Sunday after Epiphany - 10/1/2010 (Epiphany is 6th January)

Theme: The really Wise Men

Bible reading

Matthew chapter 2 verses 1-12

Preparation

The Bible reading is the story of the coming of the Magi or Wise Men to see the young child Jesus. Usually this is seen as an integral part of the birth story, and nativity plays customarily show both shepherds and wise men at the manger. In fact the story in Matthew's Gospel indicates that the wise men arrived rather later on the scene, when Jesus was several months old. It is right, therefore, that we look again at their story separately.

If you can, find some strong smelling perfume you can use during the assembly e.g. frankincense joss sticks are available. You can also sometimes get grains of frankincense.

Introduction

If one of your classes enacted a nativity play last term ask then to repeat the section with the wise men (no shepherds). Alternatively dress up some of your younger children to form a tableau while you retell the Bible story. Remember to involve your actors further as you give the message below, for example you could stick the "secret code messages" on the boxes of "gifts".

The Message

Ask the children if they are surprised to see the Wise Men again when they thought Christmas was over? Explain how the Wise Men had taken several months to find Jesus because they had a long journey, and of course they had originally gone to the wrong place looking for him, because they had guessed that such an important baby would be born in a palace, and Jesus wasn't the son of King Herod as they had first thought. So the Wise Men weren't there when Jesus was born, they were still on their way.

But when they finally arrived they had some rather wonderful presents to give the baby. Ask the pupils what would have been sensible presents for them to bring for a baby. However, the Wise Men hadn't brought anything for the baby to play with or anything for him to wear, instead they had brought gold and some very expensive perfumes. Ask what the children think of these presents - probably they will see the sense of the gold as it can buy things, but why did a baby boy need all that expensive perfume? Why were the Wise Men called wise men if they brought such useless gifts?

Actually the gifts were very special indeed, and you may be surprised to know that the choice of gifts showed these visitors were really wise. They were really wise because they had worked out two things - firstly that Jesus was a very special person indeed, and secondly what was going to happen to the baby when he was a man. The gifts are a secret code for this.

So let's crack the secret code: The first two gifts tell us why Jesus is important. Who would expect gifts of gold? The answer is really important people like kings - so the first gift says "Jesus is a king".

he second gift is tougher to understand because we don't use frankincense these days in England, but in those days it was used in temples when you were worshipping God. So the second gift says "Jesus is God". This sounds wonderful, but the final gift is more worrying, because it is a gift you give when someone dies, and you put myrrh perfume on their body. So the last gift says " Jesus' death will be special". Can anyone remember the Easter story and what was going to be special about Jesus' death?

So I hope you agree that the wise men were really wise after all.

Pause to reflect - although the story is about people bringing gifts to Jesus, the best gift in the story is really Jesus himself, who was given to us.

Prayer

Lord, we thank you for the story of the wise men and its special message, but most of all we say thank you at this time of year for the special gift which has been given to us, Jesus Himself.