Offer Your Heart

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Organ music from Holy Trinity Cathedral,
played by
Eugene Lavery,
Assistant Organist

Christmas 2006
The Rt Rev’d Richard Randerson, Dean

The story of the wise men who followed the star to Bethlehem properly comes at Epiphany, on the 12th day of Christmas, but is often enough added into the Christmas narratives. What was the star they followed? Astronomers have ruled out Halley’s comet, which came by in 11 BC, a shade too soon for the birth of Jesus, often dated around 4BC. There was, however, a conjunction of the planets Saturn and Jupiter in 5BC, and this celestial event may have been the wise men’s guide to the stable.

It was for them a rough journey. As T S Eliot describes it in The Journey of the Magi, “the very dead of winter, the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory......the villages dirty and charging high prices”. The journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem was equally rough: they came at the imperial command of Rome to their town of origin for a census only to find there was not a bed to be found for a young woman pregnant and at full term.

The search for God in our midst is timeless. Some people look in the wrong place. Oxford scientist Richard Dawkins declares himself an atheist on the basis that there is no evidence for a supernatural creator : to prove his point he uses highly sophisticated arguments like comparing belief in God with having faith in a celestial teapot orbiting somewhere in space.

Dawkins doesn’t need to look so far. The wise men looked to the heavens but not with the expectation of finding God there : for them the heavens were merely a celestial navigation guide to where God was truly to be found, in a babe lying in a manger in Bethlehem. The prophecy of Jesus’ birth as king of the Jews led King Herod to fear for his own throne, and to massacre all the young boys in his region. But Herod had no need to fear : as he came to maturity Jesus declared that his kingdom was not of this world in terms of power and affluence. His kingdom was of a different kind, a more lasting kind based in the gentle power of love.

It may seem unusual to talk about funerals in a Christmas sermon, but the reality of love is seen most powerfully at a funeral. This year we seem to have had a lot of funerals – in seven weeks in the winter we had 14. A funeral is never routine : always the personal and unique features of the one who has died remind us of deaths in our own families. Funerals have changed over the years. In days gone by the children were left at home with a family friend while the adults went off to the funeral. But not today : the children and grand-children are all there, and they make a big difference.

One still hears funeral eulogies from colleagues and friends of a person’s achievements in life, work and community, and rightly so. But then the kids get up, often a bunch of them speaking from hand-written notes, or reading a poem they once wrote about their Grandpa or Gran. Everyone gets a bit moist-eyed at this point as they are reminded of the things that really count in life, the family picnics and Christmases, the love and care in relationships, the wisdom and reconciliation we bring to each other as human beings, the generosity and the sacrifices we make because of our love for others.

...... 2 In such attitudes and actions the love of God is to be seen : Bethlehem focusses for us this abiding love in our midst. But the divine love pushes out beyond just our own whanau to encompass every person on earth – the 2000 people in Auckland who will dine free in the Town Hall on Christmas Day, courtesy of the City Mission and the people of Auckland, and with the assistance of over 600 volunteers; those in South Auckland who will receive Christmas gifts collected in this Cathedral on Christmas Eve at the Family Gift Service; the people in Bethlehem whose lives have been devastated by a huge wall, electric fences and military check-points that cut them off from the life-blood of food and water, tourists and pilgrims; the millions in Iraq whose lives, homes and families have been destroyed by foreign invasion and civil mayhem. The list goes on.

In the words of the Christmas Carol sung by the Chorist*rs on Christmas Eve: This year, next year, let the day arrive, when Christmas comes to everyone, every one alive. (Carlton R Young,Star Child).

This Christmas we too make the journey to Bethlehem in our hearts. It may be a rough journey that challenges us to listen a little more carefully to the cries for love from those close to us, and those far away. But it will help us find the thing that is ultimately important in life – the love of God that transforms our life, and the life of the world around us.

The wise men carried gifts to the infant Jesus : gold to recognise his royal status, incense his divinity, and myrrh foreshadowing his death. But in the moving words of the Peter Cornelius’ carol, we are invited to offer something more precious than gold, and that is the love that God has poured into our hearts through the birth of Jesus, his son.

“The star of mercy, the star of grace, shall lead thy heart to its resting place Gold incense, myrrh, thou canst not bring, offer thy heart to the infant king, offer thy heart”.

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