The Lantern, February-March 2023

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RIP Olive Anderson

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SNIPPETS, SOUNDBITES AND STORIES

At the time of writing we are still in the Season of Epiphany and since I wrote about the Three Kings/Wise Men last year and hearing again the legend of the fourth visitor on Epiphany Sunday this year, I thought it appropriate to relate some of the deeper explanations I have read recently. The first conundrum being Kings or Wise Men? (Of course, the rulers of the time would have their own wise men for example political, financial and medical advisers) but in about the 6th Century AD the word ‘magi’ had more connotations with its ‘magic’ connection. To avoid the wrong interpretation the kingly presence was adopted. However, we cannot dismiss them as magicians, as they would have been the intelligent and learned of their time, or as once described as “some foreign academics” borne out by their ability to track the new star.

But what of the Kings? This account is found only in St Matthew’s Gospel, which is considered by academics to be the ‘most Jewish’. It is strange then that he is relating the revelation, manifestation or Epiphany of the hoped-for Messiah to non-Jewish people.....perhaps giving it more truth-related credibility. But Matthew knew his scriptures and many of the details he relates are regarded as fulfilments of Old Testament prophecies, e.g. Rachel crying for her children being a prophecy of the massacre of the Holy Innocents and “Out of Egypt have I called my son”, the return of the holy Family from exile in Egypt. In last week’s bible readings we heard Isaiah’s account of camels and kings bearing kingly gifts and these kings are now thought to represent the nearby continents to whom it was God’s purpose to reveal His truths to the world.

There is much more but I will conclude with the reference to the line in the Hallelujah Chorus , ‘King of Kings and Lord of Lords’ during which it is recorded that King George II stood in deference (as with the example of the three kings) to a greater King than himself . A little known tradition in our own royal household, going back nearly 500 years, is the offerings of gold, frankincense and myrrh which are placed on the altar during the Eucharist service in St James’ Palace chapel,

And a couple of snippets for after Candlemas.

A lady from the intellectual and upper class (no inverted snobbery intended) died and her husband was surprised that she had requested the children’s hymn “Jesus wants me for a sunbeam” as one of the hymns to be sung at her funeral . It was apparently one of her happy memories of her Salvation Army upbringing. He need not have worried. Apparently the full church congregation sang with gusto, renewing their own happy childhood memories!

I read somewhere recently that it was fortunate for the victim that the Good Samaritan had a fiver in his pocket! The moral of this is that it is not the amount of money you have but what you do with it.

Anita Buyers

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