A War Cry: The Magi - Matthew 2:1-18
We’ve spent a lot
of time in the darkness of Christmas…or at least the darkness of the nativity
story as the first Christmas occurred without Christmas carols and Christmas
trees, without blinking lights or elves in Christmas tights…, or as Dr. Suess
would put it: “it came without ribbons!...it came without tags!...it came
without packages, boxes, or bags.”[i] Since mid-November we have been explored the
dark world into which Jesus was born as God declared that the time had come for
evil, sin, and even death to be defeated.
We journeyed to
tiny Bethlehem with its history of idolatry, prejudice, betrayal, brutal
violence, and death.
We walked with
Mary as she put her relationship with her family, and even her own life, on the
line to respond to God’s call to service—and found herself a rejected, outcast,
teenage pregnant mom-to-be.
We stood by
Joseph as he chose not to reject Mary and in taking her into his life risked
his reputation, his financial security, and his family connections and in
Bethlehem realizing those losses.
We encountered
the King of kings, and the Lord of lords, come down from His throne in Heaven
and born in a stable surrounded not by angels bowing and worshipping, but by
animals, their feed, and their waste.
Next we found the
shepherds in the darkness of night watching their flocks as a division of God’s
warrior angels appeared to proclaim the birth of the Messiah.
Finally, last
week we encountered Simeon and Anna in the Temple who, though praising God for
having the opportunity to witness the Messiah before their death, also gave
testimony to the dark and painful future that Jesus would have—a lifetime of
conflict leading to the cross.
However, believe
it or not, we have not encountered the darkest part of those that are
incorporated into the first couple of years of Jesus’ life…and that part is
tied to the star that broke into the darkness of the evening Jesus was born.
It was an
unsettled time. People had grown wearing
of being ruled over by one empire and then another. Many times the weariness had led to uprisings
and revolts, however against Rome, these revolts were quickly put down. However, it wasn’t just Rome that folks
worried about since Herod had come into power.
Herod would never tolerate a revolt.
He was determined not to lose the power that had been granted him by
Rome. Herod had been known to have his
own children and wife put to death out of fear that they were plotting to steal
the throne out from under him. I don’t
know for sure, but I am thinking that people probably had gotten to the point
that were scared to criticize him, lest they “be disappeared.”
Into this dark,
tense, war-like scene, enter a group of magi.
Because of the number of gifts they carried with them (which we will get
to later) we have usually said that there were three…some have even assigned
them names and nationalities…however we do not know the names, nationalities,
or even the number by way of the Scriptures, all of that has simply derived
from a variety of church traditions.
Some have said that they were kings, however many scholars, that they
were astrologers (having noticed a new star in the sky—connected it to a
prophecy they had heard or read—and then followed the star for two years,
looking for a child that had been born when the star had appeared. Their understanding is that the child that
had been born under that star would be king), they possibly Persian members of
the Zoroastrian religion.
These magi would
have made folks uneasy to start with, foreigners that weren’t even Roman, entering
Jerusalem. They approached Herod and
told him that they had come in search of the new king that they might worship
him—they came to Herod, the current king, thinking that the new baby would
likely have been his child. We read that
this proclamation made Herod and all of Jerusalem uneasy. Herod would have grown upset, figuring that
this “newborn king” was a legitimate threat to his throne…the rest of Jerusalem
would have most likely been uneasy, not out of worry about the new baby on the
scene, but out of concern with what Herod would do to quench the threat of
losing power. The end of our reading
this morning shows that Jerusalem’s fears were well founded—for here we see the
war between God and evil escalate as evil, through Herod, tries to stifle the
plans of God.
Herod, after
finding information from his advisors, directs the magi to Bethlehem, asking
them to report where they found the child that he may go and worship this
little boy. The magi, we figure are wise
enough to know that Herod had ulterior motives, but in case they didn’t, God
sent yet another “dream angel” to discourage them from returning to Herod after
they found young Jesus.
You remember that
I said when we began this series that Bethlehem’s history, particularly from
Judges, would garner a movie about its story an NC-17 rating? Well, what happens next, when Herod realizes
that the magi have ditched him, would help push the entire nativity story in
that direction. Infuriated, and worried
that his rule was in jeopardy, taking into account the two years that the magi
had followed the star, possibly inspired by the Egyptian pharaoh of old, had
all the boys in and around Bethlehem two years old and younger, slaughtered. Talk about evil taking a great swing back at
God as a result of God’s declaration of war…
While the magi
may have avoided becoming embroiled in Herod’s plan to quickly rid Israel of
any threat to his throne—their visit contained their own message of
darkness. While Luke conveyed the
warning to Mary through Simeon—it was the gifts that the magi brought through
which Matthew offers his foreshadowing of the trouble to come.
The magi have
brought with them three gifts. The first
is gold. It is a gift fitting for a
king—in that time, it was considered the richest of metals; the gold would also
be able to serve as a resource to help aid Mary and Joseph who had risked, and
now seemed to be without, financial security.
The frankincense, often burned during worship, would be a nod to the
priestly role that Jesus would take. However,
it was the myrrh that would contribute to our dark picture. Myrrh had two primary uses in the time of
Jesus…one was that of a painkiller…the other is when it is used as a form of
embalming fluid. These two are the
instances, the only instances, in which myrrh appears later within the
gospels—the first is when myrrh mixed with wine is offered to Jesus as he hung
on the cross, possibly to ease his pain, or maybe to get him to relax and stop
fighting for breath and lead death overtake him. The second instance is when Joseph of Arimathea
and Nicodemus remove Jesus’ body from the cross and prepare him for
burial—myrrh is mentioned among the spices they brought to anoint Jesus’ body
as they placed him in the tomb. Here,
amongst the gifts of those who followed the star to find the One who would be
King, not only of the Jews, but in reality, all of Creation—an offering to the
High Priest of high priests—was a gift that underlined the fact that this tiny
baby was a gift of joy and sorrow, for those tiny hands which would wrap
themselves around one of Mary or Joseph’s fingers would one day be pierced with
a nail—as the One who was rejected in Bethlehem, and in Nazareth, and in the
Gadarenes, would also be rejected in Jerusalem and hung upon a cross.
So, some may be
asking, if we have spent these two months reflecting on all this darkness of
the Christmas story, is there anywhere that we find the call to celebration and
light? Is there reason that we might put
up the trees, hang the lights, and find joy in the season?
Very much so…God
did not leave Bethlehem in its remote darkness and sin but chose to enter into
the darkness and wage war on sin and evil with “the light of the world.”
While evil tried
to defeat God by having Joseph abandon Mary, God moved Joseph to stay by her
side.
While evil tried
to gain the upper hand in the war through Herod’s slaughtering of the
innocents—an act of unspeakable, unimaginable evil—God prevailed by directing
Mary and Joseph to flee with their toddler to Egypt, later to return to
Nazareth.
Later evil would
try to prevail at the cross, only to have the empty tomb declare God’s victory.
The truth of
Christmas, my friends, is that while darkness and evil may still wage a battle
here and there, sometimes in unspeakable ways, we worship the God who has
already claimed the ultimate victory and we proclaim this through our lights
that cut into the darkness and our carols that break the silence and turn
mourning into rejoicing.
May the joy of
Christmas that God has not left us to suffer in sin and evil but entered in to
our dark world fill us not just during December and early January, but all year
long…
In the Name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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