Looking Up with the Magi

Matthew 2:1-12

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage." When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: "And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.' " Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage."

When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.


On our post-Christmas trip to Ohio to spend time with family, my mother-in-law took the time to read several stories to her grandkids. One they particularly enjoyed was The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. This is the classic fictional story of how one church Christmas pageant unfolds once the Herdman kids become involved. 

The Herdmans were no typical group of siblings, rather, they’re referred to as “the worst kids in the history of the world.” The Herdman kids are unrestrained by manners or social norms, and they cause more than their fair share of destruction and frustration. However, as they engage with the Christmas story for the first time, they bring their own particular type of innocence and insight to the pageant performance. It all culminates in a heartwarming production that brings everyone to tears. 

One of the most touching moments is when the wise men present their gifts to Jesus. The Herdman boys discussed among themselves and decided frankincense and myrrh were “crummy” gifts. Instead, Leroy decided the best thing he could offer Jesus was the ham out of his family’s Christmas welfare basket. So that’s exactly what he proudly carries down the center aisle of the church and lays at the manger. 

It’s a story that beautifully illustrates that even the “worst kids in the history of the world” are capable of profound acts of beauty, generosity, and love when they encounter the story of Jesus. The Herdman children serve as role models for how our hearts and minds can be filled with love when we encounter the Christ, whether in the pages of scripture or through the production of a church Christmas pageant. And that love will lead us to offer our own gifts for the sake of Christ, be they gold, frankincense, myrrh, or ham. 

It is unclear exactly how or when the practice of giving gifts became wrapped up in the observation of Christmas. Certainly one of the influences was the story of the wise men presenting gifts to Christ. The wise men, or more accurately called magi, were practitioners of an Eastern religion, Zoroastrianism. Through some form of astrology and/or astronomy they came to understand that a new Jewsh king had been born. We are not told why the magi were interested in this development; although I think it’s safe to assume they did not set out with the intention of giving gifts to the new king. There simply would have been no reason for them to do so. The Hebrews were not a group that commanded fear, respect, or tribute from others. Scripture only tells us that when the magi encounter Jesus directly they are filled with joy. Only then do they open up their treasure chests and pull out precious items to give to Jesus. 

The wise men from scripture as well as the wise men from The Best Christmas Pageant Ever serve to remind us of what is possible when we encounter Christ. We will be filled with joy and led to give of ourselves. 

I hope that you have had such encounters with Christ in your life of discipleship, likely through scripture reading, prayer, service to others, or worship. Chances are good that the degree to which you live a life of generosity and joy is directly attributed to your having encountered and experienced Christ. 

This is a story of profound beauty and hope; however, we can’t leave this gospel story without addressing the dire warning it also contains. There’s a character in the story who never has a direct encounter with Christ and as you heard in last week’s gospel, the world is made worse off for it. 

King Herod learns of the birth of a supposed Jewish King and is filled with fear, anger, paranoia, and insecurity. He knows nothing of the joy, peace, truth, and generosity of God the Son. All he knows and cares about is his own status, power, and self-sufficiency. Perhaps things would have turned out differently for Herod had he been able to have a direct encounter with God through Christ. In the end he orders the slaughter of children in order to preserve his claim to earthly power -- a move, it should be pointed out, that did nothing to preserve his power nor derail God’s plan for salvation. 

Here we have two dramatically different postures to consider. Herod looks down on others and is filled with anger, paranoia, and insecurity. The kneeling magi, on the other hand, look up with reverence and are filled with awe and curiosity. 

These two postures deeply affect how we interact with the world. How much of our time and energy each day is spent looking down on others? How much of our time and energy each day is spent looking up with reverence at the mysterious and miraculous ways God is working through others?

Are the scales of our emotional lives tipped more to the side of anger, paranoia, and insecurity? Or are they tipped more toward awe, curiosity, and reverence?

As we experience the story of the magi encountering Christ, consider the invitation to approach Christ in your own life through spiritual practices such as mediation, prayer, scripture, and worship, and allow your heart to be transformed into one of wonder and generosity. 

As we experience the story of foreigners and adherents to other religions giving gifts to Christ, be reminded that “members of Earth’s religions don’t need to see their counterparts as competitors or enemies. Instead, we can approach one another with the spirit of gift-giving and honor, as exemplified by the Magi” (Brian McLaren, We Make the Road by Walking, 83).

May your worship and discipleship through this season of Epiphany lead you to new encounters with Christ that will form in you a life of awe, curiosity, and reverence at God and the wonders of creation. 

Amen.

Slaughter of the Innocents - Matthew 2:13-23

Matthew 2:13-23

Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”

When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:

“A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation,Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead. Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He will be called a Nazorean.”

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Merry Christmas, right?!

I’ll get to the ugly stuff in a minute – and there’s plenty of it – but first I want to sympathize with Joseph and Mary: More angels. More dreams. More commands in the middle of the night. More traveling, running, fleeing, even. More “get out of Dodge.” More “do this” and “do that” and “go here” and “go there.” It would seem like enough already, don’t you think? And with no end in sight.  And lots of questions about what would be next or about how much longer this was going to last. And, “What have we gotten ourselves into?” This “Jesus” who’s “going to save his people from their sins,” was turning out to be a lot of work.

So I wondered if you had seen this piece of art yet, before we showed up for worship this morning? It was unveiled just this past Saturday at the Walled Off Hotel, in Bethlehem, by the artist known only as Banksy. He also owns the Walled Off Hotel which they say has “the worst view of any hotel in the world,” because it opened in 2017 and is deliberately situated – so as to make a statement – just across the street from the wall that is also depicted in this recent creation.

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(Banksy is also the artist who, this past October, sold a painting of a girl with a balloon for $1.4 million dollars and, just as the sale was made at the auction, the painting was shredded in front of everyone in the room. Remember that?)

Anyway, this particular piece of work is called “Scar of Bethlehem,” and it seems particularly relevant to what brings us here this morning as we hear about the “Slaughter of the Innocents,” so soon after our Christmas celebrations. It’s a critique of, if not a protest against, the divisions – physical and otherwise – that separate and subjugate Palestinians in Israel.

And without getting into or unpacking all of that (something I’m not sure I’m qualified to do) I bring up Banksy’s artwork simply because it is a pretty cold, very timely reminder of just exactly the kind of world Jesus was born into and just exactly the kind of world we’re living in, still.

See, this Gospel story always turns me to the news. And in scrolling through my computer’s news feed or turning on the television, this is just some of what I found, in the four days since we celebrated Christmas, and the “hopes and fears of all the years” that were met in Jesus that night:

Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s ruthless dictator, known for assassinating relatives, former mistresses, and ordinary citizens, and who might be considered a modern day Herod was up to his old tricks again – taunting and teasing our President with a “Christmas gift” of some kind, like a bomb or missile test or something else similarly sinister. (Merry Christmas.)

45 million people – men, women and children – are at imminent risk due to a drought in Western Zimbabwe, which some say will likely leave much of that part of God’s creation uninhabitable for the people who call it home. (Merry Christmas.)

And during the week of Christmas over 235,000 people have been on the move, in and around a province called Idlib, in Syria. They’re being chased out of their homeland for fear of their lives, thanks to Russian-backed Syrian airstrikes, barrel bombs and other heavy artillery, that threaten them. (Merry Christmas.)

(Google Maps says, with usual traffic, Idlib, in Syria, is about a 9-hour drive from Bethlehem, but that the roads might be restricted.)

All of this is to say and to show what we know, but sometimes forget: that it’s not always an easy calling, this living with the eyes of faith. It’s hard to keep our collective chins up and to press on, believing and proclaiming the Good News of the Gospel, when the world shows us so much, so completely to the contrary. Still, this story about Herod’s evil ways, paired with what we know and see in the world around us, might also be another call to see God as alive and active in the lives of God’s people – for the sake of the world – especially when that’s hard to believe.

Some might choose to point a finger and to blame God for not doing what we would like, or doing what we would do, if we could. Some might get angry and pretend this sort of evil and destruction and ugliness appears out of thin air, even though we know it grows out of decades and centuries of human misunderstanding and broken relationships and sin, pure and simple. We can blame and doubt and deny and dismiss the troubles of the world around us till we’re blue in the face.

Or we can read this story … and give thanks for Christmas … and see a God who longs to live with and lead and love people. With this story, we’re reminded again in a big way of who and how and where God is, when it comes right down to it.

Our God is in the middle of it. Born into the thick of it. You’ve heard me say before that our God isn’t one who magically swoops down from heaven to get us out of trouble at every turn – that’s not what the Christmas story pretends. Our God is one who has come down to be in the world and in the midst of our trouble with us – no matter how grave or ugly or scary that trouble might be. This story is about Emmanuel – which means “God with us,” remember – and just exactly why we’re still celebrating in these hard, holy days after Christmas.

Because this is still our story. We are hurting and scared in our own ways. We are sick and suffering in our own ways. We are lost and looking for our own purpose and our own hope and our salvation, still.

So I wonder if you noticed something else in this morning’s Gospel story? That phrase that showed up over and over again? Matthew seems to use it as a reminder of God’s plan and purpose and intention for us … “so that what had been spoken by the Lord, through the prophets?”… Our Christmas hope is in “what had been spoken by the Lord, through the prophets,” friends.

And, what has been spoken by the Lord, through the prophets is full of Good News remember – for us, for all of God’s children, and especially for those who need it most:

The prophet Isaiah promised God, in Jesus, would judge the poor of the earth with righteousness and decide with equity for the meek. Merry Christmas.

…that with the breath of his lips he would kill the wicked; that faithfulness would be the belt around his loins and righteousness the belt around his waist. Merry Christmas.

What had been spoken by the Lord, through the prophet, is that the earth will, one day, be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Merry Christmas.

The prophets also proclaimed release to the captives … and recovery of sight to the blind … and freedom for the oppressed. Merry Christmas.

That’s the presence of God we celebrate at Christmas and every day, especially when it’s hard. It’s where we find faith to believe that God is with us, still, in the midst of life as we know it. It’s the kind of presence that is our strength and confidence, our comfort and our hope as we move ahead into another year that’s certain to be full of new struggles and new celebrations, of new challenges and new opportunities to be God’s people – in and for the sake of the world – where God’s love, born in Jesus, is still very much alive and well and with us as we go.

Amen.  Merry Christmas. Happy New Year.