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A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Rev Lucy Winkett

Good morning.

Today is the Christian feast day called The Epiphany. It starts a season of feasting and celebration that lasts all though January. The epiphany is the day when mysterious visitors from the East came to Bethlehem and gave Christ gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. It’s a beautiful, shimmering addition to the Christmas story which has been up to now, about working shepherds, a feeding trough in a borrowed stable, and the chaos of a crowded town full up to the brim because of a census. Until now, the circumstances surrounding the birth of Christ have been somewhat precarious, humble, ordinary. It’s not for nothing that today, T shirts are sold saying Jesus was a refugee.

There wasn’t anything grand or even secure about his birth. But today, mysterious star gazers arrive with presents for him that signify who he is and who he will become. Gold for a king, frankincense to signify he is holy, myrrh to prepare him for the suffering ahead. The season is called Epiphany because that word just means ‘uncovering’. During this coming month, Christians look to see the extraordinary in the ordinary every day. Look beneath the surface of every day events, to notice the small miracles that make up life in the world. And to know that even in the hardest of circumstances, just as in that first epiphany at Bethlehem, the presence of God reveals to us that life is precious, mysterious, and that even when we are suffering, God is with us.

Holy and eternal God; we pray today in thankfulness for the astonishing gift of living. Give us the eyes of faith that we might see the extraordinary gifts in the ordinary events of today.

Amen.