Welcome to Resilient Faith , the podcast . Opportunities to find deeper resilience within ourselves can come when life seems most challenging . This podcast is to help you develop that resilience and connection with God . Being resilient and having power starts with faith . Welcome , friends , to another episode of the Resilient Faith podcast and the first episode of 2024 .
Hooray , hooray , hooray . Well , happy New Year to you . I hope that this New Year finds you healthy and safe , wherever you are . However , you are listening to this podcast today , I hope and pray that you feel the spirit of God surrounding you and upholding you , bringing us together into this New Year . With gratitude and thanksgiving , we say goodbye to 2023 .
So long , see you later . And we welcome with gratitude and anticipation 2024 , praying for health and safety for all of those around the world who need it so desperately . We pray that the spirit of God will remain with us , no matter what we face in the year to come . We are going to be celebrating Epiphany this season , as we always do so .
Christmas begins , of course , on December 25th , and then we are in Christmas tide for 12 days , the 12 days of Christmas .
It's not just a fun song , it's also a 12-day liturgical season , and then it ends on January 6th with Epiphany , and Epiphany is the day that we celebrate the Magi , the wise men coming from the east , from a place unknown , to find the baby Jesus , to follow a star , to follow their dreams and find Jesus and bring him their gifts of gold , frankincense and myrrh
. So traditionally , on Epiphany we read this passage of the Magi the Magi are only found in the Gospel of Matthew . They are in chapter 2 of Matthew's Gospel . That is the only place where we find the story of the Magi . But we celebrate the Magi on Epiphany . We celebrate them following this star to find Jesus to deliver their gifts .
We follow the story of their deceit of King Herod and the way that they listen to their dreams to return home another way after connecting with this Christ child . Last week I read a poem from my colleague , reverend Sarah Speed , for Christmas Tide .
So today I wanted to close this Christmas tide season with an epiphany poem by the same colleague , reverend Sarah Speed . So here's a poem for epiphany and it is called A Blessing for the Seekers . Blessed are you who turn your face up to the sky , who open your arms to feel the wind , who notice all the things that we should notice .
Blessed are you who are fluent in wonder and familiar with awe . Blessed are you who , even now , dream dreams , who have not lost hope , who swear the glass is still half full . Blessed are you who plant trees and sing the harmony , who tell the children how this world can be magic .
Blessed are you who walk and see and turn over every stone , pointing out all the corners and colors that God lives in . Blessed are you . Amen . Well , beloveds , whatever it is that you are seeking this year , this epiphany , I hope and pray that you will feel God's presence with you , that you will see that God has manifest in your life and in the world .
I pray that we will feel blessed as we follow the star to find the baby Jesus , as we present Jesus with the gift of our very lives and as we go out into the world to share the good news , to tell the story , to continue from generation to generation the good news of God's great love for each and every one of us .
Friends , happy New Year , blessed epiphany , and may God bless us today and always . May it be so , amen . You've been listening to Resilient Faith . The podcast Resilient Faith is sponsored by Brentwood Presbyterian Church in West Los Angeles . You can follow our church and this podcast on Facebook at BPCTeam and Instagram at BPC underscore USA .
Make sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and thanks for listening .