These great buildings must have exuded enormous spiritual power. But what must have struck people most was the contrast between the humble dwellings of the city and this vast new edifice, the like of which they had never seen before. People have always been fascinated by contrast and never more so than when those contrasts are extreme. And it is this I think which lies at the heart of the story of the wise men and which accounts for its attraction. For not only do we find extremes of wealth and poverty, but unusually there is a reversal of roles as wealth that kneels at the foot of poverty. So on the one hand we have princes dressed in fine robes, consorting with the great and bearing costly gifts. While on the other there is a peasant child lying in a barn on a bed of straw. Why had these men made the journey in the first place. Why had they come? After all they were wealthy men, who lacked for nothing. So what was to be gained from leaving the comfort and security of their homes and making the long and difficult journey to a country whose language they did not speak and whose people were alien?

We can almost hear their friends trying to dissuade them. This is madness. You're too old for such a journey. But one can also hear the voice of those who despite their age have a bee in their bonnet and nothing will deflect them. No doubt strenuous efforts were made to dissuade them - "this is sheer indulgence" - but it was to no avail, their minds were made up. And so they came, three princes to the manger and offered there their gifts of gold frankincense and myrrh.

In making the journey the wise-men remind us of the true nature of God; the God who gives himself for the life of the world and in so doing doesn't stint himself. does so without limit. No doubt if he had his advisers they too would have tried to dissuade him from sending his only

son. But despite the uncertainties and the unknowns this was a risk God knew he had to take. For within his love for the world there is a compulsion he has to follow. For love cannot be love if it is prepared to hold back when the going becomes difficult or dangerous. It is of the nature of true love that it gives itself without stinting and without reserve. And it was the same compulsion that spurred on the wise-men. They had to go. They had to go not to gawp at a new born baby, but to identify themselves with this child and make an offering that would be an outward sign of the commitment they felt in their hearts. But these were not just presents for a new-born baby, they were gifts which carried deeper meaning. Meaning for them, meaning for the child, meaning for all who would come after.

The first of the gifts was gold. Gold was the right of kings. You measured your stature by the amount of gold you had. To give gold was to identify people with yourself and with your reign. To have gold is to be a king and yto be a king you needed gold. So the child is given gold to acknowledge his kingship and it is the psalmist who reminds us of what good kingship is all about, "In his time righteousness shall flourish and the abundance of peace until the moon shall be no more". Bad kings bring fear and oppression, but those who give their people justice, righteousness and peace command respect and obedience. These will be the gift of this child to us and the only response we can make is the precious gold of obedience. Not an easy word perhaps, but obedience is not subservience. We are not to abandon all responsibility for our lives, but what God wills must come first. Obedience should not be a burden, but a joy, for true obedience frees us from self-concern to concentrate on our relationship with God. If we do not renew our commitment to follow our Lord in faith, love and obedience, then our Epiphany procession today will be a charade.

The second gift of the wise-men was frankincense, the recognition that the child in the manger was divine and had come from God. In the presence of God we can only draw near with humility and reverence, or in the words of the hymn, "with gold of obedience and incense of lowliness, kneel and adore him, the Lord is his name". I always like the story of the three six year olds acting out the story of the wise-men in their school play. The first said, "I bring you gold", the second said, "I bring you myrrh", and the third "Frank sent this". There is a wonderful simplicity in that child's interpretation of a difficult word, and it reminds us that simplicity should always be the hall-mark of our relationship with God. If we do not kneel before the Christ child in adoration, prayer and praise then our procession will be a charade.

The third gift of the wise-men was myrrh. Widely used as a perfume and for healing it symbolised an early death. One of the gifts of the Christ-child to us will be his death. He will die on a cross that we might be made one with God and become co-heirs with him of the kingdom of heaven. On the cross they will give him myrrh mingled with course wine. to dull the pain and ease his passage from this world. Yet paradoxically myrrh was also used in the anointing of the sick and widely believed to aid recovery. So the myrrh of the cross opens the way for healing in our lives as in union with the Father we become increasingly a people who reflect his image and likeness. In the gift of myrrh lies the prediction of an early death, but also the promise of healing and wholeness for ourselves. If we do not open our hearts anew that God's healing love may change and transform our lives, then our procession will be merely play-acting.

As the wise-men came to the stable and knelt in the straw it made a curious picture. On the one hand, great wealth, on the other poverty and simplicity. Jesus once said, "the poor you will always have with you". He might also have said, "and you will always have the rich and powerful". This dichotomy will always be with us because people are always fascinated by power and the money that generates it. But if the rich and the poor will always be with us, the wise-men remind us that if we go in pursuit of God and his purposes we can make a difference. Many today, like the writer Richard Dawkins, consider the pursuit of religion to be mere foolishness and challenge this waste of time and effort; others encourage us to focus our obedience on the pursuit of worldly pleasures and not waste time on what is unseen and ephemeral. Yet others tempt us with the promise of self-fulfilment and a life lived in security and comfort. The rich men kneeling before the poor challenge all that. They are here because they felt the impetus of God and responded to it. Those around them thought it foolish; the journey was probably hard and difficult as T.S. Eliot suggests; others like the great Herod were prepared to exploit their insight and abuse their sincerity. Yet still they came, determined to acknowledge the child who was the focus of God's new initiative.

People can be mesmerised by greatness, be it great buildings, great wealth or great power. Yet what made these men wise was the fact that they were not mesmerised by such greatness. They were captivated by the spirit of God and recognised that this was of far greater importance than human activity. In their actions they remind us that sometimes we too need to act on instinct, for that is the way the gospel so often comes to birth. When people move with the wind and go where the spirit takes them it comes into its own. The wise-men challenge us to follow our instincts and the promptings of our heart for it is this, more than anything else, that will bring us into the divine presence.

More sermons, modern and historical, available in Norwich Cathedral Library

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