This transcript has been automatically generated, and therefore may not be 100% accurate.

Those of you who were at the 10 o'clock service last Sunday will recall that there were five or six vicars present. But before we continue, here's the last Christmas cracker joke of the season. According to my granddaughter, the grandfather jokes are the worst. Anyway, I asked Hugh after the service, what do you call an excess of vicars? Quick as a flash, Hugh came back with his answer.

A surplice.

Now, four of these visiting vicars gave a brief account of what had been happening in their parishes last year. I found it very inspiring to hear how God had been working in each location. You will know most of them. Steve Ramsley in Leicestershire, Stuart Silk in Barrow in Cumbria, Jez Lowries in Peacehaven, Steve Green in Crowborough. And each gave accounts of reaching into their communities.

People hearing the gospel for the first time, others coming to faith and yet more deepening their faith. Now, today we're going to celebrate briefly three things. Firstly, the visit of the Magi, the three wise men, or three Kings to the infant Jesus will look at what happened. Then the epiphany will look at the significance of the visit of the Magi. And thirdly, the New year.

Well, look at how the visit of the Magi applies to us. So the first thing to celebrate is the visit of the Magi, three wise men or three kings to the infant Jesus. Who were these wise men? Actually, we know very little about them. We assume that there were three based on the number of gifts brought to Jesus, but there could have easily have been two or there could have been 20.

This is not as important as the clues given to us by the term wise men and that they came from the East. And the term translated as wise men is actually the Greek word Magi.

The Magi were a religious priesthood who were known for their profound wisdom and knowledge. They were particularly known for their knowledge of astrology, the belief that you can gain knowledge about current and future events by observing the movement of the stars and planets in the night sky, such as following the sign of a new star to the birth of a great king.

Skies are much more interesting in the Middle east than they are here. The skies here are partially obscured by light pollution, by humidity and so on. Those who are pilots have often seen, I'm sure, much better night skies than most of us. But I recall in the days when we lived in the Middle east, going into the desert on at least one occasion, just lying on the sand, looking upwards, no light pollution whatsoever, no dust, no humidity, and the view is actually fantastic. And that is true of the Middle East.

That's where the wise men came from. What you see in the sky there is so totally different to what we see here in this country. So that's possibly why the astrologers were so important. There was so much sky, so many constellations, the Milky Way and all the rest of it to study and to take guidance from.

Many have concluded that the Magi were Persian priests, perhaps Zoroastrian priests, who knew of the prophecies of the coming of the Messiah, thanks to the work of men like the prophet Daniel in Persia and the Jews who stayed in Persia after the end of their captivity. The Magi, whoever they were, and however many of them were unlike the shepherds, the Magi had no heavenly vision. They saw no angels, they heard no celestial choirs. All they had was their faith in and knowledge of the scriptures and teaching of the prophets. All the Magi could do was to wait and hope and watch the heavens for a promised miraculous sign, one that heralded the birth of the promised Messiah.

And when that sign came, about 600 years of. After 600 years of patient waiting, there was no way to confirm it, no one with whom to cheque and make sure it was the right sign. Instead, acting on faith, they loaded up their caravans and started a trip across the deserts of the Middle east, toiling over hundreds of miles of painstaking travel, risking their lives in the process.

And when, after all the hardship of travel, they arrived at the Messiah's door, what did they see? Angels? Heavenly visions? Celestial choirs, brilliant lights and pillars of fire? No.

They saw the most mundane sight possible. They found a young mother and her young child, disappointed? Not at all. To their natural eyes, the woman and child looked as normal as ever, no different from tens of thousands of women and children scattered throughout the Middle East. But with their spiritual eyes, the Magi recognised the promised Messiah, the Son of God, the King of the world, and fell to their knees to worship him.

They gave him gifts, gold, frankincense and myrrh. Gifts worthy of a prophet, a high priest and a king. And then, with the great mission of their lives accomplished, they leave and fade back into history. So that was the visit of the Magi. And the second thing to celebrate is the epiphany.

And that will help us see, I hope, the significance of the visit of the Magi. Tomorrow, Monday 6th January, is the Feast of the Epiphany. Now, what does epiphany mean? Well, epiphany comes from a Greek word meaning to show something to someone. An epiphany is a moment of sudden and great revelation or realisation.

It's like the penny has dropped, the light switched on. There's a sudden intuitive leap of understanding. Let's look at this with some of the incidents in the life of Jesus that were epiphanies. And the first epiphany was right here. The revelation of the infant Jesus to the Magi, the revelation to the wise men meant that they recognised Jesus as someone special.

And when Mary held up her newborn son to the Magi who entered her house in Bethlehem with their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, we read that they worshipped him. They worshipped him. And why would they worship a peasant baby boy? Because in a flash of recognition, they saw God within the peasant boy. They were shown his essential nature, his divinity, his kingship, and they had a revelation of the truth about him.

Another epiphany was the revelation of Jesus divinity at his baptism in the River Jordan. When John baptised Jesus, we read, the next day he saw Jesus coming towards him and said, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. It was as God. I'm sorry. It was as John baptised Jesus that he received a revelation, an epiphany of who Jesus was.

The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. A third epiphany was the revelation of his glory at the first miracle in Cana, where Jesus turned the water into wine.

But it's equally, equally an epiphany when you or I discover something new about God. This doesn't mean that we learn just some new fact about God. The thought that might be useful in a Bible quiz or a pub quiz. It means when God reveals to us some fresh truth about himself that becomes part of our personal experience.

Maybe we thought epiphany was only about a revelation to wise men, or a revelation to John the Baptist, or a revelation to people at a wedding attended by by Jesus. It is not without a personal epiphany. There can be no such thing as a Christian life. Heart knowledge of God and of his Son, Jesus Christ and of his Holy Spirit only comes about as God shows himself to us. Our Christian life is meant to be a succession of epiphanies through which we grow in our knowledge of the Lord.

And now to the third reason to celebrate today. It's the New year, as we already said. Let's see how the visits of the Magi applies to us. Happy New Year, we said at the beginning.

Can we really say that on this first Sunday of 2025 it is time to pause and reflect on last year, to look ahead to this year and to see what the magi and epiphany can teach us this morning. I imagine for many of us, 2024 could be summed up by the word loss. Loss of a friend or family member, loss of a job or income or relationship breakdown, loss of a holiday, facing up to the realities of wars between Ukraine and Russia and Israel and Gaza and Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, civil war in Sudan and so on. Alarm isn't there at seeing again overworked and stressed NHS staff.

There may have been some positive things as well, of course. A new skill acquired, a new hobby taken up, a new relationship formed, a fresh attack on all that clutter that Jenny keeps reminding me about needs to be dealt with and seeing the best brought out in some people. Perhaps more time spent in deepening our faith in Bible study and in prayer. But right now, at this moment, on the 5th of January, there's a real uncertainty in politics, isn't there, both here and in the usa, with the incoming new president, A sudden increase in the quadramic of flu, Covid RSV and Norovirus, threats to peace and stability, concern at wondering where and when it will all end. Where is God in this?

You might be asking, what difference does his presence make? How does he show Himself to us in Linfield in 2025?

How do we see Jesus as king of the world? How do we deepen our faith? How do we take part in extending God's kingdom in Linfield and beyond?

Well, here's a few practical thoughts. The old way that Steve referred to earlier, you may or have already broken your New Year's resolutions, or you may not. But whether or not you have, let's spend time in quiet prayer and reflection. A regular reading of our Bibles, joining and taking an active part in a connect group, listening carefully to what you hear from here, this spot here, week by week. And we want epiphanies, don't we?

Not just for ourselves, but wanting Jesus to be revealed to this community in which we live, to Linfield, to the wider world, to our friends, neighbours and work colleagues. I'm wanting Jesus to be revealed to those who show hatred to Christians in Nigeria, in North Korea, in Afghanistan, in Somalia, Libya, Pakistan and some of the other places that we refer to in our prayer time.

Other places where brothers and sisters face persecution for their faith.

As we land, come into land, can we say Happy New Year? I believe we can, with a happiness not based on our circumstances, but on the faith that's been revealed to us in our Lord Jesus, King of the world. Let's pray.

O God our Father, we pray that you will reveal yourself to each one of us this day and to the world that needs you more than ever. Today, this week and throughout2025. In Jesus name, Amen.