Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text: (Matthew 2:1-12)
And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.
Prayer: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Most people in the church today would testify to having seen a decline in the church throughout their lifetime. Personally, I don’t have years and years to look back on throughout my own life, but I’ve seen a change occur in attitudes towards Christianity even in my own short lifetime.
But it’s strange: you can read books from a hundred years ago, two hundred years ago, three hundred years ago, a thousand years ago, and people will often say the same thing. People say: “The church isn’t as strong as it used to be.” “There has been a decline in Christianity from earlier times.”
It always seems as though the golden era of the church was always just that little bit further back in the past, just that little bit out of the reach of today’s people. Even in the Lutheran Church of Australia: people point to our church’s hey-day in the past. In our parish, people point to an earlier time when we had full churches. People from Africa come to Australia and say the same thing: “When we used to live in Africa, people went to church, but people don’t seem to go to church any more.”
People often call our culture in Australia, and in Europe, a “post-Christian” culture. It means that in our past, most people were Christian, but now many people have rejected Christianity, even though we have many remnants of Christianity in our culture and life.
But if we look at the bible and the history of God’s people throughout the centuries and the millennia, we see that faithfulness to God, decline, decay, corruption is always present, because we all live after the fall into sin. The Garden of Eden is there in the past, and for us now, it is mysteriously shrouded and decayed, inaccessible, out of reach.
We read in Genesis 3:
Cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you…You are dust and to dust you shall return.
And then we read:
And God drove out the man, and at the east of the Garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
So in the whole history of the world, we can see this decline and decay and corruption that sets in. The whole world is returning to dust. As it says in Isaiah 40: All flesh is grass and its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it; surely the people are grass.
But here’s the reality: there is no going back to the past. We can’t replicate the past. There is an angel standing there: a cherubim with a flaming sword wielding a devouring fire in every direction. The past is a closed book.
What our world needs, what our country needs, and what our church needs so desperately is a return not to the past, but a return to the Word of God. Because it is only with the Word of God can we be hopeful for the future. Hebrews says that the Word of God is living and active. Jesus says: My words are spirit and life. Psalm 119 says: Your word is a lamp to my feet and light to my path.
Our Old Testament reading tonight starts with these brilliant words: Arise! Shine! For your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you.
It’s in this context that we come to celebrate Epiphany tonight in our little church here in Traralgon. We come to church in a time of great darkness. The Jewish people at the time of Jesus’ birth were longing for the past. The Romans had invaded and taken over their land, and appointed King Herod as the king of Judea. For the Jewish people it was a time of great darkness, sadness, and disappointment.
And we read: Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”
As we come to finish the Christmas season for another year, it’s interesting to reflect upon all the different aspects of the Christmas story. So much of it is completely outside of our experience. Many people in our world today would simply call it mumbo-jumbo, and fairy tales.
But think about it. Before the birth of Jesus we have an angel coming to Zechariah in the temple, we have an old barren woman Elizabeth giving birth to a child, we have an angel coming to Mary, we have a boy being born of a virgin, an angel coming to Joseph, we have angels coming to shepherds in their fields, we have animals watching their maker being placed by his mother in their feed-trough, we have singing, we have rejoicing. And now tonight, on this great festival of Epiphany, we have some wise men from the east who come to Jerusalem because they were following a star.
And so many people today scoff at all this stuff, and think it’s all nonsense. They scoff, they laugh, because they don’t understand one thing: They don’t understand that when the world was created, there was a time when human beings had no sin. They think that this is the way it always has been. But it’s not true. They don’t know what it means to be a human being. Don’t you know that to see angels, to acknowledge the work of God’s fingers in each star, to listen and obey your conscience and your heart, to sing with full voice, to rejoice: these things are all a natural part of what it means to be human! These things are all part of what God created us to experience. Now that decay and corruption have set in, our consciences are so dulled and so darkened, we don’t notice angels even if they were screaming in our face, because we don’t even notice a poor man at our gate having his sores licked by the dogs. This inability to notice God, to see his hand at work, this blindness to God, this deafness to God: this is what it means when the bible says: Darkness shall cover the earth.
And at Christmas time, when the Son of God takes on human flesh from his virgin mother, we see here the beginning of a new creation, we see Jesus making all things new, we see shepherds having their eyes opened to visions of angelic choirs, we see the Jesus’ adoptive father Joseph having his mind opened to the apparition of angels in his dreams. We see these wise men from the east taking notice of the stars, and noticing them all in their distinctiveness and peculiarity, and are even so moved by what they see, that they travel through deserts and across mountains to worship the baby Jesus.
You see, here at Christmas, the whole of creation, the whole universe, people throughout the whole world, the animals, the stars, the angels, the archangels, are all involved, and the world is renewed.
When our modern scientific people say “Bah! Humbug!” to the angels, to the shepherds, to the wise men, they are not testifying to the fact that they are so enlightened, they are testifying to the fact they are corrupt, it is a testimony to the cancer of that real disease called original sin, that they have decayed so much from an earlier time when people believed these things, that they think that the only things that are possible are those things which they can see. This atheism, this denial of God, this denial of anything supernatural today, is a groping around in the darkness.
And so the preaching of the church throughout all times and in all places will always be to the world what it always has been: foolishness! St Paul says: The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God… For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
So why do people think the gospel is folly? Why is the gospel always “folly” to the world? It’s folly to the world, because God always, always puts the gospel outside of the reach of human reason. I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Christ my Lord or come to him, but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel. God is only accessible through his clear, brilliant word.
And so the prophets and the gospels say: The people walking in darkness have seen a great light. We live in darkness, and the gospel comes into our midst and shines a bright light. Arise, shine, for your light has come, and glory of the Lord has risen upon you!
And so, we have this supernatural event which we celebrate at Epiphany: these wise men come from the east to worship the baby Jesus because they have been lead there by a star.
There are many different opinions about who these wise men are. Some people think they came from Persia (modern day Iran). Some people think they came from Babylon (modern day Iraq). Some people think they came from Arabia or even Ethiopia.
But we know that they weren’t Jews. And even so, they recognise that there is not just an unusual star in the sky, but it is a particular star: it is his star. It is the star that belongs to the King of the Jews. They say: Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.
How did they know it was his star, and not someone else’s? How did they come to all these conclusions?
But you see, what a wonderful inspiration of the Holy Spirit they must have received! What special people they must have been! What a wonderful calling God must have given them, that they should just up and leave their homeland, with expensive gifts, with gold, frankincense and myrrh, all because they saw a star!
This event when the wise men came to King Herod is the first time that the news of Jesus birth came to the attention of important people. Before that, the birth of Jesus was a quiet, humble affair – it happened among poor people, shepherds, animals, in a stable. But now the news is on the front page of the newspaper. And we read: When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where Christ was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea”… Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.”
You see how when Jesus comes to earth there is a renewal, and a refreshment given to all the world. “Peace on earth! Goodwill to all people!”, the angels sing. But then the darkness increases more and more. This reading tonight is just as much about King Herod’s deceit and his trickery and his jealousy than anything. And as the darkness get darker, the light shines brighter and brighter. Jesus says to us: “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”
And when the wise men went to go and see Jesus, we read: Behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.
Peace on earth! Goodwill! Joy! Great joy! – See the gifts that Jesus brings, even when he doesn’t speak, and is still wrapped up in baby clothes.
On this day of Epiphany, let’s remind ourselves not to curse the darkness, but instead to light a candle.
Jesus is here in our midst with his blessings, and we bring him our humble offerings, and we bow down and we worship him.
Jesus is here and he speaks his word, and this word powerfully and truly renews the face of the whole world in ripples outwards. It is such a wonderful, creative, life-giving, bright, brilliant word that we hear in the church.
We have been baptised with water and the Spirit. Our sins are forgiven. The body and blood of our Lord Jesus will be on the altar for us to receive. The angels are ascending and descending on the Son of Man.
And if we are not allowed to see the angels here in this life, and if God permits we very well might, we will certainty see them in the next.
The wise men were warned in a dream not to return to Herod.
But when we awake on that final day in the resurrection, we will not be warned in dreams, we will be commended and welcomed with our eyes wide open. All these things are true, real things that are part of what it means to be a human being, created in the likeness and the image of God.
That image of God in us was lost in the fall. That image is renewed by Jesus through his death and resurrection and our forgiveness. And we see heaven and earth converging and overlapping in our reading tonight, just as it converges and overlaps secretly and mysteriously every time we gather in church and every time we hear God’s word.
And that image of God in us will be perfected when we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. And so we do not despair at the darkness! God will lead us to his Son through a brilliant, bright shining star: the light of his clear, holy and precious word.
And so St Paul says: Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labour is not in vain.
Amen.
Lord God, heavenly Father, send out your light and your truth and let them lead us to your holy hill and to your dwelling. Bless us with your Holy Spirit, and renew us by your word. Refresh our bodies, our senses, our faith, and our hope and we look forward to that day when we will see with our eyes what we now believe by faith, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment