Are We Moved? Isaiah 60: 1-6; Matthew 2: 1-12
The past two weeks have been “those kinds of weeks.” When I arrived home for Christmas, my grandmother and aunt were struggling with the flu, and my mother was sick too. It was a windchill of -20 degrees. Then arriving back here a pipe outside the fellowship hall burst requiring 3 feet of digging. The hallway and part of the downstairs were flooded requiring repairs, testing, and the joys of insurance claims. By Thursday and Friday, I was greeting folks with the phrase, “Merry Crisis!” instead of Merry Christmas.
I’m going to say something slightly sacrilegious here, so don’t be offended, and hang with me till it resolves. Sometimes, I feel like we get a bit sick of church. We still love God, but the thought of getting out of bed, getting through hymns, prayers, communion, driving there and back, and even putting on something besides pajamas just drives us a bit bonkers. While I was playing and participating at Christ Episcopal Church in Harlan, Kentucky, on Christmas Eve, the priest shook his head and said, “I’m tired of you all sitting there like a bunch of puddings.” He said, essentially, respond in some way! But how do we respond when we are just so very tired?
In all that struggle, tiredness, irritation, fatigue, and worry, we come again to the story of the Wise Men who visited the Christ-child. For twelve years now, I have preached this story, and you all have very kindly listened or at least stayed awake. And like every year, we all wonder, exactly what can we learn from the same story? But every year, there seems to be something new that can speak to us from the journey of these Magi to see the new-born king.
They came generally “from the East” as Matthew says. Historically, we would know them as a priestly cast in Persia or modern-day Iran. They are guided by their study of astrology, ancient texts, and sheer faith. If they are indeed from Persia, it is roughly an 1,100 mile trip to Bethlehem. But the most important part of the story is that they simply and faithfully followed a star which seemed miraculous based on their studies. There’s no record of any visions, voices from the heavens, holy messengers, or angelic choruses. The studied, the watched, and they believed.
Their faith compelled them on a treacherous journey. It would have taken months. They were exposed to robbery, danger, harsh elements, and untold suffering on this journey. Even if they were of wealth and power, this journey to see Jesus was incredibly dangerous and took an incredible amount of time. Yet, still, they got up, and they too made haste, like the shepherds, based on their faith and the sign of a star in the heavens. They were neither Hebrew nor scholars of Christianity (because it didn’t yet exist). The had the most strained and minimal connections to this whole miracle which was unfolding. Yet whatever faith they had urged them on to find the Christ-child—to seek out this new and miraculous, holy presence on earth.
When our “get up and go” has “got up and gone,” that same power and presence of God that journeyed beside the Wise Men will be with us as well. They were so moved by the texts and the sign of the star that they willingly chose to suffer on this long and hard journey not really even sure what they were going to find on the other end. Mary had an angel. Joseph has a dream. The shepherds had a whole choir in the sky. But the Magi…they only had their study and their faith.
When we feel at our most empty, we can come back to this story. These Gentiles who had no real walk with God like the prophets or Hebrew people, had no clear guidance, different religious practices, and no real clue where exactly they were going found the courage in them and God’s strength around them to get up and go on this journey.
Their wisdom and knowledge, as well as their faith in what they saw, served them well. They brought to Jesus, gold for a king, frankincense for the holiness, and myrrh for a death. They studied the ancient texts, believed in the sign God gave, and intuited enough to know the truth of those words of our first him, “Christ and God, and sacrifice: alleluia, alleluia, sounds through the earth and skies.”
Do we still find ourselves motivated to seek out Christ in the same way the Wise Men made that journey to him? Are we somehow moved and encouraged to seek out the star which would guide us as well according to God’s will? Or, as the Rev. George Kavoor noted on Christmas Eve, are we just going to sit here like a bunch of puddings?
God has not changed. God’s mission has not changed. The need for the people in this world to have a relationship with a God who loves them has not changed, and I daresay it has grown exponentially while the church languished. It was sheer wisdom and faith that pushed the Magi to get up and go over a thousand miles to find Christ, and what, what is it going to take to move the whole church of today in the same urgent and hopeful way? The need in our world has not changed, but the energy and stamina of Christ’s people surely has. We need to journey back to a place where we walk in the light, of Jesus, the light of the world. We need to find the faith to shine that light brightly in the world.
Theologian Howard Thurman wrote a poem called “The Mood of Christmas.” Listen now to the words.
When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost, to heal the broken,
To feed the hungry, to release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations, to bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart.
When the journey is hard for us and they way seems very difficult to find, may we remember that God is still with us on the journey. Walking together, we will always be able to find Christ, the light of the world. And we’ll walk in the light, beautiful light, Jesus, the light of the world. Amen.
Service Video: https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=notif&v=3505954942977566¬if_id=1672587660897252¬if_t=live_video_explicit