to know Christ. 
Some of us don't, neither did the wise men. 
No Sunday School or CU for them. 
In fact both the shepherds and the wise men trusted God, before actually seeing Jesus - which puts us all in the same boat!

What we learn from them, is their response. They ran to Jesus, over hills from the East. The wise men bring gifts fit for a king - no babygros or talc in sight, but gifts which honoured Jesus as King. We can do the same in 2012: bowing down, and offering our very selves in service of our wonderful Saviour, King Jesus.

Adam Pymble