Matthew 2:1-12. are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.

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 A Light Shines in the Darkness Science was never my strong suit. Biology and chemistry in high school, and physics and geology in college, were all subjects I endured but never really developed a passion for. But there is one scientific field that has always held my interest astronomy. When I was about eleven years old I went through an astronomy phase. In science class we had learned the names of all the planets and how to identify the various phases of the moon. Back then I used to check the weather page of the newspaper each day because in it there was also a brief astronomy section that provided a forecast of the night sky. It let you know which stars or planets would be visible in the sky that evening. I didn t have a telescope, so I would step out onto the front porch and gaze at the evening sky with the naked eye. I remember searching for the planet Venus one evening, which in its orbit was supposed to be at its closest point to Earth. In my naïveté I was expecting it to be as big as the moon. Of course, I was mistaken. It was barely visible to the naked eye. It was nothing more than a dim light in a vast darkness. Was that it? I thought. I was somehow expecting more. Like my view of Venus that evening long ago, my interest in astronomy soon dimmed, but every now and then it is rekindled. Last week there was an article in The New York Times that argued that the southern sky offers better opportunities for stargazing than the northern sky. The Northern Hemisphere may have the constellation Ursa Major [SLIDE], which also contains the Big Dipper. And it may have the Aurora Borealis (the Northern Lights) [SLIDE], which turns the Arctic sky into a ghostly fireworks display. But the Southern Hemisphere has virtually everything else, or so the author argued. I ve never been below the Equator. The closest I came was a week that I spent in and around Quito, Ecuador, which lies right on the Equator. So, I ve never seen the stars of the Southern Hemisphere, but the article included this photo [SLIDE], which was 2

3 taken in Kenya. That photo alone makes a pretty strong argument for the superiority of the starry vistas of the Southern Hemisphere. Whether Northern or Southern Hemisphere, to have a good view of the sky you need to be in a rural area. As much as I like living in a city, first New York and now Seoul, one thing no city has is a good view of the night sky. In a city there are simply too many electric lights streetlights, lights in apartments and office buildings, and the neon light of signs and billboards. The haze from all those lights obscures the light of the stars. That would not have been an issue in Judea in the first century. The stars carried more importance in daily life then than they do for us now. They were a GPS a navigation system for travelers on land and sea. For those who believed such things, they portended a good or bad fate for one s life. And for those who studied the stars, so-called wise men, they announced important events, such as the birth of the Messiah. January 6, two days from now, is known on the Christian calendar as the Epiphany [SLIDE]. An epiphany (lowercase e ) is a moment of sudden and great revelation. The Epiphany (capital E ) celebrates the appearance of the Christ child to the wise men. The event is worthy of its own day because of what it signifies that the birth of the Messiah is good news not only for Israel but for all the world. The wise men, or magi, as they are also known, were Gentiles. Not being Jews, they had little or no knowledge of the Hebrew Bible. It is doubtful that they knew anything about the Jewish Messiah. Yet they too received a revelation from God, first in the appearance of the star, and then to what the star guided them the revelation of the Christ child. This event the birth of this child is the dividing line in the history of the world. There was all that came before and all that would come after. Things would never be 3

4 the same. The wise men seem to have sensed this. And they are not the only ones. King Herod, when he learns of the child s birth through these same wise men, instantly becomes alarmed. Scripture actually says frightened. Although he is Jewish, Herod does not welcome the news of the Messiah. In fact, he is so concerned that he summons the chief priests and scribes the religious authorities of the day to learn more about his birth. It is no surprise that Herod, the king of the Jews, does not welcome the news of a newborn king of the Jews. Herod was not descended from David and had no legitimate claim to the throne. What he had was the support of Rome. The Romans, conquerors of the Jews in the first century BC, placed Herod on the throne. He ruled at their leisure. They didn t care that he was not descended from David. What they cared about was his loyalty to Rome. In this regard, Herod did not disappoint. Such a good servant of Rome is he that, even though he himself is a Jew, he needs to inquire of the chief priests and scribes where the Messiah will be born. The birth of this child in Bethlehem creates an ironic twist [SLIDE]. It is the wise men, strangers to the God of Israel, who recognize and celebrate the birth of the Messiah, while it is the Jewish king who perceives the birth of the Messiah as a threat. And in that much Herod was right; the child was a threat [SLIDE] no, not to Herod s rule as king of the Jews, for the child would not become that kind of king. He had no interest in that sort of power. But he absolutely challenged the worldview that Herod represented. Herod knew only raw power the will to dominate, and if need be, annihilate all threats. He would demonstrate to just what lengths he would go to eliminate those who threatened his hold on power when he ordered the massacre of every male infant in Bethlehem under two years of age. It seems almost unbelievable, impossible even, that the birth of Jesus Christ as a child born into poverty, to parents who were no one significant, in a cave or stable in 4

5 which goats and sheep were his nearest neighbors, would expose Herod s worldview for the utter darkness that it represents. But that is exactly what the birth of Jesus does it shines a light in a vast darkness. It speaks truth in the face of tyrannical power. It divides people between those who welcome his birth as good news and those who see it only as a threat to their own will to power. Now, don t think that I m letting us off here. Of course, we re not like Herod. We don t possess that kind of political power. We cannot make others bow to our will. We have not gone on a murderous rampage to eliminate those who threaten us. But we are more like Herod than we may care to admit. Like Herod, we have no desire to give up our own power, and by that I mean the authority that we claim over our lives, as if they didn t belong to Christ. The wise men who are pagans, mind you see Jesus Christ and immediately acknowledge that he is Lord. They leave their homes and travel through a desert to a foreign land to do this. But we, even though we are all Christians, have a tendency to view Christ, and his claim upon our lives, as a threat to our own power, authority, and security. Let me not speak for you, though. I will speak for myself. Sometimes I get downright annoyed with Jesus. Yes, I do. This happens whenever I think that he is demanding too much from me. And lately, that s been happening a lot. This past Friday I and some of the volunteers from our ministry to Heavenly Dream School planned to meet the students for lunch at a restaurant near Jamsil Station at 12:00. Unbeknownst to me, however, there was also a special New Year s service for all of the church staff at 11:00. I am often the last to know of church events. I found out about this service about an hour before it began. Later I learned that all of the pastors were to perform a special song at the first dawn prayer of the new year on Saturday (yesterday). As if the 5:30 dawn prayer weren t early enough, we would meet before the service to practice the song at 4:50! When I read the text message about the practice, which was sent by one of the other pastors, I slammed my laptop shut (I was working on this sermon) and said something that I won t repeat here. 5

6 There was more. Tomorrow, for the fourth time in the last five weeks, there is a special event at church in the evening that the pastors need to attend on our day off. In fact, all next week there are special dawn prayer services that the pastors are required to attend. Then the week after that there is a pastors retreat for three nights and four days Sunday through Wednesday. Yes, maybe it will be fun (we re going to Jeju Island), but all I could think of was how it would set me back on all that I need to prepare for that week s Sunday service. Six days work would be condensed into three. So many events! So many demands on my time! Enough is enough! I was resentful of all these obligations. The American church is nothing like this! I screamed in my own mind. Then yesterday morning, after the dawn prayer service, all the pastors and jundosa went out for breakfast. I was sitting with another pastor and we were talking about New Year s resolutions, or as he said, New Year s wishes. He had mentioned to me earlier that he wants to get back to basics. He meant that he wants to focus this year on the reason why he became a pastor that it was born of a desire to serve. It was a selfless ambition. Somehow last year he had lost sight of that and had made it more about himself. Earlier in our conversation he had asked me if I had a New Year s wish, and I simply said, No, I don t. I wasn t much of a conversationalist at that point. But as our conversation continued I had a change of heart. Perhaps I was moved by his humility, or maybe I had had enough of my own bitterness, but I suddenly professed that I did, in fact, have a New Year s resolution. I told him that I wanted to be more flexible and more understanding with the demands that the church, which Scripture calls the bride of Christ, places on me. After all, it was the Holy Spirit the Spirit of Jesus Christ that called me to serve the church, so why was I putting up so much resistance? Why was I trying to make the church conform to my expectations, to my schedule, to what I was comfortable with? Either serve joyfully or don t serve. 6

7 What about you? Have you responded with joy to the calling of Christ? Like the wise men, have you received it as good news, as news that compels you to stop what you re doing and follow the light? Or are you more like Herod, who received the good news as a threat to his own power, authority, and security? Herod preferred to live in the darkness of his own making; he rejected the light. We can choose to be bitter and curse the darkness that surrounds us the darkness of a world that doesn t know Christ, and the darkness within ourselves. But we should be aware that it is a choice. Which means that we can also choose to joyfully follow the light of Christ, which shines through the darkness As it did for the wise men more than two thousand years ago, the light of Christ serves as a guide, lighting the way before us and leading us to our destination, which is Christ himself. 7

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