1 THE JOURNEY: I DON T WANT TO GO! MATTHEW 2 JANUARY 3, 2016 They were packing for the annual Christmas journey to their hometown. They looked forward to seeing their parents, their aunts and uncles, cousins, and a few of their sisters and brothers who still lived in the area. All the memories of their childhoods would come flooding back. Oh, it wasn t the same. But the memories were good. The packing was proceeding, clothing, Christmas gifts, and such. But the kids were dragging their feet, just sort of poking around the suitcases on their floors. Hurry up, kids. We ve gotta get on the road in a bit. Dad, I don t want to go. What? We always go. Every year. This is our Christmas trip. Why don t you want to go? I know we always go. But Aunt Rose always pinches my cheek. She smells funny, and her house smells funny. And Uncle Tom is weird. I don t want to go. Sometimes there are journey s we don t want to make. Kids don t want to go to the dentist, and the dog doesn t want to go to the vet. There are some journeys that need to be undertaken, ought to be undertaken, but we don t want to go. There were those who did not want to make the journey to Christmas. Mary made the journey. Joseph made the trip. The shepherds went to Bethlehem. God made the journey all the way from heaven to earth. But not everybody wanted to go along. MATTHEW 2:1-2 Magi, wise men, we three kings. The original Greek word is magi, from which we get our word magician. We have a romantic vision of three distinguished men, traveling miles and miles by camel, bowing before the infant Jesus, worshiping and offering precious gifts. And that s partially true. But only partially. We don t know how many of them there were. We got the number three from the carol, We Three Kings.
And the carol writer got it from the scriptural description of three types of gifts, which we ll get to in a few minutes. But we really don t know how many there were. It could have been two or twenty. They were also not kings. Magi were sorcerers. They were fortune tellers who used methods that today would include Ouija boards, tarot cards, palm reading and astrology. Except then it was more likely reading chicken livers. Remember from the legends of King Arthur the character of Merlin the magician? That s pretty close to the magi. They often served as advisers to pagan kings. They sought wisdom and insight from all sorts of sources, including sometimes the stories and scriptures of various religions. And THESE are the ones who are making the long journey to Christmas. Dabbling in their occult practices, they stumbled across something REAL. So real, so significant, they packed up and made the long journey. In all their astrological stargazing, they spotted an anomaly that led them west to Judea. A new star in the sky. And, as anyone would assume, anything truly important happening should be in the capitol city. Just ask any of the presidential candidates and the media that follow them. It s all about D.C. So they set off on their Christmas journey to Jerusalem, to the capitol city, to the seat of political power. And they asked, Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? BORN king of the Jews? King Herod had fought, clawed and assassinated his way to the throne. And they think someone has been BORN king of the Jews? That did not go over well. MATTHEW 2:3-6 The king and the capitol city, the seat of political power, were frightened. The NIV translation says, disturbed. The New Testament Greek word carries the root of the word earthquake. An earthquake. They were shaken to their very foundations. Because their own importance was threatened by this idea. perhaps by this child. Those in power do NOT want to make the journey to Christmas. They re the ones screaming, I don t want to go! And more than that, I am NOT going! You can t make me. Now he s got to figure out how to stop this journey altogether. So King Herod brought in the religious experts, the Bible scholars, and asked them about this. And they gave him their best understanding from the scriptures, quoting from the prophet Micah, (5:2) The Christ, the messiah, would be born in Bethlehem, the birthplace of King David, the greatest king Israel ever had, 2
the uniter of the people and founder of their nation. They were exactly right about the location. What I find interesting is, these scholars of the Bible had no interest in making the journey to Christmas. They knew the Book, but they missed the Author. Oh, they had the answers that were sought. They d studied, poured over it, learned it, sat through countless Sunday school classes and Bible studies, took copious notes, and even taught classes themselves. But they made no move to go on this journey to be in his presence. Ok, now King Herod has a location for the one born king of the Jews. Now to find out how old this kid might be. He s making plans for how to eliminate this would-be rival. MATTHEW 2:7-8 With the timing of the appearance of the star, he asks them to pinpoint his location for him. Of course, so he too could go worship him. Riiiight. He s not going on any Christmas journey. Herod didn t worship anyone but himself. MATTHEW 2:9-12 They were overjoyed. When I studied this I paused to ask myself: Am I overjoyed about the truth of Christmas? Not about the gifts under the Christmas tree or the family gatherings. Am I overjoyed about Jesus? Is that evident in my face? In my singing? In my life? They bowed down. An act of subservience, bowing to one who is superior. And they worshiped him. Worship. It means to proclaim worth. It have could been in song. It could have been in prayer. It could have been in words spoken about what a wonder this child is, what a difference he will make. We don t know. The one expression of worship we do know about is that they offered him meaningful material gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Sort of like when we pass the offering plate. Gold was a gift traditionally given to a king. It seems likely they were proclaiming him to the be king of the Jews, the longed for messiah. Frankincense was an incense burned as an offering to the gods. Perhaps it said something about Jesus deity. Or that he himself would one day be a sacrificial offering. And the final gift, myrrh, was a spice used in anointing bodies for burial. 3
It was a foreshadowing of his death and burial. Not only were these gifts meaningful, but they were quite expensive. You don t give an expensive Christmas gift to someone you don t really care about. There are people to whom you give gifts just because you re supposed to. There are those that you have no idea what to get them, so you just get something. And then there are people who are important to you. And you may struggle to find the right gift. But you enter into the struggle, to find something that communicates how important they are to you. And sometimes, not always, but sometimes, that might be expensive. But you did NOT spend a ton of money on a gift for someone who does not matter to you. These magi gave expensive gifts to Jesus. When I was studying this I had to ask myself: Is he that important to me? Is it reflected in my gift? Jesus was important enough to them that they risked disobeying the orders of a murderous, power-crazed despot, and went back home without telling King Herod exactly where to find Jesus. They d been warned by an angel from God. And next up, the angel spoke a word of warning to Joseph in a dream. God the Father was clearly protecting his Son. MATTHEW 2:13-15 Refugees in a foreign land, fleeing life-threatening danger. Talk about a downward trajectory in life. Not only did God come from heaven to earth, divinity entering into the human frailty. Now he s fled into hiding from a murderous king. And, of course, God s downward trajectory will not reach the bottom until the body of Jesus will be laid in a tomb and a stone is rolled over the entrance. But for now, he s hidden safely away in Egypt. MATTHEW 2:16-18 This episode is often called the slaughter of the innocents. But it probably was not all that many children killed. Remember that Bethlehem was a dusty little village. There were not that many people, so there couldn t be that many children two years old and under. But that does not take away from the horror of what was done. Each little life was inherently valuable. Each little life was slashed and dead. We know from history that Herod was a paranoid megalomaniac. But what sort of man carried out his bloodthirsty orders? We d like to think the soldiers were something of a different specie to do that. But how many men donned the uniform of the Nazi army to fight in World War II? And how many common citizens knew about the death camps, or at least strongly suspected, and said nothing? Did nothing? How many made money by delivering goods and services to those who ran the camps? How about the thousands of people who participated in the deaths of millions 4
during the early days of the Soviet Union? The forced starvations, mass shootings, and loading thousands onto trains to Siberia where they would be worked to death. How many people in our time have been lured into the violence of fundamentalist Islam? The warfare, the beheadings, the hangings, burning people alive, making captive women into sex slaves. There is something seriously broken in all of humanity that makes it possible for us, for ANY of us apart from Christ, to end up going down such a road. That brokenness is called sin. It s what Jesus came to address. The soldiers knew the authority of King Herod. They feared him, so they served him. They clearly did not know the authority of God. Imagine the mothers and fathers weeping for their dead children, with no understanding of WHY they d been killed. Not that it would help to know. Bethlehem went from being a sleepy little village to a collection of parents with horrific sights seared in their memories, inconsolable grief tearing at their hearts. And, of course, this never makes it into the children s Christmas pageant. Herod would go to any length, use all his resources, cross any and every boundary of acceptable behavior and morality, in order to protect his power and privilege from this one said to be born king of the Jews. He WAS NOT going to make the Christmas journey. His power, his privilege, his status quo, was that important to him. How important is your comfortable status quo? Do you find yourself resisting possibly life-altering challenges? Resisting a call from God? MATTHEW 2:19-23 For all his political power and military might, King Herod died. Jesus lived. Tradition describes some rather nasty details about Herod s death. History shows that King Herod s kingdom eventually fell. But the church that Jesus founded spread over the face of the earth, and is alive and well today. Today church buildings, hospitals, schools, feeding ministries, radio stations, books, magazines, web pages, and over a billion individual lives, all point to Jesus. Nothing points to King Herod. Today, the only reason you and I know the name of Herod is because of his association with Jesus. It seems to me there s a lesson here. You can choose to not make the journey to Christmas. God will not force it on anyone. Because what he s looking for is not obedient puppets, 5
but a love relationship with each of us. And a love relationship requires there be some space between persons, some degree of independence, so there is freedom to love. or not love. The magi chose to make the journey. Dabbling in the occult, spiritual off track, but somehow they found their way to Jesus. King Herod chose to not make the journey. For the sake of maintaining his comfortable status quo. And you can make that choice, too. But Christmas will come anyway. You can t stop it. The truth of Christmas is Truth with a capitol T. So it will be the Truth without you. Did you notice that Matthew continually tells the story punctuated by the phrase, This was to fulfill what the prophet said. Because it was always God s plan. It was going to happen, no matter what. It is the truth without us or with us. Now, in truth, no one here is going to launch an all-out assault on Bethlehem. We re nicer people than that. So we have nicer ways of saying, I don t want to go. We can hide behind religion. We go through the motions, showing up every time the door s open, singing and serving and giving. But not really getting closer to Christ. Like Herod s religious advisors. We can hid behind intellect, questioning the Scriptures, suggesting they re not accurate, not trustworthy, and so not authoritative over our lives. We have our own maneuvers so that we can stay in the driver s seat of our lives. We can make sure our journey is not one toward Christmas. Just like the Bible scholars, just like the soldiers, just like King Herod. But we could choose to go with the magi. I ll be honest. There are costs involved. They left behind their jobs, their homes, and who knows what else. There was significant effort involved in packing up and traveling to a foreign land. The gifts they brought to Jesus cost them a bundle. And they took a big risk in disobeying Herod s demand that they tell him exactly where Jesus was. But they experienced joy. They found a reason to worship him. They willingly and gladly gave their gifts, because they found him to be worth it. I think I m going with them. Will you come along for the Christmas journey? 6