Sermons for the Month
It Makes You Wonder
DATE: January 6, 2002
TEXT: Matthew 2:1-12“To all of you Saints here this morning, grace and peace to you from God our Father, from His Son, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. AMEN
As they usually do, the 12 days of Christmas have gone by quickly. Most of us probably have had our fill of pipers piping and drummers drumming, have had more than enough of cookies crunching and chocolates doing whatever it is chocolates do. The cultural celebration of Christmas that had been revving up since before Halloween has peaked and fairly rapidly wound down; life has almost returned to its "normal" baseline, and although it makes me feel almost unbearably dull, responsible, and grown-up to say it -- thank the Lord! A person can only stand just so much festivity, after all, even if it does involve golden rings! Ah, but within the Church, we are just getting warmed up! Today, the 6th of January, is the feast of the Epiphany of Our Lord. It is a "principal festival" on the Church's calendar, a holy day even older and at some times and places even more lavishly celebrated than the 25th of December. Do we have the strength??? Fortunately, "Epiphany" is a whole season, of which today is only the beginning. Actually, we might think of it as the time in which we slowly unwrap the gift that God has given us at Christmas, the gift of His Son, born unto us. This child in the manger very quickly grows up, as children always do, and over the next several weeks we will come to learn more about who He is, and why He came, and what that has to do with us. Today we begin with an odd and wondrous little story of when he was quite small. Remember that we are reading from Matthew's Gospel this year, and as Matthew tells us what he considers important in the story of Jesus, he skips over angels and shepherds and a baby in a manger to tell us of a star and of some foreigners who saw and followed it. "Epiphany" is not a word often used in everyday language, although one might speak of having received a personal "epiphany," a sudden internal revelation, an "a-ha!" moment -- "NOW I get it!" Technically, an "epiphany" is like an "unveiling" as of a work of art; like a press release from a celebrity spokesperson; like a combination press conference/photo op when the White House or Pentagon wants to send a message to the public. Except when you look at the Lord's Epiphany, doesn't it make you wonder about God's public relations staff and his marketing plan? When the one-and-only-ever-eternally-begotten Son of God is born into space and time as a human child, wouldn't you expect a little more fanfare? A LOT wider distribution of information?? I realize no one on earth had fax machines, but the Lord had at His disposal tens of thousands of angels -- worldwide coverage was not outside the realm of His possibilities, even without telecommunication satellites! It does make you wonder… And then there are those unlikely main characters in Matthew's story. Not necessarily three of them, and not really "kings," and we don't exactly know where they were from, in spite of the hymn which is still fun to sing in their honor. They were "wise men" -- "magoi" in Greek, "magus" in the singular, from which we derive the words "magic" and "magician." "Magoi" were the practitioners of a blend of ancient science and what we moderns would call "pseudo-science" -- astronomy and astrology, chemistry and alchemy, soothsaying, augury, even a little magic or what passed for it in that pre-scientific era. They could be found in the courts of kings and princes from Rome to Egypt to Persia to Arabia to India and China, enjoying the patronage of the rich and powerful as they used their arts and skills in their employ. But what in heaven's name are they doing in the Christmas story??? The Hebrew Scriptures are very specific and emphatic in condemning the practice of sorcery, fortune-telling, and similar methods of attempting to manipulate present or future reality. All creation, the earth and the heavens and everything therein, is the creation of the Lord God Almighty, and all things are preserved and governed by His providence, and the people of God are not to be dabbling in the magical practices of the pagans around them. Why are these people suddenly showing up for the Christmas party?? It really does make you wonder! Certainly Matthew's original readers would have, which is I think precisely why the story is here, front and center. It ties in wonderfully with the very beginning of this Gospel, chapter 1 verses 1-16, which we never read in church because it's nothing but a list of names linked with "begats" -- "Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob, etc. etc. for 42 generations of Jewish fathers and sons, except Matthew breaks with tradition and includes four women in his genealogy, four mothers in the unbroken line from Abraham to Jesus. They are: Tamar, who made the list by tricking her father-in-law Jacob into impregnating her; Rahab, who in her first career was a Canaanite lady-of-the-evening; Ruth, a foreigner who found a husband by sneaking into the bed of the wealthy Boaz one night and claiming his protection, eventually becoming the great-grandmother of the renowned King David; and Bathsheba, whose name we know because she committed adultery with the king. Doesn't that make you wonder?? But wait a minute -- isn't that an epiphany! Aha, now we begin to get it! Matthew is telling us that God's Christmas gift, his Son, and the Christmas party of His Kingdom are not just for us! Not just for Jews -- not just for Europeans -- not just for speakers of Latin, or speakers of English -- not just for grown-ups -- not just for those of us who clean up nicely on Sunday mornings -- not just for those of us with picture-perfect families, not just for those of us with squeaky-clean lives, but for all of us! God's gift is for all of us! For the overachievers and the Type A's, for the freaks and the geeks, for the seekers and the losers, for the tax collectors and the prostitutes, for the hypocrites and for those who aren't fooling anybody but themselves, for Osama bin Laden and the Mullah Omar and all the rest, if they only could see it, if they only would accept it… Doesn't that make you wonder, too? And then there's that star. Seems like every year there's a new theory to explain it -- a gigantic supernova? A rare planetary conjunction? The auspicious rising of a particular constellation in combination with an uncommon placement of the planet Jupiter? Whatever…the point is that God had a message for people who wouldn't ordinarily be found reading the Bible, who didn't hang out in synagogues or listen to Hebrew religious music. And God, in His wisdom and with a bit of exquisite cosmic timing, found a way to reach them -- through their own passion and pursuits, encoding the message in just such a way as to be intriguing, promising, and eventually absolutely compelling. How cool is that!?! It makes you wonder how many other "messages in a bottle" God might have put out there, in the middle East 2000 years ago, and in all the centuries since. How many attempts does it take Him, in how many different ways, to get a message across to us? And what message might he be trying to send -- thru us? It makes you wonder! Doesn't it make you wonder how God, in His wisdom and with a bit of exquisite timing, has encoded the message of His great love and the wondrous gift of Himself in such a way as to be intriguing, promising, and absolutely compelling, and is sending it through US, using us to reach that person of our acquaintance who might not own a Bible, might not ordinarily hang around a church or listen to Christian music or teaching, unless some "star" might lead him or her along that path, in response to that person's own unique needs, pursuits, and passions. It does make you wonder… And we're certainly in the place to do THAT, in this season whose symbol is the "star of wonder," leading us to the gift of God born in our midst. As we continue to unwrap the many layers of meaning God's gift brings into our lives, may we be always ready, willing and eager to share its wonders that truly are offered to all.
AMEN