The Epiphany of the Lord
Isaiah 60:1-6 | Psalm 71(72):1-2,7-8,10-13 | Ephesians 3:2-3,5-6 | Matthew 2:1-12
Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. (Matthew 2:11)
Back in my college days, when my faith was skating on thin ice, I came across an unusual score for the familiar carol We Three Kings. It was unusual in that it deliberately omitted the penultimate verse:
Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume
Breathes a life of gathering gloom
Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying
Sealed in the stone-cold tomb
I can only imagine that whoever put that score together ran out of space, and decided to drop those words as “too depressing for Christmastide”. It might have also been motivated by the tide of political correctness that swept across America at the time, giving rise to gender-neutral alterations of familiar words that, well, neutralized a lot of the sacred in our liturgical hymnody.
Now, of course, I look back and shudder, especially at the memory of joyfully skipping to the final verse:
Glorious now behold Him arise
King and God and sacrifice
(oh yeah, gold=king, frankincense=God, and…um…)
but those were the days when I just shrugged and went “meh”.
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And yet…those days of “meh” aren’t entirely behind me.
There are still times when I think about reading the day’s scripture, or spending some quality time in prayer, or even just thinking about God…and the M word pops into my head, instantly sending my train of thought skittering towards the latest tech news, or that new programming language I’ve been trying to master, or that insidious earworm I heard this morning that’s sunk its fangs deep in my brain.
Truly, now more than ever, seeking the Almighty requires sacrifice, an act of will to ignore the secular calls that incessantly clamour for our attention, and consciously set aside time and energy to just be still and know that God is with us, is quietly waiting for us to turn to His loving embrace.
“He is our KING,” oh yes He is!
“He is our GOD”…hallelujah, you better believe it!
“He is our SACRIFICE”…um…
Time for us to own that too, instead of metaphorically dumping the myrrh down a rubbish chute.
“Meh” is mine, but it shouldn’t be
When our Saviour beckons to me
Infant holy, infant lowly
Dying to set us free
Lord, open our eyes to see You in our daily lives, so that we may not stray far from you. Amen.