Sunday 01/02/22 - Sidney UMC
Sermon Title: “Wise Men Still Seek Him”
Old Testament Scripture: Isaiah 60:1-6
New Testament Scripture: Ephesians 3:1-12
Gospel Lesson: Matthew 2:1-12
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year once
again, as it is now 2022, and we are still in this season of Christmas, through
January 5th. In fact, today is the Second Sunday of Christmas, and
the Ninth Day of the Twelve Days of the Christmas Season. The Twelfth-Day of
Christmas ends this Wednesday. Thursday January 6th is Epiphany,
which is the day that many churches celebrate the visit of the Wise Men to Christ.
Since we do not usually have a church service on Thursdays, today we call Epiphany
Sunday, as we celebrate the Wise Men coming to Christ today.
So, given all of this, Merry
Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Ninth Day of Christmas, Happy Second Sunday
after Christmas, and Happy Epiphany Sunday. I think I got all of those right!
As far as the story of the Wise Men, many of us know
about their visit to Christ all to well. Many of us own nativity scenes, where the
Wise Men are featured holding gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Some of
us know and some of us do not know though that of the four New Testament
gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that only the gospel of Matthew
mentions the Wise Men coming to visit and worship Christ with gifts. So only
one of the four New Testament gospels mentions the Wise Men coming to visit and
worship Christ with gifts.
One
of the questions that I had when I started in seminary school therefore, was “Why
do we have a special Sunday and or day every year to celebrate the visit of the
Wise Men to Christ?” I then asked, “We do not have a special day every year
that we celebrate the visit of the Angels and the shepherds to Christ, so why
the Wise Men?” “Is it because the Wise Men were rich and prominent and brought
gifts, and the shepherds were not and did not?”
What
I quickly found out though was that Epiphany is celebrated every year not to sleight
the shepherds and or other visitors like the angels who came to visit the baby
Christ on Christmas, but that the Wise Men probably did come on Christmas
itself. Well hearing this was a shock to me, as I had always been taught that
the shepherds and the Wise Men came to visit the newborn Christ on Christmas!
This is how we did our Christmas pageants, what our nativity scenes look like,
and etc. So why would this seminary professor say that the Wise Men or magi did
not come to visit, to worship, and to give Christ gifts on Christmas?
Well
let us look once again at what our gospel of Matthew reading for this morning actually
says about the visit of the Wise Men or the Magi. Once again, our gospel reading
for Matthew this morning says in 2:10-11 once again:
10 When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. 11 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 (Matt. 2:10-11, NRSV).
I guess I had never noticed
what the gospel of Matthew actually said about the visit of the Wise Men to
Christ. The scripture says of the Wise Men, “On entering the house.” Jesus was
with Mary, and they knelt down worshipped the savior and gave him gifts of
gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
So as my seminary
professor had me re-read these verses from the gospel of Matthew, he asked me, “Where
was Jesus born?” I then explained to the seminary professor, “well Jesus was of
course born in Bethlehem, the city of David, but he was born in a stable, or
maybe even in a cave. The baby Jesus was of course wrapped in bands of cloth
and laid in a manger, or what could have been a stone or wood feeding trough.”
The professor then said, “that is correct, but why did the Wise Men enter the
house?” I said, “Well I really do not know.” He then said, “Most scholars believe
that the Wise Men might have come after the birth of Christ, but that
everything is still the same story.”
Well, this blew my mind,
as you can imagine! In the gospel of Luke however, Mary and Joseph take baby
Jesus at the age of eight days old to be presented at the great temple in Jerusalem.
Based on the Bible translation, Mary and Joseph bring two pigeons or two turtle
doves, to be offered for sacrifice, and they encounter Simeon and Anna. Perhaps
Jesus was circumcised this day too, as this is the tradition of Jews for boys
on the eighth day of their lives. So again, only the gospels of Luke and Matthew
talk about the birth of Christ.
In Luke’s gospel there
are no Wise Men or magi, and eight days after Jesus’ birth, Mary and Joseph
take Jesus to be presented at the great temple in Jerusalem. Jerusalem is only
about six miles from Bethlehem, so they probably walked or took a donkey. After
presenting Jesus at the temple when he was eight days old, the gospel of Luke
then says that Mary, Joseph, and Jesus headed back to Nazareth. Jesus was
raised in Nazareth after his birth, which is why he is often called Jesus of
Nazareth, or Jesus the Nazarene. In fact, there is a Christian denomination
called the Church of the Nazarene.
All of this said, in our gospel of Matthew
account for this morning, not only do we have the visit of the Wise Men or magi
to Jesus, but again this is not listed in the gospel of Luke. In our gospel of
Matthew reading for this morning once again, the Wise Men encounter King Herod,
before encountering Christ and Mary. Once again, this what our gospel of
Matthew reading for this morning says starting 2:1:
In the time of King
Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the
East came to Jerusalem, 2 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.” 3 When King Herod heard
this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; 4 and
calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired
of them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 They
told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:
6 ‘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.’”
7 Then Herod secretly
called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when
the star had appeared. 8 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.” 9 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 (Matt. 2:1-9, NRSV).
The Wise Men or magi then enter the house
and see Jesus and Mary. They pay homage, they kneel, and then they give him their
gifts. Then the gospel lesson ends for this morning once again in Matthew 2:12
saying of the Wise Men:
12 And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road (Matt. 2:12, NRSV).
The Wise Men leave, and do not go back to see King Herod.
After this, Joseph is told by an Angel of the Lord in a dream to take Jesus and
Mary and flee to Egypt. Why would they do this? Well because King Herod was
angry that the Wise Men did not return to him and tell him where Jesus was. As
a result, King Herod ordered that all children two years old and under in and around
Bethlehem to be killed. King Herod figured that if all children two years old
and younger were killed, then surely, they would kill Jesus among them.
Mary, Joseph, and Jesus according to
the gospel of Matthew stay in Egypt until King Herod dies. The Angel of the
Lord then appears to Joseph and tells him that King Herod had died. So, the
royal family returns to Israel, and in another dream, Joseph is told to not
stay in the area of Jerusalem or Judea. Joseph and Mary then take Jesus to
Nazareth, where he is raised.
So, both the gospel of Luke and Matthew
agree that Jesus was taken north to be raised in Nazareth, about 70-90-miles
from Bethlehem. The question to ask then, is how do we square the gospel of
Luke having no Wise Men, Jesus being presented at the great Temple in Jerusalem
at eight days old, and going right to Nazareth to be raised, while the gospel
of Matthew then discusses the visit from the Wise Men, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus
fleeing to Egypt, and the massacre of the young children by King Herod? Or
maybe the better question to ask is this, did all of these things happen?
I believe that yes all of these things
did indeed happen. Someone might ask though, “Well Pastor Paul if this true,
why are there some differences about the birth of Christ in the gospels of Luke
and Matthew”? Well, what I think is that Matthew and Luke both told the story
of the birth of Christ, but they maybe told the parts of the story they knew or
the parts they wanted to emphasize. I also think over the years and over the
centuries, that we have assembled the whole Christmas Story into one big event.
I mean it makes sense, who wants to do two Christmas Pageants right?
What I think happened is this, Mary
and Joseph traveled about 70-90 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem to be
registered for the population census that Roman Emperor Augustus ordered. Both the
gospel of Luke and the gospel of Matthew agree on this. After this, when Mary
and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem, she went into labor. There was no room in the Inn,
and of course Mary gave birth to Jesus in stable or a cave. Jesus was born,
wrapped in bands of cloth, and laid in the manger or feeding through. The
shepherds then come to see Christ. I then think that eight days later Mary and
Joseph travel about six miles to Jerusalem to present Jesus at the great temple
in Jerusalem. While there, they meet Simeon and Anna, and they bring two turtle
doves or two pigeons for sacrifice.
I then think that after presenting
Jesus at the great Temple in Jerusalem that Mary, Joseph, and Jesus then travel
back to Bethlehem. By this point after the census, Bethlehem has calmed down. Mary
and Joseph at this point are able to stay with Joseph’s relatives, or perhaps
they found another house to stay in. Then the Wise Men come, following the same
star, that we call the Bethlehem Star. The Wise Men “enter the house” as the gospel
of Matthew says once again for this morning, and then the Wise Men leave without
returning to King Herod. King Herod, enraged orders the deaths of all children
two and younger in and around Bethlehem. The angel of the Lord warns Joseph,
and they flee with Jesus to Egypt. King Herod dies, then Mary, Joseph, and
Jesus come back to Israel and raise Jesus in Nazareth, just like the gospel of
Luke says.
I think all of these events occurred;
The birth, the stable, the shepherds, taking Jesus to be presented at the
temple at eight days old, the Wise Men, fleeing to Egypt, and then returning to
Nazareth to raise Jesus. What I also think, once again, is that Luke and
Matthew had the portions of the birth stories that they had or emphasized when
they wrote their gospels. Over the years we then assembled these stories
together. This is why we tell the story of the birth of Christ with the shepherds,
the manger, the star, and the Wise Men, as this probably did not all happen on
the same night.
The gospel of Luke also quotes the Old
Testament Prophet Hosea of Jesus coming back from Egypt to Nazareth saying, “Out of Egypt I have
called my son” (Lk. 2:15, NRSV). In our reading for
this morning from the Old Testament Prophet Isaiah once again, Isaiah prophesizes
in 60:1-6 the visit to Christ of the Wise Men centuries before Jesus’ birth.
Once again, I believe that the events
around Christ’s birth and early life in the gospels of Luke and Matthew both
happened, but I think that each gospel writer might have had various parts of
the story or emphasized different parts of the story. What is important
however, as my sermon title for this morning says, “Is Wise Men Still Seek Him.”
Not just the Wise Men or the magi that visited Christ seek him, but many wise
women sought him, and still seek him too. Wise people all over the world have
and continue to seek Christ. These people come from all levels of society, have
different amounts or power, status, financial wealth, and education. Yet,
people of all distinct kinds for over 2,000 years have sought this Christ. They
have sought this Christ for transformation, for newness of life, for truth, for
love, for hope, for peace, for joy, and for forgiveness.
I cannot think of any other institution
like the Christian Church, where we have so many distinct kinds of people that
probably otherwise would never come together or be friends. All different kinds
of people still seek Christ, and together, all of us, all different, all special,
all unique, are gathered under the banner of Jesus Christ.
It is my hope and my prayer that in 2022 and beyond that “Wise Men Still Seek Him,” that “Wise Women Still Seek Him,” and that “All People Still Seek Him”. I hope and pray that 2022 is a better year than 2021 and I hope and pray that our church and its ministries grow and flourish this year, like never before. Let us seek Christ together. Amen.
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