Happy New Year!

Any particularly observant visitor to either of our churches through this Christmas season will have noticed that the Crib at the front of the church houses the animals of the stable. It has welcomed Mary and Joseph finding shelter in the busyness. It has received Jesus, the Son of God born as one of us and first found by the shepherds summoned by angel song to gather there too. Yet one set of familiar characters are still missing from the tableaux: the wise one, Kings, Magi. While Nativity Plays and Carol Services tell of all arriving at the same time, the biblical accounts of the journey of these strangers from the East tell of their arrival being a bit later, so until Sunday 4 th when we are celebrating the feast of Epiphany, they are to be found at some distance from the crib still on their pilgrimage following the star.

The image of pilgrims following a star seems to me to be quite a good one for the beginning of new calendar year. When we make a long journey, especially on foot or at the kind of pace a camel might make, there are times when we look back to see how far we have come. That can bring both confidence because of the ground we have covered, and at times, frustration because the terrain has been hard. The purpose of the journey though, is to move on, guided by the hope that we will get to the destination we are seeking, guided by a source of direction. We look forward to what, as yet, we cannot see but are seeking, keeping focused on whatever is guiding us.

I hope that as you look back over the last year your will find encouragement either from its joys, or the strength it has taken to live through its challenges (perhaps for most of us it will be a bit of both!). The Magi’s guiding star took them to a place they didn’t expect to find the source of their direction: the love of God offered to us in Jesus. This New Year, may we find in all that is to come, expected and unexpected, that same love as the source of ours.