WINDOW ON THE CHURCHES

Taupo Times, Volume 20, Issue 3, 14 January 1971, Page 3

WINDOW ON THE CHURCHES

From January 6 to February 6 the Church Calendar gets aU excited about the season of Epiphany. In ordinary language this boils down to the fact (and it is a fact) that anyone can understand God through knowing Jesus Christ. He doesn't have to be brought up in the right school or^have the right colour to his skin, or be in the same income bracket as his neighbours. The exposers of this truth were some socaUed Wise Men from the Orient. The author of S. Matthew's Gospell tells a beautiful story about their adventure. And it is a tale of life itself; a kind of parable of the journey of many people since. At first all the light they knew was the natural light which shone out of the eastern stars. It seemed to them that the starstudded sky must be the work of a Mighty Maker, and that one star had special significance. They packed and set out to follow this star. The journey was a long one across deserts to the court of Herod. They asked him about their search and the church of the time, faulty . ^though it was, gave them sure guidance and sent them south to Bethlehem. There they found a little human child nursed by a young peasant mother, but they had enough light of faith to recognise in that child the divine mystery, the divine love. They did not belong to Jewry but they came, they found, they saw and they understood. They found Jesus. They went from a natural light to a human light and from a human light to a divine light. On our journey through our own country we may not always find Christ in a temporary shelter, and a babe. Some of us may rather find him or discover him as a man, hanging and dying, a man of sorrows, a man like qs, The main thing is that who ever we are, so long as we stop and stand and look at the Jesus we discover, then he will reveal God to us and our life will be enriched with the knowledge of God. New light will be throwji on the meaning of our existence.