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Good News for All (Matthew 2:1-12)

Well, here we are at the capping point of the season. It’s officially the twelfth and final day of Christmas, and this morning we’re celebrating the Feast of the Epiphany one day ahead of schedule.

I’m guessing that, for many of us, this time seems like the aftermath of an out-of- control whirlwind of activity including endless social events, a lot of shopping, a lot of decorating, churchgoing, and the annual sacred ritual of diet resolutions following the grand cave-in to an irresistible array of high-calorie holiday treats.

So Epiphany can feel like the smoking crater after the eruption of Mt. St. Helen’s. (Or is it just me?) Anyway, I hope and pray that, at least here and there in this time we were all able to slow down enough to be fully present in the moment as we celebrated the birth of our Lord Christ.

It’s interesting what these occasional freeze-frame moments of reflection bring to mind. One thing I noticed this year during the Christmas Eve service (which I thought was a blast, what with Las Posadas and everything) was the nonverbal communication among people who only attend church occasionally. Did you notice any of that?

You can sort of tell which men, for instance, may have been cajoled into coming to church. (“Cm’ on, honey! It’s only twice a year, and we missed Easter this year!”) He’s the one with the crossed arms and aloof expression. Church is not generally his comfort zone. Which, by the way, leaves us with the delicate task of trying to help make it his comfort zone. But that’s a sermon for another time. Sometimes we forget how awkward and anxiety-provoking it can be to show up at church after not attending in a long time. It can feel like some kind of insider club with unspoken rules which we run the risk of “violating” at any moment.

And then of course there’s the person who sees Christmas as a sentimental but ultimately meaningless nod to an event which she no longer believes in. As I mentioned on Christmas Eve, there are some pretty strong forces arrayed against a full-hearted commitment to celebrating Jesus’s birth.

Although, I have to say, unbelief doesn’t necessarily have to be an impenetrable barrier to talking about Jesus. After Anna and Alex’s wedding a week ago, in which both the liturgy and the message cited scripture and emphasized how important it is to have God in your marriage, I was approached by a smiling, slightly post-middle aged woman who said she thoroughly enjoyed my homily and the whole service.

Then, she added with just a hint of surprise, “And I’m an atheist.” A pleasant and spirited conversation ensued in which I found that she’s actually a university religious studies academic viewing it all with respectful fascination as an atheist. When I playfully expressed hope that just maybe I’d nudged her a step closer to faith, she 2 undefensively replied in the negative, but we covenanted to have coffee and conversation next time she’s in town. We’ll see what God does with that.

In any case, all of this caused me to ponder how it came to be that a great, joyous Christian feast like Christmas ended up being something that a fair number of people choose to avoid, or at least to side-step, rather than celebrating. You may not be surprised to hear that I have a theory about that. Indeed, Jesus tells us, “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day” (John 6:44).

But Jesus makes it equally clear that he uses us in that process of drawing people to him. We engage with Jesus to spread the good news to others, in accordance with his to us, his church. And I think it’s very reasonable to infer that we’re also capable of damaging or obstructing what’s commonly called “good Christian witness”. OK? We can inadvertently blow it.

The thing is: Jesus, Paul, and the other writers speak with one voice about things like unity, love, respect, and a kind of purity of faith that transcends all those things we like to fight with each other about, such as politics, for instance. The scriptures urge us to keep the main thing the main thing. (Now stay with me: This actually has to do with the Epiphany and the visitation of the to the Christ-child.)

After listening to what many people are saying about Christianity, especially young people, I’m pretty certain that it’s not Jesus’s message that’s so offensive. It’s our overlay of personal opinions and power issues that taint the purity of the message. And to be clear, this isn’t a new problem. From Emperor Constantine to the Catholic Church to the Moral Majority to every political or economic movement that claims to embrace Christian values, we’ve spent a lot of energy, both liberal and conservative, pushing in the body politic for things we think are right, and somehow lots of folks get turned off in the process.

In the early church some people were offended by the gospel itself. But these were usually folks with an investment in public power, and for whom loyalty to Jesus somehow threatened that power. Yet the church grew by leaps and bounds. Why do you suppose that is?

Well I think the answer lies in the word itself: Gospel— in old Anglo-Saxon— which means “good story”. Good news. Early on, our message wasn’t about trying to get everyone else to do what we think is right. It wasn’t about protecting our rights or our values with the threat of a sword. It wasn’t about scoring enough votes that we had political power to oppose those who didn’t agree with us.

It was the sharing of a good, true story to beat all stories. The incarnation was, as J.R.R. Tolkien called it, the true myth at the very heart of history and at the very root of reality. It was the factual story to which all the other good stories in the world’s many mythologies pointed. This so convinced a certain young atheist named C.S. Lewis that 3 he became a Christian! And of course he became one of the 20th century’s greatest spokesmen for the Christian faith.

Tolkien said that in Jesus Christ God is expressing himself through himself. He is the incarnate Word. He is the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. And that way, that story, is the book into which every human being in the world is written as we make ourselves present to His grace.

I find it interesting how Tolkien’s ideas of myths, even from pagan sources, can point us toward the truth of Christ. And that actually figures into today’s Gospel reading about the visitation of the Christ-child by the Magi. Ultimately, the origins of the Magi are cloaked in mystery. But it’s widely speculated that, having come from the East, they may have been Zoroastrian astrologers. People who read the heavens for signs. Not folks who would necessarily have been held in high esteem by modern . Whatever their origin, they saw something that they agreed represented the momentous birth of a great king. In fact, in our Gospel text they call him the King of the Jews.

I mentioned a few moments ago that those who opposed the good news of Jesus were most often those whose lifestyles would somehow be threatened by him. That certainly was the case with King . He was the puppet king of the Roman Empire, so a competitor claiming the title “King of the Jews” was unthinkable to him. This was a direct threat to his power.

So when the Magi appeared in and asked where the king of the Jews had been born, Herod’s fox-like ears pricked up in alarm. He asked the scribes and chief priests where the was to be born, and they replied with words from the prophet Micah saying that he’d be born in of .

So, after Herod postured as if he wanted to go worship the young Messiah, he ordered the killing of all of the very young children of Bethlehem in order to make sure Jesus was killed. Then, as you know, an warned Joseph, and he and Mary took Jesus into Egypt until Herod’s death. Thus the powerful and prideful of this world were once again humbled, and Jesus began his road to his kingship.

Which, to conclude, brings us right back to the main idea. In today’s Gospel reading we have three wise men, probably Gentile, pagan wise men, who are given celestial signs which they understand in their own frame of reference to be pointers to the birth of the King of kings. They come to check it out in Jerusalem, Herod catches wind of it, and the scribes and chief priests confirm that Bethlehem is the place, because one of God’s prophets declared it to be so.

And unlike the very humble shepherds in Bethlehem’s fields, to whom were proclaimed the birth of the Savior and Messiah, the wise men had to have been pretty well-healed to bring gifts of , and . Yet unlike Herod, they had the humility to both recognize and worship the rightful King. 4

The bottom line of all of this is that the greatest revolution in human history, the leader who’d turn logic on its head by showing the humble, sacrificial love of God at the Cross, and then the triumph of life and love in the Resurrection, the great, unexpected revolution, is launched. It’s the ultimate good news for the chronically oppressed, especially those oppressed by the ultimate tyrants of sin and death. And that’s not just the Jews who preceded us in the faith. It’s every one of us. Jesus defeated our oppressors and opened the way for our eternal salvation.

And the first vehicles of this good news to the Gentiles were three sages from the East. God brought signs to them on their level—signs that resonated with their worldview yet pointed them toward the Savior of the world. Is that awesome or what?! God didn’t chide them for their superstition or their ignorance of the Law. He didn’t threaten or cajole them. He didn’t warn them to turn or burn. No, he brought them good news. And he made them vessels of his good news.

He does the same for each of us here and now. And when we, with unity of purpose and mutual love that transcends our differences, when we focus on the good news we were commanded to spread, that’s when our witness to the world will be winsome and credible. That’s when those who are called will come and listen.

So as we practice our faith in the midst of opposition, let us never forget to keep the main thing the main thing, and to be God’s sacredly-appointed story tellers. For ours is the story that brings light and life to the world. Amen.