Sermon for December 10th, 2023
Matthew 2:1-12 (NT p. 2)
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.
Bless This Mess: Herod & the Wise Men - Politically Messy
A tourist wanders into an old antique shop in San Francisco. Picking through the objects on display he discovers a detailed, life-sized bronze sculpture of a rat. The sculpture is so interesting and unique that he picks it up and asks the shop owner what it costs. "Twelve dollars for the rat, sir," says the shop owner, "and a thousand dollars more for the story behind it."
"You can keep the story" he replies, "but I'll take the rat." The tourist leaves the store with the bronze rat under his arm. As he crosses the street in front of the store, two live rats emerge from a sewer drain and fall into step behind him. Nervously looking over his shoulder, he begins to walk faster, but every time he passes another sewer drain, more rats come out and follow him.
By the time he's walked two blocks, at least a hundred rats are at his heels, and he sees the waterfront, the San Fransisco Bay, in the distance. He walks even faster, and soon breaks into a run as multitudes of rats swarm from sewers, basements, vacant lots, and abandoned cars. No matter how fast he runs, the rats keep up, now in the thousands, so that by the time he comes rushing up to the waterfront, a trail of rats twelve city blocks long is behind him.
With a mighty leap, he jumps up onto a light post, and hurls the bronze rat into San Francisco Bay, as far as he can throw it. Then he watches in amazement as the seething tide of rats surges over the breakwater into the sea, where they drown. Shaken and mumbling, he makes his way back to the antique shop. "Ah, so you've come back for the story," says the owner.
"No," says the tourist, "Actually, I was wondering if you have a bronze politician."
We all love to hate politicians... but most of us seem to have pretty strong political opinions ourselves, especially if someone brings up the right hot-button issue (or the wrong one). And that is bound to happen at Christmas time, when distant co-workers and slight acquaintances gather for Christmas parties, or extended families gather for Christmas dinner. We live in a highly polarized culture, where it seems like every political position (depending on who espouses it) is either the last, best, great hope for humanity, or else the end of the world as we know it. There's no in between. What a mess.
I study a lot of history, and I can tell you that whether you go back in time 100 years, 1,000 years or 2,000, people in most places were just as polarized, just as anxious, and every bit as much convinced that their political position was the reasonable one, while those who disagreed them them were idiots, monsters, or worse.
This is certainly true in 1st century Palestine, around the time of the very first Christmas. The Jewish people at this time were divided into basically two political parties--those who cooperated with their Roman overlords, and those who resisted. It was actually a little more complicated than that--you could break each party into smaller factions based on "how" they resisted or "how much" they cooperated. And there were reasonable arguments on each side: If you cooperated with Rome, you might be labeled as a sell-out, betraying your people and your ethnicity. But if you didn't cooperate, you could be labeled a rabble-rouser, a trouble-maker, threatening the very fragile peace not just for yourself, but for everyone. If you cooperated with Rome, there was much to gain in power, wealth and influence. But those who resisted claimed that God would reward them more than Caesar ever could.
Chief among the cooperators (or should I say "King" among them) is Herod. He's King Herod because the Roman Senate appointed him as King of the Jews, which (as you might imagine) did not sit very well with those in the resistance party. Matthew--the author of the gospel of Matthew--is probably in the resistance camp. He portrays King Herod as a supreme villain, a monster even, who later in the story orders the execution of all Jewish boys under the age of two.
To the cooperators on the other hand, Herod is remembered a bit differently, as "Herod the Great" the one who brought peace and stability to the Middle East for over three decades, the one who rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem, the one who brought clean drinking water into the city.
Do you see the familiar political lines beginning to form? What a mess!
And into this political mess come...some foreigners. The wise men. The word in the original Greek text is μαγοι, or "magi" which literally means "firefighters"--specifically firefighters from the deep south. We know they were firefighters from the deep south because we read that "they came from a fahr." Just Kidding. Actually they came from the East. And μαγοι simply means astrologers.
There's been a lot of speculation about the wise men throughout Christian history. At some point in the medieval era they got promoted to Kings (hence the song "We three kings"). The Bible doesn't actually call them kings anywhere, nor does it specify how many of them there were, although from the three gifts listed, it is often assumed there were three.
In fact, many modern biblical scholars think the wise men are entirely the invention of Matthew, who is trying to introduce Jesus as the new Moses. In the Old Testament, wise men come to Pharaoh (the Egyptian King) to warn him about the prophesied birth of a special child who will deliver the Jews from Egyptian oppression. Pharaoh, in fear and anger, orders that all male Jewish infants be killed, but baby Moses escapes and eventually flees into the desert.
In Matthew's story, wise men come to King Herod to warn him about the prophesied birth of a special child who will deliver the Jews from Roman oppression. Herod, in fear and anger, orders that all male Jewish infants be killed, but baby Jesus escapes and eventually flees with his family (somewhat ironically) to Egypt.
Whether or not there really were wise men, I think, is impossible to prove historically one way or another. And in any case, to do so would be missing the point entirely. The wise men are foreigners, outsiders--just like us, when we read this story about a place halfway around the world and 2,000 years ago. And the wise men stumble into the story at a very tense, polarized time. The wander into a political Christmas mess.
And while we're focusing today on the encounter between the wise men and King Herod, notice that the wise men don't actually go straight to Herod. Listen again to verses 1 and 2: "...wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?" They're asking anyone and everyone. That's why, in the next verse, we read that "When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him." Then he calls together the chief priests and the scribes, so by the time we're through, the guilty ones Matthew is incriminating here include King Herod, all the established religious leaders, and the entire city of Jerusalem.
But King Herod is definitely the number one bad guy here. And where there may be some doubt about the historical authenticity of the wise men, Herod is a very real, very historical figure, attested in many sources outside the bible. In fact, Herod had such a bad reputation, was so cruel and treacherous--even with his own family--that the Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus once quipped that he would rather be Herod's pig than his son.
Matthew's portrayal of Herod certainly fits this description, and adds deceitful and conniving to the list. Herod calls the wise men to a private meeting and asks them to "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."
I have often imagined this moment, this encounter between Herod and the wise men, in my mind. Did they see through his trick? They are *wise* men, after all. Herod is the "King of the Jews." He had sons of his own, who eventually would inherit his kingdom when he died. It wouldn't even take that much wisdom to be suspicious about why the "King of the Jews" would want to "pay homage" to a baby prophesied to be his replacement.
In my imagination, this encounter is a tense, awkward one. The wise men appear just like they do in most nativity scenes: They are tall, exotic, regal, adorned with the trappings of great wealth and power. I have a harder time imagining Herod, because he usually gets cut from the nativity scenes (which is a shame, if you think about it--like any good movie, they'd benefit from a truly diabolical villain!). But however he looks, Herod and the wise men are certainly on equal footing. His cunning is matched by their wisdom. His authority matched by their dignity. There is no imbalance of power. They are equals in every sense.
And yet, when the meeting is over, the wise men seek out and find the messiah, the king of kings, the savior of the world. They left for their own country by another road, and remember that "roads" are highly symbolic in the New Testament. The earliest followers of Jesus called themselves "people of the road" or "people of the way." When Matthew says that the wise men returned by a different road, a different way, than the one they came--I think he's saying (among other things) that they went home as changed people, never the same after that experience.
Herod, on the other hand, doesn't change much, or at all. The Jewish historian Josephus tells us that when Herod was about to die, he was worried that no one would grieve or mourn for him. So he had all of the most important, well-loved citizens of Jerusalem rounded up and gave an order to kill them when he died, so that there would at least be some grief and mourning at the time of his death. Fortunately his children weren't quite as cruel as he was, and they ignored that order.
Three decades later, Jesus would teach his disciples that some who heard his teachings would never be able to understand, because their hearts had been hardened. This seems like a good description of Herod.
So what's the difference between those whose hearts are hardened, like Herod, and those who seek the Lord, like the wise men, bowing down before a humble manger, and allowing their lives to be transformed?
And which one are you? Of course, we all think of ourselves as the wise men--never Herod. But I'm not so sure. Remember, the differences between the two are not so great. They are subtle differences, and I think sometimes it's easy to find ourselves on the wrong side of the Christmas star.
Here are some differences:
1. The wise men were following someone else's star. As ancient astrologers, they likely believed that stars were connected to people. A bright new star in the heavens was a sign of an important new person on earth. Each one of the wise men was important in his own right, in his own context, and yet, each one left that context behind to follow a greater light.
Herod, on the other hand, was following the light of his own star. He was most concerned with himself. The wise men were following a star in order to see where and on whom it shone. Herod's only interest was in extinguishing its light so that his own could continue to shine.
The point is this: If we want to be like the wise men, we must always follow the greater light wherever it leads. We must be willing to acknowledge that we may not be the brightest star in the sky.
2. The wise men were following a star. They were on a spiritual journey--they were going somewhere, they had a direction and a dynamic purpose. They were willing to leave behind their place of power and comfort, and journey into an unknown land where they were strangers, where they were vulnerable.
Herod, on the other hand, was going nowhere. It is telling that he summoned the wise men to come to him, and then dispatched them to go find the child for him. Herod is playing it safe, walled up in his fortress, surrounding himself with those who were just as static, just as hardened as he is. Who do you surround yourself with?
If we want to be like the wise men, we need to be ready to drop everything, to leave it all behind, to step out in faith, out of our comfort zones, risking and hoping and believing that God will lead and guide us along the way.
3. Finally (and this one is important given the season) the wise men came to give of themselves. Long journeys were costly, but they judged the sacrifice to be a good one. The brought costly gifts and laid them at the feet of the savior. These powerful men bowed themselves at his feet, in a sign that they were willing to give their allegiance, their worship, their dignity. In other words, they gave much.
Herod, on the other hand, was intent on not giving up anything. He clutched and clung to his riches, to his title, to his power. He hoarded these things, and when a blessed opportunity presented itself, his paranoid, jealous, hatred only tightened his grasp.
So if we want to be like the wise men, we too must be willing to give of ourselves and make sacrifices, to lay all of our treasures at the feet of the true king. We give gifts at Christmastime precisely because of this story--in memory of the gifts that the wise men gave to Jesus. But in our present-buying consumer-shopping Christmas-wrapping frenzy, we sometimes forget that our best and most precious gifts should be offered to the one who gave us everything, including his son.
All of our gifts, and all of our possessions pale in comparison to this. All of our wisdom and all of our power fades away, and all of our long journeys bring us at last to encounter the Christ child, lying in a simple manger, underneath a bright star.
Because even for the wisest of men, even for the most powerful of kings, even for the most hardened of hearts...God's love is still the greatest gift of all.
