Hymns fROM hOME: we tHREE kINGS {ePIPHANY EPISODE}

PRAY
Lord, as we continue to celebrate Your birth even into this new year, may we be reminded to seek you no matter how long the journey or how great the obstacles, and may we use our gifts to honor you. Amen.

SCRIPTURE
Matthew Chapter 2 - The Magi Visit the Messiah “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” (Matt 2:2)

LYRIC
We three kings of Orient are;
bearing gifts we traverse afar,
field and fountain, moor and mountain,
following yonder star.

O star of wonder, star of light,
star with royal beauty bright,
westward leading, still proceeding,
guide us to thy perfect light.

Born a King on Bethlehem's plain,
gold I bring to crown him again,
King forever, ceasing never,
over us all to reign.

Frankincense to offer have I;
incense owns a Deity nigh;
prayer and praising, voices raising,
worshiping God on high.

Myrrh is mine; its bitter perfume
breathes a life of gathering gloom;
sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying,
sealed in the stone-cold tomb.

Glorious now behold him arise;
King and God and sacrifice:
Alleluia, Alleluia,
sounds through the earth and skies

BACKGROUND

Both the text and tune {KINGS OF ORIENT} were written by John H. Hopkins, Jr. {B.1820 D.1891} a cradle Episcopalian  whose father was a "big-wig" in the Episcopal scene in Vermont serving as their second bishop and founding the Vermont Episcopal Institute of which the Jr. Hopkins would be the assistant.  He was considered a "down to earth man" (and as one of 12 siblings, you'd assume he'd have to be) and became an ecclesiologist, or one who studies church architecture and adornment.  His list of accomplishments is long and varied and ranges from being responsible for the installation of tile floors and steam heat in the Sunday School Building of a church where he served to providing the Eulogy at the funeral of President Ulysses S Grant in 1885.  Hopkins never married but served the church with his many gifts until his death.

This arrangement was improvised by B. Bordeaux in January 2022.

PERSONAL

When I was a kid, every time "We Three Kings" was sung at Christmas, my Dad would chuckle and say, "When I was a kid, we used to sing it 'We three kings of Orient are, trying to smoke a rubber cigar.  It was loaded and exploded...." I don't remember the rest of the lyric and likely it was because that was right around the time my Mom would swoop in with and admonishing "MA-son!" (and the same look of embarrassment I know she has at this very moment reading this on her computer screen) and Dad would get all wide-eyed and say, "What!? That's what we used to sing when we were kids!" and I would sort of fade out of the scene as best I could half delighted and half horrified at the thought of bending the lyrics to a song about Jesus.

I think about the wisemen a good bit during the Advent season actually because of the unique role they play.  The shepherds and angels and the stable owner were all there in real-time to see the blessed event unfold (anticlimactic as it might have seemed to find a baby in a feeding trough). Sure they recognized the Baby as the Savior, but they also were "in the room where it happened."  The wisemen however had a journey.  A roughly 2 year journey.  Through what couldn't have been easy terrain.  I'm always amazed that they saw the star and believed the prophecy of the birth of this Baby King to the extent that they would follow the star, for literally years to find the Christ Child, especially when their visit to Herod was less than encouraging.  I wonder too, how long was that palace encounter?  Did they water their camels?  Perhaps bathe and eat a meal?  Or even have to wait a few days before Herod would grant them an audience?  I hardly can imagine that they waltzed right on in and asked where to go in the space of the few minutes it seems to take in Scripture.  And then the courage to return a different way.  The whole thing is truly a beautiful reminder to me that even when God calls you on a specific journey, it likely will still require courage, obedience, patience and discernment, but the reward will be an encounter with Christ.

Our director of music had originally left this tune out of the Sunday morning order of worship as he planned to include it in a celebration we have the evening of Epiphany.  Unfortunately, bad weather and an uptick in COVID caused that service to be cancelled.  Each Sunday service, one musician provides an instrumental setting so that the rest of the musicians can take communion.  Since this tune wasn't otherwise being used that morning, I chose it as the instrumental communion offering and improvised the version you see here.