Proclamation of the Date of Easter - Sermon - Proclamation

EPIPHANY SOLEMN PROCLAMATION OF THE DATE OF EASTER 2020

[Chanted]

Dear brothers and sisters, the glory of the Lord has shone upon us,
and shall ever be manifest among us, until the day of his return.

Through the rhythms of the times and the seasons

let us celebrate the mysteries of salvation.

Let us call to mind the new year's culmination,

the Easter Triduum of the Lord:

his last supper, his crucifixion, his burial, and his rising

celebrated between the evening of the Ninth day of April
and the evening of the Eleventh day of April,

Easter Sunday being on the Twelfth day of April.

Each Easter - as on each Sunday -
the Holy Church makes present the great and saving deed
by which Christ has for ever conquered sin and death.

From Easter are reckoned other days we keep holy.

Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent,

will occur on the Twenty-sixth day of February.

The Ascension of the Lord will be commemorated

on Thursday, the Twenty-first day of May.

Pentecost, joyful conclusion of Eastertide

will be celebrated on the Thirty-first day of May.

The Feast of the Holy and Undivided Trinity

we will mark with joy and awe on the Seventh day of June,

and the Feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

follows on the Eleventh day of June.

Likewise, the pilgrim Church proclaims the Passover of Christ
in the feasts of the holy Mother of God,

in the feasts of the Apostles and Saints,
and in the commemoration of the faithful departed.

To Jesus Christ, who was, who is, and who is to come, Lord of time and
history, be endless praise, for ever and ever. Amen.

***

Something unusual did just happen. I know that (I was there). I will return to it. But first… first, not the Magi (sorry), and no sweets to throw at you in honour of the Kings (double sorry). First, Father Ted! Not the Christmas special, A Christmassy Ted, which we’ve all had chance to see 150 times over recent days, on one channel or another. I’m referring to another episode, when a singer-songwriter, not so loosely based on Sinead O’Connor comes to Craggy Island. In amongst all the characters’ high jinks, the singer is very critical of the Church. This in turn provokes from Fr Dougal the response: "Sure, she's taking all this Catholic stuff terribly seriously. Doesn't she know it's just a bit of fun?"

All this Catholic stuff - just a bit of fun. What do you think?

I'd say it's wrong, but... But it has a certain rightness to it, too!

I mean I think it is not wrong to expect - or at least hope - that Church is fun. Not only fun, sure. But fun is about as good a place to start as any. Coming to Church is something most Christians do with their "leisure time" (let's be honest), and the experience should be satisfying and rewarding and rich and sensual and involving - and so fun. We can dress up this point by saying pompously “the Church should be a good patron of the arts" if we want. But maybe that’s just a variation on the same theme.

At this time in the life of this Church - and in this very service - we are developing some additions, and introducing new ones. Fr Lee, as today's president, will lead us later in the service into the Rite of the Blessing of the Chalk (which, you may remember, we reintroduced last year). And - as perhaps again you can remember - I have chanted the Solemn Proclamation of the date of Easter. Another "special" something for Epiphany Sunday, for today.

You can tell us afterwards if either the chant or the chalk are in any way fun. But we in turn may remind you that nothing we do should be done solely because it is fun. Everything we do, whether or not it manages to be fun, should also be, well, yes, I am going to say… solemn. Solemn here does not mean dry or stilted or glum; it means “not trivial”, but showing forth something serious and deep and helpful to our lives as disciples of Christ.

The Solemn Proclamation of the Date of Easter. It is, I think, easy to see how this custom developed. I cannot tell you for sure when it began. But it long predates the time when most people had desk diaries, let alone gadgets beeping your appointments and your dairy at you seven times a minute. It dates from a time when you really needed someone to tell you when Easter was this year. But! But it is - evidently - something we can still do, even though we all know - or can find out - the date of Easter. Why? 

Again, it is not hard to say why. It is because Easter is so important to Christian faith. We can say that every day is Easter. We can say this because we read - we hear - the whole story of Jesus and the whole story of the Bible in the light of the resurrection. Including of course the story of the coming of the Magi, which we always have at the beginning of the year. It is because Gd raised Jesus from the dead by the Spirit that we have hope, and we read all the Bible as hope-filled, because the whole story is bathed in the light of that rising from the dead, that forgiveness, that hope, that Light, that Life. 

In other words, we can revisit our old friend, St Seraphim of Sarov. Remember him? I hope so. He it was who would greet everyone, in season and out of season, 365.25 days a year, by saying: "Christ is risen!" Remember that during the fast of Good Friday, he'd stand on the steps of the church, munching away, and declaiming, "Christ is risen!". Remember that if anyone came to see him, he'd say: "My joy! Christ is risen!" Because, if the Christian account of things is true at all, then every moment, and every encounter, is Easter. 

This does not mean that the Christian story is all light and no shade, all celebration and no tears, all triumph and no failure. It does not mean there is no death. We know that. But it does mean that the whole, the entirely, has a heart, has a core. And that core is the Easter story. So let us hear again the solemn proclamation of the date of Easter, this year of our Lord, 2020.

Just one little note of explanation. It is possible that the words “the Easter Triduum” sound just too churchy by half. They just mean the "Three Days of Easter". That in turn means the services on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil which we keep on the evening of the Saturday. Does that in turn mean that the Saturday service is more important than the Easter Sunday service? Bluntly, yes.

It is, at it were, the “Midnight Mass” of Easter. It is the time we all become St Seraphim together, when we solemnly proclaim: "Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!" And we can sing or hear a hymn of praise to the Easter candle, lit from the Easter fire. And the tune of that hymn is… echoed in today’s Proclamation. If we chant, it is not only for fun, but also for solemnity, for teaching, for reinforcement.

Is there here already a subtle encouragement to take part in the services from Maundy Thursday to the Easter Vigil, as one entity? Why, yes there is! Try them. You may even find them to be fun!

***

[Said]

Dear brothers and sisters, the glory of the Lord has shone upon us,
and shall ever be manifest among us, until the day of his return.

Through the rhythms of the times and the seasons

let us celebrate the mysteries of salvation.

Let us call to mind the new year's culmination,

the Easter Triduum of the Lord:

his last supper, his crucifixion, his burial, and his rising

celebrated between the evening of the Ninth day of April
and the evening of the Eleventh day of April,

Easter Sunday being on the Twelfth day of April.

Each Easter - as on each Sunday -
the Holy Church makes present the great and saving deed
by which Christ has for ever conquered sin and death.

From Easter are reckoned other days we keep holy…

Likewise, the pilgrim Church proclaims the Passover of Christ
in the feasts of the holy Mother of God,

in the feasts of the Apostles and Saints,
and in the commemoration of the faithful departed.

To Jesus Christ, who was, who is, and who is to come, Lord of time and
history, be endless praise, for ever and ever. Amen.

Sermon. Are we/should we be passionate with Gd?

Sermon. 22 January 2017. St Michael and All Angels, Little Ilford.

Epiphany 3 (Year A)

Psalm 27.1, 4-9

Matthew 4.12-23

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. [Then immediately:] Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John were the first disciples called.

Did you get what I said?

Did you get what I did?

I preached 'immediately'. And it was not quite comfortable for us (I think). Something of a shock. We may be in the habit of saying 'I'll see to that immediately'. But as and when we actually do, it can be shocking. It's not part of everyday experience.

And it may be that you already see where I am coming from. Let us look at the calling of those first disciples I have just, if rather ineffectively, named.

Jesus says to Peter and Andrew, '”Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people”. And immediately they left their nets and followed him.. he saw... James... and... John... and he called them. Immediately they left their boat and their father, and followed him.'

Can we picture the scene? Can we? What was it about those encounters with Jesus – who is, at least at this point, not especially well known – that made these fishermen – successful business men we might also call them – abandon their comforts and livelihoods, and even their own father, to go with Jesus on some kind of mission - one that had no guarantees about it, and for that matter no clear plans for it? What was it? We don't know. But go they did. And... immediately.

By the way, it is true that in Mark's gospel, very many things happen 'immediately'. It is one of Mark's favourite words. He seems to want to give the impression that everything about Jesus happened in top gear, was relentless, was breathless. But this is not Mark; this is Matthew, and he uses our word, 'immediately' much less. So he must mean it. There was no delay. There was no deliberation. They set off with Jesus immediately.

And think of it this way. If any of our number came into church first thing... hey, let's make it interesting and say it's Fr Brian... Brian races in and says: 'Can't stay. Can't take part in the service. I've met someone new, someone surprising, someone different, and I'm going off with them. No time to explain. Gotta go. Bye...'. And – immediately – he goes.

I think we'd be... perturbed. And not only because that meant you'd be dependent on me for all priestly ministrations in today's service. Throwing everything away at a stranger's command is not what we do. It is not the done thing. It is not the mark of a careful, or indeed a caring person.

It may be that we have at heart just two models for thinking about people stopping what they are doing, and turning to a new life. One is when they do so out of force. You hear that your village is about to be attacked, for example, so you drop everything and flee. (A sadly much too common phenomenon in our troubled world.) The other is, well, romance. 'This is the one!' the lover says. 'Nothing else counts!' So they too drop everything, and they too flee – to Gretna Green or Marbella or wheresoever.

But don't mishear me here. I need to be clear. I am not suggesting that there was anything sexual, romantic or 'anything-like-that', about today's encounter between Jesus and Peter, Andrew, James and John. Not that! I am, though, saying that, if Matthew is right (and we might wonder), there must have been something equally as intense about that encounter. As overwhelming.

And immediately they left everything to follow him.

If we wanted to think not so much about Jesus and his disciples, but more broadly about the relationships of human beings to Gd, and think of those relationships as - not sexual but - as intense as any romance, one place we might turn to is today's psalm. Here are some of its themes (though there are more – do take the sheet away and pray with it through the week):

Gd is my light, my salvation, my helper.

Gd keeps me safe, Gd hides me, so that I am without fear.

I will sing and make music to Gd.

Gd, do not leave me, do not forsake me.

Already there is some of the language of love here, or the tone of something of a love affair. But there is also this:

'One thing have I asked of the Lord;

one thing I seek;

that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life;

to behold the fair beauty of the Lord

and to seek him in his temple...

You speak in my heart and say: “Seek my face.”

Your face, Lord, will I seek.'

Does that not sound like someone besotted? Someone saying:

'Look, I just want to be with you,

sit on the sofa with you, look into your eyes.

Nothing more'..?

I think it does.

So the questions we seem led to today are:

Are we besotted,

do we know passionate love for Gd?

Do we long to gaze upon the fair beauty of Gd?

Does a life given over purely to seeking Gd

sound frustrating if not pointless...

or does the seeking itself seem exciting, enticing and what we are made for?

I am letting the silence hang.

I am not going to attempt to answer that question.

Because I don't think there is one right answer.

There certainly are Christians who think that Christianity is always, everywhere, about demonstrating a passionate love-affair with Gd, and, yes, with Jesus Christ. Many, though by no means all of them, would think the best way of worshipping is to sing choruses where you announce, literally hundreds of times 'Jesus, we love you' and such like.

That's not us. And I am not suggesting that should be us. Indeed, you could say that if you need to say 'I love you' literally hundreds of times to someone, whether human or divine, you are really just expressing your insecurity. You are trying to convince yourself, at least as much as the other.

So actually I am not going to say that we should always be intense and passionate when we worship. It sets up unrealistic and unattractive expectations.

Sometimes, indeed (we know this), worship is just something we get on with, because we know or feel it is the right thing to do. And that is perfectly valid. A friend of mine goes so far as to say: 'If people complain to me that their worship is dry, I say, “What's the problem? Why do you want to be wet all the time.”' And we may insist that boring or bored worship is still worship.

But I think we should be open to worship which is itself open to intensity and passion, to something at least a little like a love affair with Gd. Of course, it will be a love affair very different from any love affair we may have within our human relationships. Most obviously, a love affair with Gd does not stop us loving our human partners passionately. Gd is not – is never - in competition with the people we are attracted to, ever.

If we go to church at all, or a lot, we will hear that Gd is love. I wonder – it is an open question; I genuinely don't know – how often we think that this means that Gd is always, gently but persistently inviting us to love Gd back,

• love, often calmly,
• love, be it formally or ritually (that can count),
• love, sometimes, passionately and intensely?

I leave you with my own translation of some of today's psalm verses. Listen out, because they are quite different from the translation we have been hearing. And listen in, listen to what your own inner self is saying about your relationship to Gd.

You may like to close your eyes.

Just one thing I ask from Gd, this.

I seek to stay in the House of Gd all my living days,

to gaze upon the attractiveness of Gd

and to go on searching out, in Gd's Temple...

To you my heart speaks,

telling all-of-me to seek your face.

It is your face, your presence, O Gd, I am seeking.

Don't go. Don't leave me, O Gd of my healing.

Just one thing I ask of Gd, this.

Amen.

These Three Kings for Orientation Are

Sermon. 8 January 2017. St Michael and All Angels, Little Ilford

Epiphany

Isaiah 60.1-6; Psalm 76.1-7, 10-14; Matthew 2.1-12

So, when did you take your Christmas decorations down? Have you? I was involved in a discussion about this on social media in the week. And one person said: 'Oh I take my decorations down whenever I feel like it; I am not superstitious.'

And that struck me. I'd completely forgotten that time was when it was bad luck to leave your decorations up beyond Twelfth Night. There was also a whole discussion about when precisely Twelfth Night was. But, whenever it was, decorations just must be down by then. It was a form of social control – a ridiculous form, of course, since as Christians we don't believe in such things as 'good luck' or 'bad luck' – but a pretty harmless form of social control, to make sure we did not leave our decorations up too long.

How times have changed! With decorations going up earlier and earlier, it can seem a real struggle to leave your decorations up as long as to Twelfth Night. I know more than one family that does this. They just about manage to stay up till, oh, maybe 1 am on New Year's Day, then sleep in, and by teatime on New Year's Day the decorations are down and packed away. The next day, the gym pass is found and dusted down (though not, note, necessarily used). And chocolates are not thrown away (Gd forbid), but eaten with the thought 'when this box is gone, it had better not be replaced'. In other words, for many in the world, as opposed to the Church we are already entering Lent.

But in the Church we are only today marking Epiphany and the coming of the Magi; the second story of Christmas. Should we worry about this mismatch between the world and the Church?

Well, some of you may just perhaps guess where I am going with this. I am going to say this. Let's go to Spain. Or Catalonia, or Mallorca (where my sister lives). There, there is no mismatch. Epiphany is still if anything more important than Christmas Day. Do you remember what I've said about it?

It is called Los Reyes, or the Kings, the Three Kings. And men dress up as the three kings, and given their traditional names, Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. They are dressed to represent different parts of the world – the Middle East, the Far East and Africa, which was the known world at the time the tradition was developed. They come in on horses, or, failing that, tractors. In the big cities at least, there may be other parades/displays, telling other Bible stories, from Adam and Eve on. They dismount, and pay homage to the Christ child in a crib scene in church – often a real baby. And then they set about the important business...

They go from house to house of those homes where there are children, and give them their presents. It's the big present-giving time of the year. Can you imagine how magical that is, if you are a young child, to have a king come personally to your door and hand you your presents? (And if, over the years, the suspsicion grows that your parents may have dropped off said presents in the town hall some time before, well, that takes away less than half the magic, maybe.)

And, for completeness' sake, let me get round to the bit you are most likely to remember. That the kings, as they enter in... scatter sweeties right, left and centre.

[Scatters]

That never fails, by the way. I've scattered sweets like that in hospitals and churches – and also in institutes of Higher Education. Even a gathering of professors will scramble for sweeties, I promise you.

Believe it or not, I was not just looking for an excuse to tell you about my sister's family and scatter sweets at you. Something serious is also going on here.

Today's story, the story of the Magi, takes up just twelve verses, in just one of the gospels, Matthew. It's a passing detail. 'Magus' means someone somewhere in between a learned expert and a cunning magician. It doesn't mean king. The magi become kings by making the link with Isaiah and the Psalms – see the Old Testament readings for today. We have no reason to think there were three of them. That comes because three gifts are named, gold, frankincense and myrrh. They are not named, and we are not told where they came from, other than the utterly vague 'from the East'.

So, let us be clear, the 'composite' story as we have it - as the Spanish live it out with great joy - takes a handful of biblical verses and does something very creative with it. And it is worth asking, perhaps, if we approve of that. If we approve of making Christmas festivals out of something which, as we re-tell it, is very unlikely to be historical. What do you think?

Unsurprisingly (since I like visiting my sister and getting involved in such things), I am going to say it is perfectly acceptable and good to enjoy such a festival, though it be an amalgamation of various stories and ideas. That, because the central idea is perfectly clear. When the Kings scatter their sweeties – throw them at you with recklessness – they are giving us a clear and real-life hint – a hint about the generosity of Gd.

I'd say this. Unless we get a lively sense that

Gd loves us,

and loves us to enjoy a celebration, a feast, a party,

loves us to invent reasons to party,

and loves to scatter [scatters again] sweet blessings upon us...

then something utterly serious, solemn even, is missing from our understanding.

Brothers and sisters,

I do not believe that life in our part of London is set to get easier in the year ahead.

I do not believe life in our nation is set to get easier in the year ahead.

I do not believe life in our world, or for our world (for creation)

is set to get easier in the year ahead.

Whoever is standing here, and relating the Bible to our lives and the news around us will have to say hard and difficult things in this still-new year. It has to be that way.

However, let that never be all we say and hear. Let all that be in a context where we hear – where we catch – the conviction that Gd's love is generous. Gd's love is not in short supply.

There is enough for us,

us and our friends,

us and our friends and strangers,

us and our friends and strangers and are enemies.

And still [final scatter]

there is plenty left over.

Happy Epiphany.

Amen.  

Sermon for Epiphany

Sermon. St Christopher’s Walworth. 6 January 2013

Feast of the Epiphany

I’d like to start by wishing you a Merry Christmas. That probably sounds wrong. In the world out there, Christmas ends, oh, at the latest after teatime on Boxing Day. If you’re old-fashioned, or like Christmas songs, or know about the Church’s own calendar, you might still have a strong sense of the ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’. But even they ended last night. Today we move on... to... Epiphany. But all of that said, Epiphany is for us the coming of the Magi or the Wise Men or the Kings to the child Jesus with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, which sounds quite Christmassy still. So it might well be said that in Church, now we are in the season of Epiphany, we are really in the second bit of Christmas-tide. So I am right to wish you a Merry Christmas, even now. After all, we are still in gold, as we were for Christmas Day itself.

Merry Christmas/happy Epiphany. Throughout the world, there may be as many different ways of celebrating Epiphany as there are of marking Christmas itself. If, in the country you come from/know about, there are particular customs, I’d love to hear about them after the service. What I’d like to do here and now is say just a little about how today is marked in three different countries. They happen all to be in Europe; perhaps you’ll forgive me that.

First, let’s go to Greece, and the Greek Orthodox Church. The Feast of 6 January there, and throughout the Eastern Orthodox world, actually has a different name. It’s Theophany rather than Epiphany. But that’s the least of it! It’s not just about a different name. It is actually marking a different event altogether. You see, in the Greek Church, they mark not only the coming of the shepherds, but also the coming of the magi (wise men) on Christmas Day. So today is about celebrating another event in Jesus’ life. Any ideas what? It’s actually all about the Baptism of our Lord in the River Jordan (which we in the West will mark next week, by the way). So in Greece, they celebrate today what happened when John the Baptist baptised Jesus. And what happened was more – so much more – than a rite of passage for a young man, or even an act of commitment by a very devout person. What happened was – is – nothing less than the Shining Forth of God in history. The Shining Forth of God is a good translation actually of both the names, Epiphany and Theophany. For the Greeks, the Shining Forth of God happens precisely, or supremely, at the Baptism of our Lord because that is when the Holy Trinity is revealed in history. Think about it.

•         The Father speaks to or directs attention to
•         the Son, and sends
•         the Spirit upon him.

It is an encounter with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit - the first time all three are named as such. A Shining Forth indeed.

In the worship in the Greek Church, this is a cause of great rejoicing. The words of the service speak about the whole of nature being surprised - or bewildered or ecstatic - that such a wonderful event has happened. It is as if not only John the Baptist, but the earth and the waters themselves cry out: ‘How can this be? Surely it’s impossible that you, the Son of God, Creator of us all, now enter the world and even seek to be baptised as if a sinful human being? How mysterious! How glorious! How typical of God – God who is forever confounding all our expectations!’

And then, at the end of what will doubtless be a very long service, there is a long prayer chanted over the waters which stand ready. [Water is poured.] For, yes, Jesus was baptised only once, in only one river, the river Jordan. But!  In those waters, then, the Holy Trinity was revealed. And the Holy Trinity is outside of time. So the Holy Trinity, because of what happened there, can also be as present in these waters here. So a long, long prayer is chanted over the water, and the water can then be taken, drunk, used to symbolically wash, or to sprinkle and bless our houses. And the prayer is so long, not because we need to work ourselves up, nor because we need to work at getting God’s attention. But because we have so much to relish. 

Here’s but a small part of the prayer: 

‘All creation sings praises unto you, who revealed yourself; for you, our God, did manifest yourself upon earth, and dwelt among humankind. You made holy the streams of Jordan, in that you sent down from heaven your Holy Spirit, and crushed the heads of the serpents which lurked there. Wherefore do you, O King who loves humankind, come down now also through the descent of your Holy Spirit, and sanctify this water.’

***

Let’s move up from Greece, not too far, to a country like Croatia or Austria. Here we are in more familiar territory. We are back with the name Epiphany, and we are back thinking about the Three Kings. And here there is a tradition of blessing the chalk. [Chalk is shown.] Yes, chalk is blessed in church, and then distributed. And every member of the congregation can write over or by their door the year 20 – 13 and the letters C M B, with the cross of Christ in each gap. ‘20 + C + M + B + 13’ And as they do this, they pray a blessing upon all who live there, and all who cross the threshold. And why C M B? Well, two reasons. The traditional names for the wise men are Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. And, whoever they were, they were good at travelling through dangerous territory. So they can be good intercessors for us, as we think about our own safety and the security of those who travel to be our guests and visitors. But, something else too. The letters can be taken to stand for the Latin Christus Mansionem Benedicat, meaning Christ bless this house. Christ bless this house, throughout this new year. 

***

Like those wise men or kings, let us now make a journey to the West. Quite a way West, to Spain. Here we are still in Epiphany. Indeed, here you can have no doubt that you are thinking about the Three Kings, as you’ll see huge processions with, well, potentially all the biblical characters on floats, and so on. There’ll be noisy accompaniment, drums, trumpets, fireworks, but always ending with Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar themselves – real-live people dressed up in kings’ finery! They will go into the Church, pay homage to a baby – again, a real-live one, in all probability – representing the Christ child.

And then? Then they have a job of work to do! Then they go to all the houses which have children and give them their presents. Imagine! You get presents personally delivered by a King! Traditionally, the Feast of the Three Kings is the time the children get their big presents, more important, in that sense, than Christmas Day and Santa Claus. (The only complication I haven’t told you is that all of this actually happens the night before. It will have happened last night. But that’s often the way in the Church, as the Church day actually begins the evening before.)  And one detail which always moves me, those Kings, as they travel or process along, are not glum or troubled or aching. Rather, they are already celebrating, already partying. And as they go, they scatter sweeties right, left and centre. [Sweeties are scattered.]

I thought you’d enjoy that. Let me tell you, I’ve told that story and done the same in front of professors, and they too, like you, can’t stop themselves from scrambling for the self-same sweeties.

***

We’ve one final journey to make this morning. And that is of course back here, back to London. Here we are. 

• We can prayerfully imagine ourselves revelling in and relishing the gloriously long prayer over the waters of baptism, the waters of the revelation of the Holy Trinity (and event in time and beyond time)
• We can prayerfully imagine ourselves already taking the blessed chalk and blessing our own homes and guests in the spirit of Casper, Melchior and Balthasa
• And we can prayerfully imagine ourselves enjoying the party and the generosity of the Three Kings, as they share in the generosity of God who gives his Son to us.

In fact, I do want to say that I think all of these activities deep down share the same message. I’ve already called it the Shining Forth of God. But God’s Shining Forth here takes a particular form. It always comes in ways which are amazing, shocking even. And the amazing or shocking thing turns out to be that – you know what? – God is so much closer than we thought.

•    God reveals God’s nature not only in a distant river, centuries ago, but here and now, in these humble waters 
• God blesses us not only in one act in history, but in giving us a way of blessing even our own humble houses. Christ blesses my own little stub of chalk for my own little door
• God comes to us even in the giving – the reckless abandoning - of a little sweetie. Because God is close, and God is loving, with God it is always about a party.

Whether it is through Word and Sacrament, or things as humble as water, chalk and chocolate... what all of this means is that we (you and me!) are now (now!) as close to God in Christ as any human being has ever been, in the history of the world. If we can trust it. If we can receive it. 
 

A Happy Epiphany to you all! Amen.