Epiphany wisdom and worship

It is God Himself, personally present and redeemingly active, who comes to meet men in this Man of Nazareth. Jesus is more than a religious genius, such as George Fox, and more than a holy man, such as the lovable Lana in Kipling’s Kim. He himself knows that  he is more. The Gospel story is a tree rooted in the familiar soil of time and sense; but its roots go down into the Abyss and its branches fill the Heavens; given to us in terms of a country in the Eastern Mediterranean no bigger than Wales, during the Roman Principate of Tiberius Caesar in the first century of our era, its range is universal; it is on the scale of eternity. God's presence and his very Self were made manifest in the words and works of this Man. In short, the Man Christ Jesus has the decisive place in man's ageless relationship with God. He is what God means by ‘Man’. He is what man means by ‘God’.    J. S. Whale

1 Earth has many a noble city;
Bethl'hem, thou dost all excel:
out of thee the Lord from heaven
came to rule his Israel.

2 Fairer than the sun at morning 
was the star that told his birth,
to the world its God announcing
seen in fleshly form on earth.

3 Eastern sages at his cradle
make oblations rich and rare;
see them give in deep devotion,
gold and frankincense and myrrh.

4 Sacred gifts of mystic meaning:
incense doth their God disclose,
gold the King of kings proclaimeth,
myrrh his sepulcher foreshows.

5 Jesu, whom the Gentiles worshipped
at thy glad Epiphany,
unto thee with God the Father
and the Spirit glory be.