A
sermon preached at Kowloon Union Church on Sunday 8 January 2017 by
Paul Cooper. The scripture readings
that day were Isaiah 60:1-6, Ephesians 3:1-12, Matthew 2:1-12.
Today, we celebrate the
Epiphany of our Lord. Epiphany means revelation, unfolding and manifestation.
It usually has overtones of surprise and mysticism as well. And Epiphanies
happen all the time in small ways! Calli and I were privileged to become
grandparents on November 26, when my elder daughter, Rosemary, bore a little
boy called Harry. When Rosemary and Harry came home from hospital a few days
later, of course I went to see my new grandson! But it was in the evening, and
it just happened that a bright star – probably Venus – was ahead of me as I
drove towards Rosemary’s home. I immediately thought of the star that the Wise
Men followed to see a newborn child. That experience, so close to Christmas,
was a real Epiphany, giving me some understanding of how the Wise Men felt when
they followed a star to see the Messiah.
During the season of
Epiphany we consider the revelation of Jesus in many ways. We see Jesus
revealed to the Magi, to John the Baptist through His baptism, to the disciples
as He called them, to Peter, James and John at the transfiguration. In all
these events, Jesus was revealed in different ways to different groups of
people. But a point worth making is that Epiphany never ends. Jesus is still
revealing Himself in the world today, every time a person opens himself or
herself to the power of the Spirit.
Today, we consider the
very first people from outside Judaism to whom Jesus was revealed.
The three kings are a
part of every nativity play, bringing their gifts to the infant Jesus. They are
an important part of our picture of Christmas - the custom of giving gifts can
be traced to them. Novels such as Ben Hur use the Magi as pivotal characters,
and T.S Eliot commemorated them in the poem “The Journey of the Magi”. But
almost every depiction of them contains an important mistake. Nearly every
Nativity scene shows the Magi worshipping at the manger in the stable. But the
scriptures tell us that the magi weren’t at the manger. They arrived sometime
later, when the holy family had found somewhere more settled than the manger
that saw Christ’s birth.
The wise men are mystery
characters, only mentioned in Matthew’s gospel - what do we really know about
them?
They appear from the
East, probably from Persia or Arabia. They weren’t Kings; Matthew uses the word
“Magi” to refer to them, and that probably means they were astrologers and
magicians - perhaps priests of the Persian religion, possibly courtiers. They
were certainly serious students of the stars. Astrology and magic are despised
in the rest of the Bible - this is pretty much the only positive reference to
them.
Whatever else they were,
they were people open to hear and obey God’s word. Following the star was
probably prompted by their own beliefs, but they obeyed the angel’s message not
to return to Herod. They followed God’s commands both through their own beliefs
and through the special message that God gave them.
From our point of view,
perhaps the most important bit is that they weren’t Jews! We know that because
they come from a far-off land and do not know the scriptures - the passage from
the prophet Micah that Herod’s advisers quoted was well known, and any Jew
would have known it, especially as messianic prophecy was popular at the time.
But of course, the importance of this is that the coming of the Magi shows that
Christ came for all the world, not only the children of Israel. KUC is a pretty
good example of the breadth of what that means! We have people here
representing every continent, including Antarctica in me!
They arrived some time
after the birth of Jesus. Jesus, Mary and Joseph are living in a house, not a
stable and Jesus is a child, not an infant. Herod killed every male child under
2 years old, so the Magi hadn’t been expecting a new-born baby.
Finally, we don’t even
know how many there were! Traditionally we think of three, because of the three
gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, but the Gospel doesn’t say. The names
you might hear for them - Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar - are very late
inventions, and the Eastern Church uses different names.
The star is a complete
mystery! Planetaria often have a Christmas performance that show various
possibilities - the heavens seem to have been full of candidates for the star
of Bethlehem in the last years BC. Efforts have been made to use the star to
get the date of Jesus’ birth, but such attempts seem doomed to failure - there
is no certainty about the relationship between the appearance of the star and
Jesus’ birth. People have suggested that it might have been a comet, planets coming
close to each other in the sky, a Nova or Supernova or a meteor shower. Most
have the problem of explaining how the star moved, and showed the location of
the house where Jesus and Mary were. It probably doesn’t really matter. The
main thing about the star, no matter what it was, is that it was God’s means of
communicating with these men. They could have been the only ones to see it!
After their brief
appearance, the wise men disappear. We hear no more of them, not even in
tradition, although Lew Wallace made them the basis of the novel Ben Hur, which
we all know from the film starring Charlton Heston.
What do we make of this?
Do we dismiss it as a pretty story which Matthew used to show that Jesus was
sent to both Jew and Gentile? Even as it stands we can see the visit of the
Magi as the fulfilment of the prophecy in the first lesson - that the promised
one would come to be a light to the nations, to bring God’s salvation to
Earth’s furthest bounds. The Magi were the first fruits of Jesus’ redemption of
the whole world, as the shepherds were the first fruits of His mission to his
own people, the Jews.
But, does it have more
to tell us? Let us think about what the Magi did.
First of all, they
searched for Jesus. Their search was expensive - they travelled a long way, and
there were no cheap airlines in those days! Travelling was a hard, costly and
dangerous business – Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan tells us that bandits
were a real hazard, even on a relatively short journey. But God helped their
search, giving them signs in a form they could understand - the star and
dreams.
Second, the Magi
rejoiced when they found Jesus. This wasn’t just an academic search, to satisfy
their curiosity, but something that involved them deeply. All along they knew
that they weren’t just on a physical journey, but on a spiritual one.
Third, the Magi
worshipped Jesus. They believed that the signs they had been given indeed
showed that this was the King of the Jews - a baby, born to a humble family.
And that isn’t what they expected - they called at the palace first, showing that
as they followed the star, their understanding of God’s purposes developed and
widened.
Finally, they brought
gifts to Him. Precious gifts, which were also symbolic – gold for a king,
frankincense for God and myrrh for Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.
Well, we are not kings,
nor are we wise people from far away! But what they did for Jesus, we also can
do. We search for Jesus, and seek Him in everything we do. I read a lot of
Science Fiction, as Calli will tell you! But I often see Jesus in even this most
worldly form of literature; messages that the author didn’t mean, or directions
of thinking that open up new ways to God. Most of all, we seek Jesus in the
Scriptures, and it is in the light of scripture that we interpret other sources
of inspiration. And sometimes the search for Jesus is costly – not necessarily
in worldly ways, but by forcing us to think again about our understanding of
God.
When we find Jesus, we
rejoice! And that is what church is all about – rejoicing at the gift of salvation
that Jesus brings. We don’t come here to be gloomy; we come to church to share
our joy with other Christians. And our joy should be visible to others, and why
not? The gift God gave at Christmas was the best possible Christmas present
ever.
When we find Jesus, we
react with worship. Jesus came into the world to bring us back to God. And as
John’s Gospel put it, “In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He
was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him
nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that
life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the
darkness has not overcome it.” That baby in the manger, the wandering teacher
in Galilee and Judea, that victim on the cross was indeed God, and his
resurrection on the third day is the sign and seal of that great truth. Once we
have found Jesus, we respond to Him with worship, for as Revelations says, “Worthy
is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth
and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!”
Finally,
we bring gifts to Jesus. Not, perhaps, gold, frankincense and myrrh, but we
give the gifts that God has given us back to His service. And we all have
different gifts; every one of us can bring something to God. Of course we give
money at the offering time, but that is only a small part of our giving. We
should give everything that we are to Jesus’ service – our understanding, our
skills, our time and our energy. And this is a good time of the year to
dedicate ourselves and all that we have and all that we are once again to the
child in the manger, the Lord God who humbled himself to a lowly stable.
Amen
The Journey Of The Magi
A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sore footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
and running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arriving at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
# posted by Kowloon Union Church : Sunday, January 08, 2017
