As we enter this new year, many of us will have been thinking about making small or even big changes in our lives; considering what we might do a bit better or more consistently, or maybe just thinking this will be the year I plan a holiday, give up eating meat, or find that new job I’ve been considering for ages.

I used to do resolutions – often the same ones each year. And they were the same because I had failed so miserably at them the previous year. I gave up smoking but, to be fair, I had given up about twelve times before, so success was bound to come my way eventually.

Much better I think to go gently with ourselves. Life can be tough enough these days without adding self-flagellation to the mix. I have loved those social media posts these past few days which, often quoting poems, remind us that we don’t need to be perfect. It’s ok – more than ok – to celebrate who we are right now and to be thankful for all that we have achieved and, yes, survived. It was good to give up smoking and I needed the discipline of setting myself that target (year after year) and wanting not to fail at it. So resolutions have their place, but more often than not I think we are harder on ourselves than we ought to be, not easier. And sometimes we do need to be reminded that we are good enough as we are and that it’s ok to cock up occasionally so long as it doesn’t become the whole narrative.

None of us are perfect, and neither should we wish to be. That way madness lies.

This changes the whole narrative of faith for me – if God is no longer a God of vengeance and unbending justice, which is too often what we hear; rather, if God is the very essence of Love, and if in Jesus that pure love that beats at the heart of the universe, is made tangible so that, like the woman who bled for twelve years, we can reach out and touch it, then the Word of God is love indeed. And what is not of Love is not of God.

God is Love, Jesus came to show us how to love, and when he died, it was not because God sacrificed him, save inasmuch as God knew it must happen. Human beings are indeed lost to sin, to hate, and Jesus comes to show us how to love again. And, as the kingdom of God is realised on earth, heart by heart, as Jesus comes to reign, so peace becomes a reality and the time is realised when, as Isaiah puts it, the wolf will lay down with the lamb, swords will be beaten into plough shares, and the peace of God that passes all understanding will reign on earth.

But tomorrow is Epiphany Sunday, when we remember the visit of the magi to the infant Jesus some time after his birth in Bethlehem.

Like all of us, forgive the cliche, the Magi were on a pilgrimage and for them too the journey would have been incredibly meaningful and, sometimes incredibly, incredibly hard. We can make the mistake, because that is how scripture is written sometimes, of thinking, it was like, ‘yo, a star, let’s get on our camels’ and suddenly they were there,  arriving just after the shepherds, with gifts, basking in the warm glow of the Holy Baby like some Renaissance painting.

Not at all. It was a long journey –Jesus is no longer in that manger. We know that because the neurotic Herod wants to  kill all the boys under two and the reference in Matthew is to a house, not a stable. So at least a year’s travelling probably – spiritually profound and physically exhausting. Cold desert nights, hot desert days, lots of danger. A very dangerous and challenging journey.

And if the journey took months – the star would not always have been visible. They saw the star, then they didn’t. There would have been days of cloud cover at night, or poor weather, or even bright sunny weather of course, with desert mirages, when they could not see the star, but it was still there.  

There is a tendency, in our own personal journey, to think we need to look for God, or we give up looking for God, when we think we are so alone, and so tired.  God is gone. God is hidden behind a cloud! Or maybe God was never there. We say things like, ‘where is God, when the world is hurting?’ Why can’t I feel God’s presence now I need it? Why are my prayer unanswered? 

But like that star, when we can’t find God because life is too hard, too painful, when the cloud cover is too great, God is still there. When we can’t find God because life is too easy, too joyful, when we’re too distracted by the sun, God is still there. When we don’t need the  star to guide us, God is still there.

God isn’t hiding. The star was with the Magi – but sometimes their perspective changed because of cloud cover, or heat or exhaustion. The perspective of the wise men changed; God’s didn’t.

Though Love is everything, it is not bulletproof. It may well seem to disappear behind endless clouds. But it’s still there. It is easily damaged, easily lost sight of. But it’s still there. Love is fragile, but it can’t be destroyed; Love can even be killed, but it won’t stay dead.

Whatever the new year brings you, I hope you are gentle with yourself, and if you find, as we all will, that sometimes the guiding light of pure Love seems to disappear behind a cloud or gets drowned out by the relentless din of competing hatreds, remember it is still there. Just keep looking up. Keep looking for beauty, for truth, for the goodness in yourself and others that is always there because God made it to be so. For that reason there is cause to rejoice. Always. Even now.

Matthew 2 NIV – The Magi Visit the Messiah – After – Bible Gateway