Now that Christmas is a fading memory I can ask you, “What was your favorite gifts this year?” (Have people shout out some answers.) For me the best gift I got this year, besides having the whole family together for Christmas for the first time was a this new pair of shoes. That’s right, it wasn’t the Blazer tickets or the Xbox One or DVD of Planes it was shoes. I have always found it fascinating how many of the best gifts are practical ones, the things you need and that make what you do easier or better. I thing the best gift I gave this year was a set of baking sheets to Amy – she loves them.
Obviously I am going to talk about the only Christmas gifts that are mentioned in the gospels, the gifts of the Magi – gold, frankincense and myrrh. Just some Biblical knowledge for you:
• Only 2 of the 4 gospels have birth stories
• The stories each contain different information
o Luke has the census, herald angels, the shepherds and the stable
o Matthew has an angel visitation to Joseph and the Wise Men or Magi
• Luke is concerned with the announcement of the birth coming to least and lowest – shepherds
• Matthew wants the Old Testament prophecies to be fulfilled
• Luke’s main point – Jesus is the new world order where the lowest and the least will find justice and peace
• Matthew’s main point is that Jesus is the savior of the world not just the Jews
And what about those three gifts – it’s three gifts by the way without any mention of the number of Magi or Wise Men or Kings. They are foreshadowing the roles Jesus will play in saving humankind. Jesus will be king so he receives the gift of royalty, gold. As priest Jesus will hear our prayers and intercede on our behalf, so frankincense is given, the incense that carries prayers to heaven. And finally, Jesus is born to die, to die for us as an example of how to love and to establish a new way of being in the world so myrrh is given, a burial spice to foreshadow Jesus’ death.
So let’s look at our passages for today:
• In Isaiah 60 we hear about the day when Israel is restored and how all the nations shall come to recognize the glory of God present in this nation and its people. Their faithfulness will be seen and God will be known as the one true God to which all people will come.
• The Matthew 2 story is the familiar story of the Wise Men from the East who come seeking a king after observing a celestial event and are told to seek him in Bethlehem where they find Jesus and Mary, they worship Jesus and present him with their gifts and go home. The Wise Men show us that what Herod couldn’t see or understand – the king of the Jews – was seen and understood by these foreigners; Jesus is the promised one of God come to save his people and the world.
The Magi and the Isaiah passage are all about the world coming to Jesus, those not Jewish hearing, seeing, knowing God and coming to find God, to bring gifts that foreshadow what is to come and yet celebrate what is. The Wise Men crown a king without needing to know him because they know what he is, a revelation of God’s character and the promise that the world will be transformed.
What the world needs is God. Not a list of beliefs about God, but a deep, intimate relationship with God. The world needs to know that God cares and that God is there. You see, for far too long we Christians have professed our superiority to the entire world. We have told everyone that if they want to know God and be saved they must profess a specific and prescribed formula that we dictate and then and only then can they hope to know God. We made faith and faithfulness equivalent to a list of attributes and belief in them faithfulness has become believing the right things and the point of the story of the Wise Men is lost. Faithfulness has nothing to do with correct belief and everything to do with grace. The Wise Men are moved by a miraculous celestial event but when they find the king, it is a baby in a humble back water town and their first response is joy, then to pay him homage – that is a ceremonial acknowledgment by a vassal of allegiance to his lord under feudal law; special honor or respect shown or expressed publicly; and then to bestow their gifts. They first went to Jerusalem – the King’s city and center of religious and political power but found what they sought in a small village outside the paths of power and influence. They came seeking a king and instead found a child. They expected grandeur and got grace.
We have made ourselves irrelevant. Christianity is not relevant to our world. People ask “Why should we care about Jesus? I don’t believe in heaven or hell so what’s the point in being Christian?” And they are right if what we have to offer is simply about a get into heaven free card. But we are talking about something far more significant we are talking about how to live, day-to-day. We are talking about how to be in this world. And you know what; many people know that they are missing something in their lives. They have a deep yearning or a hole that cannot seem to be filled even with daredevil activities, sex, drugs, food, wealth, or power. This is what the Magi found, that which made them whole. They encountered a definitive revelation of God’s character and it changed them forever. What’s happening around us is that the world has awakened to its need, to its desire to know God. The question is can we help meet this need, do we dare?
For fifteen hundred years the church has tried to maintain control. We have told the world, “I want to keep God and Jesus to myself.” We have worried what might happen if God and Jesus get out of our control. We have tried to keep God in a neat box and force others to accept the packaging. But the world has come to know that God is more than our box has allowed. So we Christians have to ask, “Can I see other faithful people as God’s people even when they don’t profess faith in Jesus; even when they won’t worship my God?” We have to admit that God and Jesus are not some exclusive property of a single sect. They belong to the world in whatever way the world finds them. And this is the gift of the Magi to you and me, a freeing of us from maintaining the box and instead giving us the opportunity to help others know God. We do this by being obvious about our partnership with God and Christ so that the world might know them by knowing us. Our task is to stand at the door of the house and welcome in the person who comes seeking something they might not know and all we are asked to do is to be there and to care as God’s partners, friends, and beloved.
The world awoke to the coming of Jesus two thousand years ago; they came to his door and found God. The world is awakening once again and as the saying goes, “Wise men still seek him.” But now it’s not a stable in a small village away from the centers of power they travel too, no now they come to us at work, in the store, at the library, when the family gathers for Christmas and they seek the one whose star they have observed, the king. Will they find grace; will they find people who embody the character of God? Will they find what they seek; a welcome and a respite and a window that reveals a world ordered by peace and justice? God’s commonwealth, God’s kingdom is for everyone. The world is waiting for you and me to make God real. What are we waiting for? Amen.
