that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was.

Transcription

1 Matthew 2: 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. 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. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road. 1

2 The Hopes and Fears of All the Years There are certain events in the life of a nation that serve as dividing lines. Some events are so historically significant that they divide time. There is the time before and the time after. In the past one hundred years, the United States has had several such events. There seems to be one every generation or so. The stock market crash of 1929 [SLIDE], which marked the beginning of the Great Depression, was one. Yet that was ninety years ago. Anyone who remembers it would have to be nearly one hundred years old [SLIDE]. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 was another, but that memory is fading as well. Folks who can remember Pearl Harbor are now well into their eighties. For the Baby Boomers, those who were born after World War 2 and who came of age in the 1950s and 1960s [SLIDE], the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 was their singular historical event. Anyone old enough to have a memory of that day remembers where they were when they heard the terrible news. For my generation, our historical dividing line was 9/11 [SLIDE]. Americans had experienced terrorism before, but never on such a massive scale and rarely on our own shores. Terrorism was something that occurred overseas and that targeted US embassies and airlines flying to foreign countries. No one thought that it could happen to people sitting at their desks in an office tower. Americans woke up on the morning of 9/11 to an entirely new world. Korean history, of course, has its own historical dividing lines. The attack by the North against the South in 1950, which began the Korean War, is one. The assassination of President Park Chung Hee in 1979 and the Gwangju Uprising the following year are another. The pro-democracy protests of 1987 that gave rise to the present era are yet another. 2

3 Today s passage from Matthew also speaks of a historical dividing line [SLIDE]. The birth of Israel s long-awaited Messiah in Bethlehem of Judea is an event of singular importance, not only for the people of Israel but for all the people of the world. The powers that be in the capital of Jerusalem, represented by King Herod, certainly take note of the birth of this child. But so too do foreigners, so-called wise men from the East. They are not Jews; they are pagans who have learned of this birth by reading the stars. But even though they are not Jews, they still journey to Bethlehem to find this child and pay their respects. They represent the outside world. Their journey from their home in the East to Bethlehem indicates that the birth of the Jewish Messiah is of significance to the entire world. Now, some of you may be thinking, Christmas is over. Why are we reading a Christmas passage in January? To that I would say, You re only half right. Yes, Christmas is over. In fact, it ended just yesterday. The twelve days of Christmas that began on Christmas Day, December 25, ended yesterday, on January 5, the twelfth day of Christmas. So, you are correct that Christmas is over, but you are wrong if you think that this passage from Matthew is a Christmas passage. It s not. Technically speaking, it s an Epiphany passage [SLIDE]. Epiphany is the season of the church immediately following Christmas. An epiphany (lowercase e ) is an appearance or manifestation of a divine being. God speaking to Moses through the burning bush is an epiphany. God appears to Moses in the flames that burn but do not consume the bush. For Christians, however, the Epiphany (capital E ) refers to the appearance of Jesus Christ to the wise men. Through Jesus Christ the God of Israel is now made known to all people. This is a major event in the life of the church for what it symbolizes. The wise men represent Gentile believers, i.e., all non-jews. The good news of the arrival of Israel s Messiah is now good news beyond the borders of Israel. It is good news for the world. 3

4 The Day of Epiphany is celebrated each year on January 6. In some cultures, Epiphany is a bigger holiday than Christmas Day. There are parties and parades, special foods are prepared, and gifts are exchanged. Yet Epiphany is mostly unknown in the Korean church. I therefore wanted to preach from this passage today, not in an effort to make Epiphany great again, but to remind us that the entrance of God into the world through Jesus Christ is a life-altering event. It is the dividing line of all dividing lines. That line runs not only through time itself but through the life of each individual believer, through each one of us. It divides the part of us that welcomes the Savior s birth, as the wise men do, from the part of us that dreads it, as Herod does. We ourselves are divided. We welcome the birth of a Savior because we recognize that we need saving. We need to be saved from ourselves. We need to be saved from what we do to each other. But we also dread the birth of the savior king because we don t want to give up power. We don t want to give up the power that we claim over our lives. We don t want to bow to another. We don t want to step down from the throne of our personal kingdoms. But we can t follow Jesus by sitting on a throne. Jesus demands that we give up self rule to follow him. One of the things I appreciate about the stories of Jesus birth as they appear in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew is that the writers of each Gospel ground their stories in history [SLIDE]. As we heard on Christmas Day, Luke tells us the name of the emperor (Augustus) and the governor of Syria (Quirinius) at the time of Jesus birth. And here Matthew begins chapter 2 by noting that Jesus was born in the time of King Herod (Mt. 2:1). There are several different Herods who appear in the New Testament. This Herod is the first and most famous of them all, Herod the Great. The greatness of Herod is 4

5 debatable. In fact, he was a wicked man. He was ruthless in gaining power and in maintaining his grip on it. However, greatness is not a measure of goodness. Herod s greatness lay in two things. First, he undertook numerous building projects on a massive scale, including rebuilding the temple that had been destroyed five hundred years earlier. Anytime we read of the temple in the New Testament, such as Jesus chasing out the money changers from the temple, it is Herod s temple that is being referred to. Second, he reigned for a long time thirty-six years from 40 to 4 BC. Jesus was born near the end of his reign, probably about 6 BC. Herod reigned as king of the Jews, but this title was more ceremonial than factual. Herod was not a true king, in that he was not a descendant of David. He was not in the royal line. Plus, Herod did not have the power of a true king. Herod was given his title and his authority to rule by Rome. He did not ascend to the throne; he was appointed. He was ever mindful of this fact. Throughout his entire reign Herod remained loyal above all else, not to God, not to the people of Israel, but to Rome. Now, picture the scene. Herod has reigned for approximately thirty-four years. He is closer to the end of his reign than the beginning. Yet when he learns that certain wise men from the East have come to Jerusalem inquiring about the newborn king of the Jews, he panics [SLIDE]. He becomes frightened, and all Jerusalem with him (Mt. 2:3). The powers that be sense that the birth of this child is different. Herod and the other powerful figures in Jerusalem, the chief priests and scribes, sense something disturbing in the birth of this child. They have a good thing going. Herod has made his peace with Rome, and the chief priests and scribes have made their peace with Herod. Never mind that he has no legitimate claim to the throne. Never mind that he 5

6 is Rome s chosen king. Herod has been good for business. He rebuilt the temple. Tax revenue is filling the treasury. Rome is leaving them alone, for the most part. The last thing any of them needs is a rival king and all the attention that would bring from Rome. Rome knows what a hotbed of politics and religion Jerusalem is. They want to maintain order at all costs. They don t want to have to put down a Jewish revolt. Not only that, Herod has shown himself to be a masterful politician, always staying in Rome s good graces, even as Rome s leadership has changed hands. His political skills have enabled him to maintain power for more than three decades. But now Herod, the king of the Jews, had received word of a newborn king of the Jews. And he is frightened. Herod s political skills have helped him to survive for more than thirty years, and he employs them now. He calls a meeting [SLIDE]. He secretly has the wise men brought to him so that he can charm them and learn from them the location of this young rival king. What? You came all this way to Jerusalem to pay homage to the child who has been born king of the Jews? Why, I too would like to pay him homage! Why don t you find him and then tell me his exact location so that I too may pay my respects. The world has no shortage of Herods, ruthless rulers who will do anything to attain and maintain power [SLIDE]. They will kill members of their own family, poisoning them in airports. They will starve their own people while they themselves feast at a boundless banquet. It cannot be proclaimed often enough that the birth of Jesus Christ threatens the Herods of the world. Herod was right to be frightened of Jesus. So is Kim Jong-un. So is Xi Jinping [SLIDE]. As China Cracks Down on Churches, Christians Declare, We Will Not Forget Our Faith. That was the title of an article that appeared in The New York Times on 6

7 Christmas Day. On Christmas Day. Here is an excerpt: Mr. Xi [Xi Jinping], apparently concerned that independent worship might pose a threat to the ruling Communist Party s dominance over daily life in China, has sought to bring Christianity more firmly under the party s control. The government this year banned online sales of the Bible, burned crosses, demolished churches and forced at least a half-dozen places of worship to close. As China closes churches, worshipers take their worship underground. They meet in secret, in house churches, just like the Christians of the earliest years of Christianity, when Rome, not Beijing, was the primary persecutor of the church. The article tells of one church whose members learned on Christmas Eve that their church was being converted into office space. Even with no worship space, members of that church continue to meet for worship, gathering along a riverbank. There was no room for Jesus in the inn, and there was no room for this church to worship, but the Holy Spirit will find a way. The light of Jesus Christ has entered the world, and there is no putting it out. I shared the following statistic with you once before, but I share it again now because it is remarkable. We think of China as an atheist country. And it is officially. But there are 60 million Christians in China. That may not seem like much in a nation with 1.5 billion people, just four percent of the population. But think of it this way: the population of South Korea is 50 million. That means that there are more Christians in China than there are Koreans in Korea! Christianity is the fastest-growing religion in China. It s growing faster than the government s efforts to control it. It s growing in part because people there are looking for an alternative to the rampant materialism that the government promotes. 7

8 The wise men of Matthew s Gospel came from the East. I once heard of a Korean pastor who suggested that by East Matthew meant the Far East, as in Korea. Count me skeptical that the wise men traveled all the way from Korea. They probably came from Arabia, Persia, or Babylonia. But these days wise men and women are arising in China. They are paying homage to the Christ child in Beijing and Shanghai and Guangzhou. The Holy Spirit is on the move, calling people to faith in Christ, calling us to get up and leave behind a life marked by self-interest and materialism. The wise men were moved by the Spirit. They were moved to leave their homes and follow a star, a star that settled over a small, unimpressive village in a remote province of a foreign empire. Interestingly, the wise men first come to Jerusalem, not Bethlehem. Perhaps they think that the king of the Jews must be born in the capital city, the seat of power, not some blip on the map like Bethlehem. But no. This king will lead a kingdom unlike any other, a kingdom that is not of this world, a kingdom that disturbs the powers of this world by bringing down the powerful and raising up the lowly. That includes us in both respects. The reign of Christ knocks us down from our thrones, the thrones from which we seek to rule over our little kingdoms. We don t want to give up power, but we cannot follow the savior king if we ourselves are seated on a throne. In the kingdom of God we do not sit on a throne; we worship on our knees. The reign of Christ also lifts us up, raising us from our knees after fear, anxiety, doubt, disease, and death have knocked us down and done their worst to destroy us. In the kingdom of God we are called to worship, like the wise men who followed the star and were overjoyed when they saw that it stopped over a humble village. The 8

9 Holy Spirit stirs us to follow Jesus to where he is in the world today, in all the surprising places where his presence is cause for worship. Later we will close the service by singing the well known Christmas song (Epiphany song, really) We Three Kings. But it is another Christmas carol that I want to cite now as I wrap up the sermon. A few weeks ago we sang O Little Town of Bethlehem. The title of today s sermon is taken from a verse of that song [SLIDE]. The birth of Jesus Christ is a dividing line, a dividing line that runs directly through the human heart. His birth stirs in us both hope and fear the fear of giving up power and the hope of new life in him now and eternal life with him under his gracious reign: Yet in thy dark streets shineth The everlasting Light; The hopes and fears of all the years Are met in thee tonight. 9