Epiphany, 01/06/2009

Sermon on Matthew 2:1-12, by Hubert Beck

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, "Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him." When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet:

‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;

for from you shall come a ruler

who will shepherd my people Israel.'"

Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him." After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.

WHEN NORMAL ISN'T NORMAL ANYMORE

Have you ever seen an unattractive Christmas card - a disturbing or bewildering or upsetting Christmas card portraying a worn-out, weary, forlorn Joseph and Mary straggling into Bethlehem after a long and exhausting journey forced upon them by a decree from Rome? Or one showing a fagged-out Joseph with pleading, tear-filled eyes badgering an innkeeper for just any kind of a place to stay for him and his wife, who was about to give birth? Or one focused on a mother's pain-wracked eyes as she gave birth to a child? Or one centered on an obviously merciless and hypocritical king facing some men who had come from afar to inquire about a king whose star they had seen rising in their studies of the heavens? Or one filled with bodies of young children killed by emotionless soldiers? There isn't much market for cards like these!

Christmas cards are supposed to be about peace, joy, love and tranquility showing a baby's calm repose in a manger with angels hovering overhead and surrounded by animals adoring the child. They are to give evidence of a mother's loving gaze upon a newborn and a father's quietly guarding presence nearby. They are to portray shepherds from nearby and marveling men from afar looking with eyes full of awe and wonder upon a child who gives every evidence of being someone special with a halo over his head and so exemplary that, as the Christmas carol puts it, "no crying he makes."

Christmas cards are not designed to disturb or bewilder or upset us. They commonly present an ideal world to us - a world where all is well with little or nothing to disturb such an impression. The public, whether Christian or not, demands cards conveying the peace and joy that we imagine filled that night of Jesus' birth. Please do not upset us with the surrounding dismay and commotion and troubling violence that accompanied the appearance of this child on the earth.

The Abnormal World Into Which the Child Was Born

The festival of the Epiphany falls far enough after our western Christmas (a quarter or so of the world's Christians, we must remember, are observing this day as the day of Jesus' birth!) - the twelfth day after, in fact- so as to give some perspective on all this.

Those rosy hopes for peace and joy and love that were expressed so vividly in the Christmas greetings we received have already been dashed - if they ever raised any real hope for such things in the first place. They were read in the haste and hubbub of selecting, purchasing and wrapping gifts, the frantic addressing and sending of one's own cards, preparing the home with appropriate Christmas decorations, rushing here and there on endless errands designed to make an "ideal Christmas" happen. Whatever messages were in the cards received were hastily read, quickly laid aside, and then, "when Christmas was over," put into the trash.

Which is where most of the hopes and dreams of many (unfortunately, I suspect, most) people ended shortly after the lights were darkened and the home returned to "normal." For "normal" is not what most people think an "ideal Christmas" is all about. After all, we knew already when we sent or received the cards that such things were not really going to happen this year - or any other year, for that matter. The hopes expressed in Christmas cards only express our idealistic wishes, do they not?

That first Christmas was, in spite of our dreamy representation of them, by no means a "normal time." Joseph and Mary did not intend to go to Bethlehem. It was orders from Rome that made it necessary for them to leave their "normal home" while Mary was in the later stages of pregnancy. It was undoubtedly quite strenuous to prepare for and then to make that unwanted and uncomfortable journey. Nor was the pregnancy itself a "normal" one for either mother or the supposed father. Nor was the place where they finally found shelter a "normal" one. Nothing was really "normal" about Christmas. Not even the child!

The shepherds usually looked into the skies with little expectation before that "abnormal" night broke upon them. They had never seen nor heard angels - and the message the angels brought was a highly unusual and unexpected one about a Savior born in nearby Bethlehem. Their surprise visit to the manger was by no means a routine drop-in on the parents or the innkeeper . . . nor did anybody to whom they spoke as they returned to their flocks hear them as though they spoke of ordinary things, for "all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them."

Herod was the only one who acted "normal." His "normalcy" consisted of extreme outbursts of jealousy, of excessive explosions of fearful acts of terror, including the murder of some of his own family whom he saw as threats to his position, of outrageously inhumane decisions. When he was visited by these men from the east inquiring about a newborn king, he acted in quite a normal fashion, for this inquiry triggered the murder of all male children two years old and under in Bethlehem.

Things must have returned to some kind of normalcy for Joseph's family by the time the magi from the east (commonly, but wrongly, titled "wise men" or "kings") appeared on the scene, for we are told that they were now living in a house. Their return to "normalcy" was short-lived, however. These men guided by the star (itself not a "normal" star, according to the account, since it "went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was") entered the house, bringing highly unusual and precious gifts for a child born to such obviously lowly and, so far as anyone could see, insignificant parents. This could hardly be called a normal visit by any stretch of the imagination.

Do you see what I mean when I say that this story we so take for granted was filled with unexpected interruptions to normal living? They must have truly wished for a more normal and settled kind of life!

Although the aftermath of this visit by the magi goes beyond the boundaries of the text for this morning, we know that this visitation, coupled with Herod's constant suspicions and perpetual will toward appalling acts of terror in response to things displeasing to him, triggered still more "abnormal" things for this family - another dream, another hurried preparation for a journey, another wearying flight, another "home away from home," etc. There was never anything quite normal for anyone associated with this child at the time of his birth! There is reason to suspect that the people involved in those momentous events would have a hard time relating to the Christmas cards attempting to re-create the happenings of that first Christmas.

In spite of this, we keep holding up an "ideal Christmas" as that for which we long and seek and strive for in our own lives. Why? Do we think that God is interested in turning our normal lives into an ideal such as we imagine that first Christmas to have been - and toward which we stretch every ounce of our imagination to create in spite of what it truly was? One could, of course, make an argument for an affirmative answer to that question, for God does hold up ideals which he expects us to take seriously. I would, however, suggest that a more accurate answer might be, "No, God is not interested in making our normal lives into ideal lives. He is more interested in shaking our normal lives into lives fashioned by a new vision, a new way of seeing things, a new way of living quite other than that which the world presses on us."

The Re-Shaping of the Normal

We have been speaking about how much turmoil and chaos and uncertainty surrounded that first Christmas. We must also recognize that it is of God's making!

He it was who, from of old, promised to deal with the world's highly troubling ways of sin that were fracturing the justice and peace for which the world was intended. He it was who sent the angel to upset Mary's life with the promise of one who would address the world's distressing ways. He it was who gave the angelic message to Joseph in a dream, telling him to take Mary as his wife in spite of his initial impulse to "divorce her quietly." He it was who set world events into motion, bringing the parents to the city of David, that city "by no means least among the rulers of Judah" for out of her "shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel." He it was who sent angels as messengers to the shepherds. He it was who set the star in the heavens that brought the magi to Herod and ultimately to the child. He it was who protected the child when Herod's rage brought the sword down upon the younglings of Bethlehem. None of these unsettling things would have taken place if God had not authored them as his own works!

Above all, it was God who initiated the ultimate battle with sin and death through this child of Bethlehem. We have been so focused on the events around the child that it would be far too easy to forget the child who is at the center of all this. When all is said and done, however, there is no point in any of this were it not for the child himself! Neither his conception nor his birth nor his early days had to do with the normal routine of earth when we view them through the lenses with which we have been looking! It is God who establishes that which is eternally normal through the strangely abnormal occurrences we have been rehearsing.

Those whose eyes and ears and lives are bound to this earth would have seen everything we have been talking about as "normal," for to eye and ears untouched by the Spirit of God they all looked like the accidents of life such as take place all the time. "Things just happen," the world would say. "Nobody knows why or how. They just happen." The Christmas story denies all this, for within it we detect the constantly unsettling ways God has as he brings about a re-ordering of this earth to show what is eternally "normal."

That which is normal with God is of a substantially different nature from earthly norms! He, in whose hands all final authority lies and at whose disposal all power rests, raises an entirely new and different vision of that which defines true life - a new "normality" brought about by exposing a divine humility looking with compassion upon children who have turned away from their heavenly Father; by a love exhibited in a cross-shaped care for those whose lives have been disrupted by the infestation of sin; by an intense devotion to the restoration of that which was originally intended for this creation. He wrapped all that up into this little baby - a child whose appearance on the scene would upset all that humankind considers normal in the interests of creating a new standard of life marked by divine attributes and established in the midst of the mis-shapenness of the tendency and will of this world.

Matthew's Version of the New Normal

One of the interesting things about the way Matthew writes his gospel is this: Although it is generally acknowledged that Matthew had a mainly Jewish readership in mind as he wrote, once he has clearly established Jesus' position genealogically as the decisive son of Abraham, the original chosen one, and of David, the favored one of God (chapter 1), he immediately presents us with the account of Gentiles

who have been alerted by God to the fact that the world is about to undergo a major shift in its direction. Their appearance broadens the message of Matthew by suggesting that, although the Jews are the womb of the world's salvation through their primary son, Jesus, the entire world is now being brought prominently into the readers' vision of deliverance from sin and rescue from the powers of death. It is his intention to retrieve the whole world, gathering it into the arms of the God from whom it originally sprang.

He will tell us of Jesus' interest in and concern for the servant of a Roman centurion (8:5-13) and his compassion for a Canaanite woman of exemplary faith (15:21-28), record parables clearly indicating this broadening awareness of God's overarching interest in the welfare of all the world (20:1-16; 21:33-43; 22:1-14), make it clear that even Roman soldiers recognized who this man was at the time of his crucifixion (27:54) - and then he will end his gospel with the command to "make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." (28:18-20) It is as though he is bracketing the life and work of Jesus between the appearance of the Gentiles who are the first people other than Mary and Joseph to appear in his gospel and the charge to take the word of the Christ to everybody everywhere. This child is "for the world" even while he has appeared among, done his work among, and even died at the hands of the children of Abraham. He is the one through whom all the world will experience a new age.

The Strange Ways of God With and Among Our Normalities

Have you related to all this in any way? We like to think that if our lives would just be normal they would be quiet, peaceful, loving, calm, tranquil, composed, serene, unruffled, without stress - even relaxed. Much like the "ideal Christmas cards" that we have received, glanced at, wished things were like that, and then discarded with the realization that, in reality, life is not like that. We long for a dreamed-of normal when things seem to be out of hand with trouble, turmoil, suffering, distress . . . as though those things were the abnormal of life, the things which, if all goes well, will disappear when life returns to normal.

Our "ideals" are rarely if ever met, however. Sometimes we grumble at their absence, protest their absence at other times, struggle to obtain them at still other times, constantly striving toward a normalcy that exists only in our imagination. It has ever been thus - even during the days of Jesus' infancy. Mary and Joseph knew stress that we rarely think about and even more rarely are willing to speak about. Carrying, birthing, protecting and rearing that little child sent from God was not in any way an easy task free of turmoil and stress similar to that which surrounds our lives today at every turn.

And peculiarly enough, God did not make it any easier for them than he does for us! One would think that the least God could do for these protectors of his Son would be to give them an easy path. Instead, he laid out a most difficult one, putting up barriers at every turn to all the things we would like to think of as normal. He who gave Mary the honor of bearing his Son also pressed her and Joseph into the most undesirable situations one could imagine. They were hardly "accidental." The Father had a hand in this all along the way!

Nor did he make the path for his Son any easier as time went by. Although we know nothing of substance concerning his first thirty years or so, the hands of this man must have been rough from his carpentering; the mind of this man must have been occupied with the concerns related to paying bills; providing for a widowed mother; working through all kinds of relational knots with those who are called his brothers and sisters not to speak of customers and neighbors! He had no easier a road to follow than you and I have. It was just in another culture, at another time, in a particular context.

That was nothing, though, compared to what he dealt with once he set out upon his public ministry, as we speak of it. Increasing conflict with religious authorities; expectations raised to a high pitch by those among whom he taught and acted; amplified hopes among the societally marginalized; swelling pressures to be what the people wanted him to be instead of that for which the Father had sent him . . . all these hounded him at every turn. Remaining faithful to his task was no simple path to follow.

Whether the interpretations of those gifts from the magi, gold, frankincense and myrrh, is correct or not - gold signifying the majesty of a royal king, incense signifying the priestly office of praying and offering sacrifice, and myrrh signifying death (the only other mention in the New Testament of myrrh is at the time of his dying [Mark 15:23] and burial [John 19:39]) - the burden of those gifts lay over the whole of his life. He faithfully carried them in behalf of all those who loved him then, of all those who would ever love him, of us who gather here today, worshiping and honoring him with the magi of old.

We Are The Epiphany (Manifestation) of God's "Normal"

What did any of these people in those chaotic times truly know or recognize concerning the significance of these events? What did Joseph, almost an innocent "bystander" to these events and yet the one who had to protect Mary and the child in varying circumstances, understand about what was happening? Even Mary had to "treasure up" these events, "pondering them in her heart." (Luke 2:19) How could the shepherds truly know what they had seen and heard even though the angelic message seems plain enough to us by retrospect? What did the magi take back with them as they returned to the east, having found, gifted and worshiped the child? Wherever you look in this story the normal course of events as human eyes would see them is unsettled by God's continual intervention, diverting them all to a divine intention. What do they mean to us as we rehearse them once again today?

Meanwhile, we usually consider it "abnormal" when things fly loose all around us, as though there were neither rhyme nor reason in them. Most of life borders on the chaotic, to be honest. It is hard to catch up with what life requires of us. We have techniques by which we hold the chaos back in various ways. We "cope" as best we can - all the while trying to corral, collect and bring together that wide assortment of loose ends that are part and parcel of every life - sometimes felt more acutely and at other times almost fading into the background. That disordering turmoil is never far away, though.

They are all signs, though - signals that things are not as they should be. That is a truth that the disorder in life confirms for us. They are, however, also notices that there is one who can bring them all together into a meaningful whole. That one has put swaddling cloths around them as the first step in saving the world!

At Epiphany, this final moment of the Christmas cycle, we do well to review and reflect on what has happened in that entire Advent / Christmas sequence. From the time of John the Baptizer's appearance at the Jordan River through the time when the magi appear at the house in Bethlehem, everything normal in the world has been turned topsy-turvy. Every one of those unfolding events has called us to look with new eyes, to hear with new ears, the sounding call that God is busy unsettling the normalcy of this earth so that we can see a new norm - one that is born of heaven itself!

In this final scene our eyes have been turned to the universality of this marvelous work of God. The child who was born becomes the man who spoke and acted, and he, in turn, the Word made flesh, died for you and me, for Jew and Gentile, for male and female, for every race and culture and society of the earth! In the child grown to manhood and dying on the cross we have seen "the glory of the Lord" shining forth. Isaiah said it so well: "Your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. Lift up your eyes all around, and see; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from afar, and your daughters shall be carried on the hip. Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and exult, because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you, and the wealth of the nations shall come to you." (Isaiah 60:1-5)

In this light we are not entrusted with understanding, for it is much beyond us to truly recognize all that happens in our lives, in the life of the world, and certainly not in the light and life of God. In Isaiah's words, however, we find the foundation of faith - a faith that, just as God was so mysteriously at work in Mary and Joseph, shepherds and magi, and especially in the helpless child himself, so also he is at work in and through us; through all the chaos that surrounds us and so often resides within us; through all the swirl of unfathomable babble that surrounds our lives; through all the seemingly meaningless and endless activities required of us for simply living out a daily routine. The same God that took all the madness of those days of Jesus' birth and turned them into the salvation of the world takes our lives and weaves them into a marvelous pattern of his own making, achieving his own intentions through us.

It is considerable comfort to know this, is it not?

Those words of today's First Reading just quoted, spoken centuries before this child appeared, are the words concerning which Paul preached as the minister of God's word years after Jesus had ascended into heaven - words "to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in

God who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him." (Ephesians 3:9-12)

They are the words entrusted to us today . . . words that were joined to water in our baptism, sealing us into God's family of faith; words joined to bread and wine as food for our journey; words giving birth to faith; words of hope for the nations! They are words that no Christmas card can ever quite capture in their depth and glory, try though they may. They are the words of salvation!

Lutheran Pastor, Retired Hubert Beck
Austin, TX

E-Mail: hbeck@austin.rr.com

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