Sermon: “It Ain’t Over Yet” Matt 2:1-12 January 5, 2003
READ SCRIPTURE
As I sat yesterday in my living room amidst a room full of broken after Christmas toys, stale goodies and dusty decorations I realized I am ready for the Christmas to be over, ready for the decorations to be put away. After all it is eleven days after Christmas. By a show of hands how many of you have already put up your Christmas decorations?
Departments stores, drugstores and malls have taken down their decorations and relegated Christmas items to a few disorderly discount shelves in the back while Valentine’s Day has taken over the prominent display area. For most Americans Christmas is this tight little packaged squeezed between Thanksgiving and December 25. As if Mary and Joseph were visited by an angels, Mary became pregnant went to Bethlehem, had a baby, laid him in a manger, the angels sang, shepherds and wise men came thirty days passed and ta da it was over.
But the real Christmas, the first Christmas didn’t happen that way.
There was nine agonizing months of waiting, swelling ankles, pickle and ice cream cravings, nine months of “Do you still think I’m pretty?”, nine months of gossip and speculations, a treacherous journey to Bethlehem, a frustrating search for a room, the disappointment of a cattle stall, dirty shepherds, angelic hosts, and the passing of time.
Lots of time had passed. Then the wise men came. They weren’t there when Jesus was born. They weren’t part of the nativity scene. Look with me at the scripture, verse 11. They found him in s a house, not a manger.
The census crowd had begun to thin out and Joseph had secured a place for them, a house, not a stable stall anymore, maybe even a real home. Perhaps Joseph had even found work and was in the middle of a job, possibly that is why they were still in Bethlehem. Jesus was no longer an infant, a baby. He is described as a child. And we know Herod after having asked the magi when the star first appeared, calculated that the Christ child was no older than two years of age. We know this because of the killing spree he later ordered.
A year or more had passed and Christmas wasn’t over yet. And with the passing of time we find three very diverse reactions to the Christmas story.
Herod was the ruler at the time. How ironic that the magi ask Herod, whose official title is king of the Jews, about a baby who has been born king of the Jews. Verse 3 – Why would an adult, male, king be threatened by a baby?
According to the world’s standards, Herod was an immensely successful king. But he was by no means, a benevolent ruler. Many historians describe him as a man of stern and cruel disposition – "brutish and a stranger to all humanity.” Herod the Great was a Jew and although he was the King reigning in Jerusalem – he was not of the line of David. His ascent to throne of Judea had been a political arrangement of power and force.
His father was Antipater II, a Jew who was appointed by Julius Caesar as governor of Judea. His mother was an Arab. Mark Anthony appointed Herod “King of Judea” in 40 B.C.; and, after a three-year civil war his power was never really challenged. He was an effective, but cruel, authoritarian ruler. In a fit of paranoid rage he had his wife, three sons, a brother and his mother in law executed. The Roman Emperor, Augustus, said it was safer to be Herod’s pig than to be Herod’s son.
When Herod first gained Jerusalem as the major city in his kingdom of Palestine, he executed forty-five of the noblest and richest people. He then appointed an obscure Babylonian to the High Priesthood whom he later replaced with his nephew-in-law. But Herod soon tired of him and had him drowned while he was bathing. Over the course of his reign Herod changed the High Priesthood six times!
He was fond of splendor, and lavished great sums in rebuilding and adorning the cities in his empire. He rebuilt the city of Caesarea and Samaria. The country prospered, the rich got richer and the poor got poor. He began a lavish rebuilding of the Temple. He sold a gold plate to feed the hungry all under the pretense that he was a committed and devout Jew.
Herod the Great, was a manipulator and a pretender. He said and did things to influence others to his own advantage, for his personal gain. He said he wanted to worship the Messiah, but his actions and words were intended to deceive the Magi and manipulate them for information.
Can you think of someone like that, someone who use manipulative behavior on a regular basis to get what they want? Someone who pretends to be a Christian only to prosper in business, to appease their spouse and family, or to gain influence in a community? Are you pretending or trying to manipulate your faith, manipulate God, for your own reasons?
Then for his own personal gain Herod called the chief priests and teachers of the law together – Verse 4. They knew the Hebrew Scripture inside and out. They had spent their whole lives studying the scripture, studying the prophecies. They didn’t have to open up a scroll or look at any notes to answer Herod’s question. No sooner had the question had been asked then they were answering it. “Where is this Christ child to be born?” “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: ‘ You, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,’….yada, yada, yada, so forth and so on.
They knew, they knew were Bethlehem was located. It was a city just a few miles away. It was The City, the city from which the Messiah would come. And yet there they sit in a lavish temple a stone throw away from the greatest event in history and they never made any effort to go and see. They were indifferent and unresponsive to the Christ child.
There are people just like the Chief Priests and teachers of the law. They know the scripture. They have heard the Christmas story. They profess that they believe in the story and still they stay home on Sunday morning, watch the ball game, sleep in, and participate in unsavory conversations, watch inappropriate movies, etc… Their lives are never changed. They make no effort to find the Christ child, to experience Jesus Christ even though he is right there beside them.
But the magi…The Magi in this passage generally understood to be the "Wise Men" literally in Greek meant magician, magician in a good sense. Daniel was referred to as a Magi when he was in the court of Nebuchadnezzar. These men, these magi, may have interpreted dreams like Daniel or had other special knowledge or abilities. They were educated men, open to spiritual and supernatural things. They specialized in astronomy. Even then, astrologers and those who practiced the art of astrology were held in contempt by the “scripture” and by God-fearing Jews. (Not exactly the most perfect candidates for follower of the God.)
Yet it was these men that knew of the coming Christ child. How? How did they know?
Perhaps they had studied ancient manuscripts and accidentally had come upon the prophecies of the Messiah. Or maybe they had heard of the Hebrew God through the Diaspora Jews. Or had had a special message from God. We don’t know. We don’t even know how many there were or what their names were.
Tradition suggests that there were three of them because there were three gifts. That each magi was from a different land, that they were kings. It wasn’t until the 6th century that they were identified by names but we don’t really know who they were, or where they came from.
What we do know is that these men were Gentiles – that is that they were not Jews and were of a non-Israeli heritage. They had come from the East, perhaps literally thousands of miles from the east and they were following a star to see the one born the King of the Jews.
However, their knowledge and abilities were insufficient when it came time to locate the king. . They needed the scriptures to inform them more fully. So where else would they go to but to Jerusalem, the center of Jewish worship, the palace of the king. It was there through the scriptures that they were led to city of Bethlehem. And there, there they find Him, the Christ Child.
They fall to their knees and worship him, offer him gifts of gold , frankincense and myrrh, gifts worthy of a king.. And then the spirit reveals to them the truth about Herod and the priest and in their obedience to the king they go home a different way changed by their experience. Their lives enriched because they had seen the Christ child.
Why them? I mean, did you ever stop to wonder why God in all his infinite wisdom providentially decided that these magi, these foreigners, should be the ones to come to and see the Christ child? The coming of the magi was a great epiphany, in fact the twelfth day after Christmas on the Church calendar, in honor of the wise men’s visit, is called the Epiphany.
An epiphany mean a sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something, an intuitive grasp of reality through a simple and striking event, an illuminating discovery of the very nature of God. In the story of the magi we discover that God accepts real people, just the way they are. That people do not have to be right, holy and perfect before they come to meet Jesus. We discover that it was by the grace of God that the Christ child was born to accept the worship of those who come to him with humble hearts and open spirits. We discover that the Christ child is even now in our midst waiting for us to humbly seek and obey him.
The greatest Epiphany, though, wasn’t the birth of the baby some two years or so before the magi appeared on the scene. The greatest epiphany is what happens when God comes into the picture. God the incarnate, the Christ child came through the presence of the wise men, to the Gentiles, to the Jews, to all people everywhere and in His coming he gave people a choice, a choice as to how and when they will respond.
We still have the freedom of that choice. The freedom to choose whether we will react as Herod by manipulating, pretending we believe while all the while we are hostile to the presence of God. We can react as the priests knowledgeable yet indifferent, unwilling to leave the comfort of our life to find the true Christ child. Or we can choose to response as the Wise Men who came just as they were, imperfect, lacking spiritual knowledge and wisdom but willing to accept and honor Christ with their worship and obedience.
There is a story about a christening that was to be held many years ago by a very wealthy European family. Many guests were invited to the home for the occasion and came in the very latest fashionable garb. The parents greeted their distinguished guests at the door thrilled that so many renown, wealthy people were in their home. It was the social event of the year. When the guests arrived their wraps and coats were carried to a bedroom and laid upon the beds.
After some time and the usual chatty conversation, and commotion, they were ready for the christening ceremony when someone asked, “Where’s the baby?”
The nurse was immediately sent upstairs to get the baby. But, she returned in alarmed distress. The baby was nowhere to be found! After several minutes of searching someone remembered that the child had last been seen lying on one of the beds. A franticly search revealed little child smothered to death under the wraps of the guests. The real reason why they had come had been forgotten, neglected and destroyed.
A tragic and heart breaking story, yet, a story that happens over and over again, every day, every year as people pass through the Christmas season without ever seeing the Christ Child. But, the good news is that Christmas isn’t over yet. For it lives on in how, you and I, respond to the story in the days and years to come. The question this morning is: Will you pack up the decorations and put Christmas story away for another year or will you live it out in all that you say and do with worship and obedience to Him, the Christ Child, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ?
Amen and Amen.
