“…we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him” (King James Bible, Matthew 2:2)

The Wise Men’s journey to Bethlehem was no holiday excursion.  It was an expedition into the unknown, fraught with hardship and peril.  They did not know how long they would be away; how far they had to go; indeed, not even where they were going.

They had to take with them clothing to meet the extremes of heat and cold which the open desert held for them during the long summer days and long winter nights.  Then there were the hours and weeks and months of jolting and swaying on their camels, and all the time the danger of being robbed and perhaps murdered by marauding bandits.  And even when they reached their journey’s end, it would not be the end of their journey, because they had to go through it all over again before they could get back home.

So their first sight of the roofs and towers of Jerusalem must have been a tremendous thrill.  This was the last capital city, for beyond it lay the shore of the Mediterranean.  Here surely was their goal, here was the Monarch, his court and his throne, whom they had come so far to honour.

Their search was over.  It was now only a matter of being directed to the Royal Palace.  They leant over their camels and called down to the people thronging the gateway, “Where is he that is born King of the Jews?  for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him” (King James Bible, Matthew 2:2).

We can imagine how their hearts sank when their question was met with blank astonishment.  It was only too clear that no one knew what they were talking about.  There was no new born King of the Jews.  Herod was now an old man, and the next in succession to the throne were all grown up.

And the Wise Men met the same disheartening surprise when they were summoned to Herod’s court, but their disappointment was short-lived.  They were redirected to Bethlehem and the reappearance of the star pointing the way, restored their shaken faith and, quite certain now that they were on the right road, they hastened on.  Within an hour – Bethlehem is only five miles from Jerusalem – they reached the house over which the star halted.

The scene was so different from what they had imagined it would be – the cottage, the cramped and poorly furnished living room, the baby wrapped in ordinary swaddling clothes, the humble mother – nothing to suggest that they were in the presence of royal greatness, except an indefinable yet undeniable atmosphere which made the building in Bethlehem altogether different from any other they had known.

So in perfect faith they did what God had called them from so far away to do.  They knelt before the Babe and worshipped him, “…and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh” (King James Bible, Matthew 2:11).

So Sunday by Sunday we come, in obedience to Our Lord’s call, to fulfil the obligation of the Sunday Eucharist.  We too kneel and worship, we too open our treasures and present to God our gifts – the gift of ourselves at the Offertory, and the greater gift of Our Blessed Lord at the Consecration, present on the altar in the Most Holy Sacrament.

In the words of the Offertory prayer for the Feast of the Epiphany said over the bread and wine, “We beseech thee, O Lord, mercifully to look upon the gifts of thy Church: wherein no longer presenting gold and frankincense and myrrh, we offer and receive him who by those gifts was signified, even Jesus Christ Our Lord”. (1)

Or to look at it from another point of view, at the Sunday Eucharist Our Lord comes into our midst in the Blessed Sacrament to present us before his Father’s throne in Heaven as his own people whom he was born and died to save.

So Sunday by Sunday Our Saviour withdraws us, as it were, from the individual outposts of his Kingdom and brings us together into its innermost citadel, into the very Presence of our God and King.  And then, when the Eucharist is over, he blesses us and sends us from his throne in Heaven back into the world again, there to man our own particular outpost of his Kingdom here on earth as his faithful soldiers and servants, and his loyal sons and daughters.

And it was to enter into that fact and experience before the throne of God that, in the great persecutions, the Christians of the Early Church went in weekly peril of their lives as they made their way through the still darkened streets to the house of one of their number, there to take part in the Sunday Eucharist.  They included all kinds of people, rich and poor, old and young, soldiers, slaves, housewives, shopkeepers, civil servants, doctors, lawyers.  The room in which they met would be large but ordinary, yet the occasion was the most significant action in their lives.

They lived in the Roman Empire, but God had transferred them to the Kingdom of his beloved Son (Colossians 1:13), so that their citizenship was now already in Heaven (Philippians 3:20), and each week in the Sunday Eucharist they were lifted up by his Son into the very heart of that Kingdom.  For that they lived, and for that they died.

And what of today?  The Eucharist itself is just the same except that there is no longer any danger in coming to it.  We have no long and arduous journey to make as did the Wise Men.  We do not have to get up at half past four or five o’clock in the morning and risk our lives as did the Early Christians.  For most people it is easy, for all it is safe.  Perhaps it is too easy and too safe, so that where once the danger of torture and death failed to keep people away, now less urgent reasons succeed.

And when that happens there is an empty place among those whom Our Lord presents to his Father at the Eucharist.  If that place is empty because of unavoidable duty or work that is one thing.  But it is quite another matter if someone can go but stays away instead.

Let us then resolve to be true and faithful to our obligation to be present at the Sunday Eucharist without fail, unless unavoidably prevented.  And let us be faithful not because it is an obligation, but because Our Saviour himself lovingly calls us and waits for us to take our place – a place which only we can take.

Reference

1. Society of SS Peter and Paul (1939) The Anglican Missal, London: Society of SS Peter and Paul.  (Extract is from the Secret for the Feast of the Epiphany, very slightly adapted).