Epiphany

I was in Dundee this week, which proudly proclaims itself to be the City of Discovery. That is really the theme of Epiphany. The Magi arrive in the city of Bethlehem and make their own great discovery and in doing so invite us to start the same quest that they have been on. What dark corners and smelly stables can we find God in?

Epiphany is a season rather than a one off day, though we celebrate it with as much pomp and circumstance as we can. (You don’t get kings scrabbling around in the mud very often after all – they need to be cheered on). Today we are keeping it with a Haydn Mass, the ubiquitous Eliot poem instead of one of the readings and glorious hymns:

Say, shall we yield Him,
in costly devotion,
Odours of Edom and offerings divine?
Gems of the mountain
and pearls of the ocean,
Myrrh from the forest, or gold from the mine?

Odours of Edom seem very likely to be on the agenda this morning. I fear a dearth of camels however.