With the coming of this new year I’m eagerly anticipating the launch of Series 3 of ‘The Crown’. It will be great to see the wonderful Olivia Colman – fresh from taking on Queen Anne in ‘The Favourite’ – playing Her Majesty The Queen after Claire Foy. Wearing a crown is becoming a bit of a theme for her at the moment.
I decided this year to do my own Christmas Crackers – well, when I say that not quite like my mother did who made them one year from scratch! I bought empty ones and put my own, specially selected, gifts so that each person got something useful rather than a tape measure, plastic comb or magic fish that can tell your personality! But the empty crackers did come complete not just with a snap but with a joke and a hat. So at Christmas dinner we pulled them, the gifts rolled out, the jokes were told and the hats went on our heads. But I suddenly realised that the hat that we are traditionally given to wear in our crackers is a crown.
The famous Galette des Rois
Some years ago I had a couple of occasions when my post-Christmas break coincided with the Feast of the Epiphany. One of those breaks was spent in northern France and the other was in in the capital of Majorca, Palma. Both celebrated Epiphany with enthusiasm but slightly differently. In France we took the opportunity to taste the lovely Galette des Rois, the King’s Cake, which is traditionally eaten on the Feast and throughout the month. In the windows of the pâtisseries can be seen these frangipane tarts finished off with a paper crown. As with our own tradition of putting a silver threepenny bit into our pudding, these galettes contain a féve, a charm, and the finder of it gets to wear the crown.
In Palma, Majorca the celebration of the Feast begins in the harbour. Three resplendently dressed and crowned kings arrive by boat and climb onto floats that then tour the centre of the city. As they go along they throw handfuls of sweets out to the children who crowd the pavements to see them. The arrival of the kings reminded me of that lovely carol we sing
I saw three ships come sailing in
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day
I saw three ships come sailing in
On Christmas Day in the morning.
That’s a traditional English carol from the 17th century. As Bethlehem is landlocked it was either written by someone who had no idea of geography or the ships referred to are actually camels, often known as ‘ships of the desert’ (their rocking motion certainly makes me feel sea sick).
But all of these traditions continue to promote the popular notion that we are talking about the arrival of kings to the stable in Bethlehem. That is further reinforced as we sing together that most popular carol ‘We three kings’ and listen to the choir singing the amazing anthem ‘Three kings from Persian lands’ by Peter Cornelius. It’s enough to make the preacher throw their hands up in horror! After all, the Bible doesn’t mention kings at all, certainly not St Matthew who is the one who gives us this story.
Magi – and no crowns in sight!
It’s Magi that we are talking about, wise men, astrologers, readers of the stars and of the signs, maybe Zoroastrians, perhaps from Persia, certainly not crown wearing kings. There may have been three but Matthew mentions no such number, it’s just that three gifts are mentioned – gold, frankincense and myrrh – and that is where the traditional number came from.
But there was a king, it’s just he wasn’t dressed as one. Matthew tells us
On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. (Matthew 2.11)
On arriving at Herod’s court they had mentioned that they were looking for a king; in the stable they found him.
T S Eliot’s famous poem, drawing so heavily on the sermon preached by Bishop Lancelot Andrewes to His Majesty’s court at Whitehall in 1622, concludes like this
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation.
These wise men saw that the old crowns and the old kingdoms were passing away, the old dispensation was finished. They had seen a new king and the signs of a new kingdom. So it’s ok to take the hat that falls from the cracker, the crown on the galette and to wear it – but not in memory of kings who were not kings but in celebration of the one who is the true king of the true kingdom, Christ the King.
This is the alternative Collect for the Feast of the Epiphany from the Church of England’s ‘Common Worship’.
Creator of the heavens,
who led the Magi by a star
to worship the Christ-child:
guide and sustain us,
that we may find our journey’s end
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
LIVING GOD 
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