Service Sunday January 4, 2026
HIGHLAND HILLS UNITED CHURCH
Minden, Ontario
All are Welcome!
Epiphany Sunday
Worship Leader: Rev. Max Ward
Watch a video recording of the whole service using YouTube below.
Music Director: Melissa Stephens
(For a Printer Friendly PDF version click this link)
The Gathering
WELCOME & ANNOUNCEMENTS:
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF LAND:
We give thanks for the First Peoples who welcomed our ancestors to this territory with hospitality, and we acknowledge that we are on the traditional territory of the Michi-Saagig and Anishinaabeg peoples. We give thanks for the ancestors, the elders, and our Indigenous siblings, who helped us to live in this part of our world, and we thank them for their care of creation. Our spirits are gathered, our hearts and minds are ready! Let us worship God!
THE APPROACH
CALL TO WORSHIP:
One: Where shall we go?
ALL: We seek the Holy One.
One: How shall we get there?
ALL: We’ll journey together.
One: How will we find the right path?
ALL: By asking those who have gone before. By listening to the word of God. By following the star.
One: Ane we’ll find the Christ child?
ALL: And even more.
One: But can we do that?
ALL: Yes! And we, too, are Wise Ones, living our lives in God’s way, living our lives in love’s way.
One: Living our lives…
ALL: and worshipping our God.
One: Alleluia!
ALL: Alleluia!
Written by Richard Bott, Grace U.C., Burlington, Ont.
Gathering, Pentecost 2 2025, p.37. Used with permission
HYMN: “As with Gladness Men of Old” VU #81
1 As with gladness men of old
did the guiding star behold,
as with joy they hailed its light,
leading onward, beaming bright,
so, most gracious Lord, may we
evermore your splendour see.
2 As with joyful steps they sped,
to that lowly manger bed,
there to bend the knee before
Christ, whom heaven and earth adore;
so may we with eager pace
ever seek your throne of grace.
3 As they offered gifts most rare
at that manger crude and bare,
so may we with holy joy,
pure and free from sin's alloy,
all our costliest treasures bring,
Christ, to you, our heavenly King.
4 Holy Jesus, every day
keep us in the narrow way;
and, when earthly things are past,
bring our ransomed souls at last
where they need no star to guide,
where no clouds your glory hide.
5 In the heavenly country bright
none shall need created light;
you its light, its joy, its crown,
you its sun which goes not down;
there for ever may we sing
hallelujah to our King.
A NEW CREED: Spoken in Unison
We are not alone; we live in God’s world.
We believe in God: who has created and is creating,
who has come in Jesus, the Word made flesh,
to reconcile and make new, who works in us and others by the Spirit.
We trust in God.
We are called to be the church: to celebrate God’s presence,
to live with respect in Creation, to love and serve others,
to seek justice and resist evil, to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen,
our judge and our hope. In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us. We are not alone. Thanks be to God.
MINISTRY OF MUSIC
LEARNING TOGETHER
HYMN: “In the Darkness Shines the Splendour” VU #92
1 In the darkness shines the splendour
of the Word who took our flesh,
welcoming, in love's surrender,
death's dark shadow at his crèche.
Bearing every human story,
Word made flesh reveals his glory.
2 Light of nations, veiled in history,
born of woman's flesh and blood,
calling to the depths of mystery
restless hearts that seek the good.
Healing every human story,
Word made flesh reveals his glory.
3 Broken bread, sustaining us in sorrow,
wine poured out to toast our joy;
exodus and new tomorrow,
life's full promise to enjoy!
Gladdening every human story,
Word made flesh reveals his glory.
4 All God's people, sing in jubilation
of the birth that sets us free,
telling of the revelation:
Jesus, God's epiphany.
Celebrate the human story!
Word made flesh reveals our glory.
THE WORD
Scripture: Matthew 2:1-12
Leader: Hear and listen to what the Spirit is saying to the church.
ALL: Thanks be to God.
MESSAGE:
“Three Kings Seek The King”
Listen to an audio recording of the message below or read it at the bottom of this page.
OUR RESPONSE
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE and
THE LORD’S PRAYER: sung VU#960
HYMN: “When Heaven’s Bright with Mystery” VU #93
1 When heaven's bright with mystery
and science searches nature's art,
when all creation yearns for peace
and hope sinks deep in human hearts,
appear to us, O Holy Light;
lift from our eyes the shades of night.
2 When Herod barters power and lives
and Rachel's weeping fills the night,
when suffering's mask marks every face,
and Love's a refugee in flight,
reveal to us your word of grace
and make us witness to your peace.
3 When fragile faith, like desert wind,
blows dry and empty, hope erased,
when withered grass and fading flower
proclaim again our day's brief space,
breathe on the clay of our despair
and work a new creation there.
4 When heaven's bright with mystery
and stars still lead an unknown way,
when love still lights a gentle path
where courts of power can hold no sway,
there with the Magi, let us kneel,
our gifts to share, God's world to heal.
AFFIRMING MOMENT
PRESENTATION OF OUR OFFERINGS
OFFERTORY PRAYER: In Unison
There is so much that needs doing, O God, and we have no magic wand to get it done without effort, and no gold, frankincense, and myrrh to finance our efforts. Here is our offering, but we also present our lives so that, in your grace, all of our offerings may meet the needs to which they are directed. Give us wisdom and courage as we seek to offer all that we are in your work. Amen.
Written by Beth W Johnston, Bridging Waters, P.C., Nipawin, Sask.
Gathering, Pentecost 2 2025, p.38. Used with permission
SUNG BLESSING: (VU #87 vs 2)
Refrain
'I am the light of the world!
You people come and follow me!'
If you follow and love you'll learn the mystery
of what you were meant to do and be.
2 To find the lost and lonely one,
to heal the broken soul with love,
to feed the hungry children with warmth
and good food,
to feel the earth below, the sky above! Refrain ©
SENDING FORTH:
A Time of Fellowship
© Music Reproduced with permission under License number A-605748, Valid for: 26/10/2025 - 25/10/2026; One License - Copyright Cleared Music for Churches.
Sermon 2026 01 04
“Three Kings Seek The King”
Matthew 2:1-12
Gracious God, be with us today in this place, in the Scriptures and in our words.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts praise your Holy name. Amen.
How Ironic.
The story of the three kings has a strong sense of irony and poetic justice to it.
Here, in this story, were three educated and wise men.
Men who were rich and who could weld influence to gain power and riches.
Gentiles who hired out their great learning and wisdom to the kings of Epha and Sheba and Midia.
Men who had graced the courts of Gentile kings with vast kingdoms.
These wise and powerful Gentiles did something that the world must have considered very strange.
They came to honour and worship the king of the Jews.
The Jews were a conquered people so why not honour the Romans who conquered them?
These wise individuals were giving homage to a king who was lying on borrowed hay in a barn.
That stable would probably have been considered unsuitable facilities for their camels under normal circumstances.
And this king had no apparent kingdom.
It seems odd that Kings should honour this poor homeless infant.
But we know that these were indeed wise men.
The story says that they knew that this was not an ordinary king of an ordinary kingdom.
This homeless child was the Messiah sent from God to bring peace and justice to the world.
The world may have thought it strange to bring precious gifts to the son of a carpenter’s wife.
But just as God had guided their journey so God had guided their choice in gifts.
Gold to crown the King of Kings.
Frankincense to be used in worshipping the Son of God.
Myrrh to foreshadow the anointing of his body for burial.
The kings knew what they were doing; the true irony comes from those close at hand.
The Kings traveled across the known world to honour Jesus, but those in his own back yard failed to recognize him.
He was born the king of the Jews, but only a few Jewish shepherds honoured him.
The Jews had been watching for the Messiah for hundreds of years.
But it was a group of Gentiles that saw the light.
Somehow God’s chosen people failed to see the star.
Irony makes for good tale telling, but this is no mere tale.
This is what the Bible tells us.
It may be poetic justice but it is a poetic justice written in symbol and story on the slate of history.
God’s people didn’t see the light.
But those outside the chosen nation came to honour it and find it.
It was bad enough that God’s people not only failed to see the light.
But when the kings called their attention to it, some of them even tried to put it out.
If the Kings had been a little less wise and godly they might not have listened to the angel in their dreams.
Then what?
Herod would have tried to kill Jesus.
Instead, the legend says, he killed hundreds of innocent children.
The first Christian Martyrs.
Killed because someone didn’t like the light.
Murdered because those who dwelt in darkness were afraid of the truth.
The kings came from far away seeking the Christ child, led by the light of a star.
People today are still seeking God’s light.
There are more people today who have no contact with the church than in any time in our society’s history.
There are people today who have never been in a church and have no knowledge of the life of Christ.
We are at home with the stories of Jesus, but to them they are a foreign land; a strange country.
They dwell in a type of darkness having never seen the light of Christ.
Many of these people are seeking.
They know they are in some kind of darkness and they are seeking the light.
They are looking for God, for inner peace, for abundant life.
And they don’t know where to turn.
Many are turning to Psychology or worldly Philosophies but they do not offer a balanced spirituality.
You know what they need?
They need what we already have.
A star to guide us.
Just like the wise men, we need a light to show us to the light of lights.
They need someone to guide them through a strange country of Christian traditions to the foreign city of God’s word.
They need someone to lead them through the maze of streets.
To get them past the office towers and malls to the manger where Christ lives so that they can worship and offer their gifts.
Ironically the church has often failed to do this.
It’s like we have forgotten that the light is here.
The wise of the world come to us and say,
“Where is the one who is born the light of the world, the king of the Jews.”
And we say, “Born of the what, king of who?”
This irony is often a reality.
Many of us are afraid or unwilling to talk about the stories of our faith openly with others.
God has entrusted us with the knowledge that God’s light has come.
We must spread that word.
God gave a star for the wise men who sought the true light.
And God has given the Church for those seeking the light today.
Be like a star.
Shine with the light of Christ.
Tell others and show others his love and abundant life.
And guide them to the manger so we all can kneel with the shepherds of God’s people.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
