Treading Gently

How are you feeling right now?
How are you feeling in your body… in your mind…
How are you feeling in your soul today?
It is easy, in the chaos of Christmas, to miss how we’re really feeling. To forget to take stock and to register how we are engaging with the world and with ourselves and with God in a holistic way and how all that might be impacting us.
Perhaps the new year brings with it a golden opportunity to take stock, but so often, the drive of marketing around New Year, is to launch ourselves into well-intentioned but ultimately unsustainable action. Marketeers know this (I used to be one!) and they play on our insecurities and negative feelings about ourselves to persuade us to commit to big goals or lifestyle changes that often end up costing big-money to do.
They use our dissatisfaction and sense of ‘overwhelm’ at the task ahead to provide and easy solution to a problem they’ve just convinced you that you have. For example, they convince you don’t match up to societies’ beauty standards and need to go on a diet, but they know dieting on your own is hard work, so they sell a product that takes some of the hard work out of it for you. There’s nothing necessarily intrinsically wrong with the product (in fact they can sometimes be incredibly helpful tools to a healthier life) but they tend to rely on a process which makes you feel worse about yourself in order that they can step in to ‘save the day’ and make you feel better. 
Motivation can be a complex thing; full of pushes and pulls in different directions. We can set out on a path feeling highly motivated and confident only to be side-swiped by something unexpected that makes us change the plan, or life gets in the way and our resolutions start to slip – a little bit at first – and then more and more, until it seems futile trying to follow them and we tell ourselves we’ll just give up and try again next January instead.

We’ve all been there. We’ve set out with the best of intentions and something has knocked us off-course and we’ve had to navigate our way back: to ourselves, to God, to our goals or to our emotional and physical well-being by taking a slightly longer, or more circuitous route than we originally planned. But sometimes the long road (rather than the quick fix) is the better choice, especially if we have good companions to travel it with us.
I take some comfort, in knowing that even the Magi were not immune from having to make changes to their best-laid plans and, having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they had to leave for home by another road.
There’s no indication in the text that they felt anything in particular about the change of plan – the gospeller simply states that there was one. But I’m pretty sure they didn’t beat themselves up or give up on the idea of travelling entirely, but just plodded on back home while processing the astounding experience they had just shared as they had met Jesus, the Christ, face to face.

But I also wonder, meanwhile, how Herod was feeling?
We’re told he was frightened, as were the other power-holders in Jerusalem that he summoned, and for those of us who know how the story unfolds later on - with the abominable murder of all male infants in the locality, we might also assume that Herod was feeling deeply threatened by the birth of Jesus. Jesus turns out to be the one who the Magi refer to as the ‘King of the Jews’ - a title which Matthew returns to at the end of his Gospel with it inscribed above Jesus’ head on the Cross.
There is a complex relationship between the household of Herod and the Jewish people, but Herod used this title of himself as ‘king of the Jews’ in part, it appears, to lend him a geographical and cultic jurisdiction that reached much further in his head than it necessarily did in practice. So, when the Magi spot a celestial constellation which suggests that a new king of the Jews has been born, they head to Herod’s house to confirm what major shift in the world-order the appearance of this star seems to signify.
But, after discovering Herod doesn’t have the information they are seeking, they carry on and follow the star to the rather humbler dwelling in Bethlehem.
I wonder how the Magi were feeling by this stage?
Tired, no doubt, from their journey but their anticipation can only have grown stronger the more perplexing and unexpected the one they were seeking became. And we are told that when they saw that the star had finally stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy and entered the house to find the Christ-child and Mary and fell to their knees in adoration.

For learnéd king-makers and spiritual advisors that they were, bearing gifts rich in material and spiritual significance, to grace a baby with their presence and to demonstrate their submission to him was nothing short of phenomenal. And I wonder how Mary felt about all this?
But, then, she was probably getting used to phenomenal experiences and likely was having to balance her own awe and wonder with the practical need to look after a hungry, wriggly infant as well as dealing with the long-lasting impact of a birth without medical intervention. Whenever it was that the Magi finally made it to Bethlehem, Mary would certainly have had her hands full that first Christmas – and I hazard a guess, would have had very little chance to take stock of what was really going on for her emotionally or spiritually either.

The nativity looks so genteel, so still, so calm.
And perhaps we need it to be in this chaotic world which feels anything but genteel and still and calm.
But, as anyone who has been a birthing parent will know, the succession of visitors to a new infant can be both a blessing and a real difficulty to navigate depending on who it is who is visiting you.
I wonder how new parents are feeling in these strange times? I wonder how those who have been unable to have visitors in hospital are faring? I wonder how those whose journeys with children have been complicated or difficult are baring up?
Maybe Epiphany is the season to take stock. To ask ourselves and those around us how we are really feeling?
To check in with one another and to resolve to address the things which get in the way of us seeking what our hearts truly need and desire.
Maybe we have our own jealousies or fears that are destructive that we need to work on,
Maybe we’re battling against messages and images from the world which distort our vision of our true worth,
Maybe we’re so busy juggling everyone else’s needs we haven’t had time to attend to our own,
Maybe we have too much time alone to process but lack companions to process the ups and downs of life with,
or maybe we’re just feeling tired and overwhelmed and don’t know where to start.

And if any of these apply, perhaps this Epiphany, we should take a leaf out of the Magi’s book and not rush headlong into action or doggedly stick to a pre-prepared plan, but instead take time to carefully notice the signs, to discern where they are leading us, and to be prepared to change course should circumstances require us to.
Let us resolve to tread gently into the new year; being kind to ourselves and to others and appropriately wary of quick fixes or big promises which cost us dearly.
The way of Jesus is the long-road of relationship; it is companionship on the road and its prize cannot be bought by our own effort or even by self-improvement - it is ours by gift. 
In the Incarnation, this world was given a light on which to fix our eyes and to guide us on our way: however long it takes us, and by whatever route we first come, we can trust he will guide us home. 
So, this New Year, arise, shine out for your light has come and his name is Jesus.
Amen.