December 11, 2016 3rd Sunday
of Advent Matthew 2
The stars I showed for the children’s
sermon also set up our time today. I
said that this one star is called a pentagram, or sacred pentagram. Its origins are unknown but it is certainly
ancient. I understand there are traces
of it as far back as 3000 BC in Mesopotamia, modern day Iraq. Many pagan nature religions used it and it is
widely used in witchcraft today. The website
Esoteric Online says that the five points originally referred to five planets –
Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.
If you think for a minute you realize
that we met some stargazers in our gospel reading – the Wise Men, or
astrologers, Magi in
Greek. And what leads them to
Jesus? Of course a star.
But the pagan astrologers are not the
only people we meet in our gospel reading.
We also meet Herod the Great, puppet ruler of the Romans from 37 BC to 4
BC. He is the father of the Herod we
meet again at Jesus’ crucifixion. And
along with Herod there are the Jewish leaders.
This group also has a star, the Star of David.
Now remember that Matthew is a
thoroughly Jewish writer. Jews
understood the world as composed of two types of people: Jews, and non-Jews - or Gentiles. And so we have those who use the pentagram as
their star and those who use the Star of David as their star coming together
because of new star, the Natal Star.
Artists often depict this natal star
as a huge and unmistakable thing up in the sky.
But that’s an artistic guess. Have
you ever been outside in the dark where there’s no light pollution? I like going to the Adirondacks and looking
up at night and there, clear as anything, is the vast Milky Way galaxy. The stars are beyond counting. Only the keenest observers would note if one
was new or one was missing. I think it
better to imagine this “star” the Wise Men following as something like that;
tiny, minute, not grand at all.
This idea of a new star or a heavenly
sign appearing at the birth of a king or a great ruler was nothing new. Many ancient rulers were said to have
heavenly signs occur at their birth.
While we may question it scientifically, this would be nothing out of
the ordinary for Matthew’s readers to think.
Last week we talked about Jesus’ birth
and Joseph’s role in it. We talked about
how God invited Joseph to be a part of God’s divine work and how Joseph agreed
and participated in it. I said life is
not about giving to God so that God can bless you in return. That would ultimately be a selfish business
strategy. No, life is a partnership
where God invites you to be a part of his work and you can participate in
it. In doing so there is great wholeness
and a deep set of joy. But is it a easy
way to live? That is another question.
So Joseph agrees to God’s plan. Does that mean that he and Mary went out to
the suburbs and bought themselves a three bedroom house with a white picket
fence, two cars, two and a half kids and a dog?
Were they in for a quiet and sedate life?
Nope.
Jesus is born and they have these weird foreigners show up with even
weirder gifts. The Bible doesn’t say how
many Wise Men there were. Since they
bring three gifts church tradition has deduced that there were three of them,
but it could have been two or it could have been fourteen or who knows how
many.
Weird as they are, the gifts have
symbolic significance. Gold is a gift
fit for a king. Jesus will be the King
of Kings and Lord of Lords. Frankincense
is a form of incense often used in the temples.
Ancient temples were more like unrefrigerated slaughter houses than
anything else. Have you ever gotten a
whiff of your garbage in the summertime when you’ve thrown some meat scraps in
there? Now imagine that on a grand scale
and that’s what a temple smelled like. Incense
was burnt to help cover the stench.
Frankincense was a gift fit for a priest. Jesus will become the High Priest, the
ultimate priest who intercedes on our behalf before God.
Those two gifts are strange but
okay. Myrrh is unnerving. Embalming fluid… If you’ve had children how
would you feel if some strange man showed up in the hospital room after you’ve
given birth and given you a bottle of embalming fluid for your child? It’s downright creepy! Yet just like we draw the natal star in the
form of a cross we know what’s in store for this little baby.
Here’s the ironic piece of Matthew’s
gospel. Will Jesus ever need any of
these three gifts? While they all
foreshadow what is to come in his life he will not have need of any of them.
Anyway, back to our main point. Three strange gifts given by foreigners, then
there’s another dream to Joseph about fleeing the country. Herod gets scared and does what all tyrants
do, they kill and destroy to keep their power.
To me the most troubling piece of the Christmas story is the killing of
the babies in Bethlehem. True, in those
days Bethlehem probably had the population of East Victor but it is still an
outrage. Why would God work this
way? I’m not happy about it. But we are given no answers. We are to know this, that even though God has
come into the world in a completely innocent and helpless form the powers that
be feel threatened. Will Jesus ever go
on to threaten or attack these leaders?
No. But the killing of the infants
of Bethlehem give us a forewarning that the world does not like God’s
ways. Life as a part of God’s plan does
not guarantee a smooth and easy passage.
There’s no indication of how long the
holy family spends in Egypt. (There’ll
be no honeymoon for Joseph and Mary!)
After Herod’s death Joseph has another dream to return home. But as he learns more he is warned again and
changes course and moves to Nazareth.
I think there is an important
distinction to make between Matthew’s account of Jesus’ birth and the more
familiar story from Luke. While Matthew
doesn’t reject the idea, his story alone suggests that Mary and Joseph were
living in Bethlehem all along. As if
they had the three bedroom house. Then
Jesus’ birth puts their lives on a totally different course.
There are lots to learn from this text
and we’re skipping hours’ worth of details.
But let’s stick to this. Similar
to last week, notice how Joseph and God interact. God does not lay out the whole plan from the
beginning. It comes to Joseph bit by
bit. But Joseph is not just a passive
player either. I’m sure he doesn’t go to
Egypt and twiddle his thumbs until he gets another dream. Look verses 21-22, “Then Joseph got up, took
the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling
over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went
away to the district of Galilee.”
Joseph retains a great deal of
autonomy. He is not God’s well-trained
dog who gets his slippers and newspaper when he comes home from work. God and Joseph are partners in accomplishing
a larger goal.
I do not think that God wants to take
over our lives and utterly remove our individuality. Then we’d just be robots. God wants to be with us, work with us, and
together get things done.
We say Jesus is Immanuel, God with
us. We do not say God overpowering
us. We do not say God ignoring us. We say God is with us.
What are the first words spoken by a
human in Matthew’s gospel? It goes to
the pagan astrologers and they say, “Where… Where is the child…?” They want to know where to find God. Our answer today is that God is with us
everywhere. The last words of Matthew’s
gospel go to Jesus, “I am with you always to the end of the age.”
Our lives as Christians is not a
matter of place, where. It is a matter of purpose. What are God and you going to do
together?
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