“Remember Jesus’ entire ministry was
devoted to people that were not regular churchgoers, those who were isolated
people because of job or circumstance.”
O God be in my mouth as I speak
for you and fill this place with your great grace, that we may leave this place
less of what we use to be and more of what we ought to be, through Jesus Christ
our Lord. Amen
Christmas is a wonderful time
for stories. What are some of your favorites: The Night Before Christmas,
The Littlest Angel, perhaps The Polar Express?
Christmas is also a time we
share more personal stories, stories about our families, the times we shared together
with ones that we loved; It is also a time to grieve the loss of those close to
us and, a time to celebrate the blessings we have received.
Of course, for Christians, the
Christmas story, next to the Easter resurrection, is the greatest story ever
told.
Yet as in all stories that we
have heard over and over again through the years, there can be times that we
fail to appreciate the human dimension of this night.
If we are not careful, the men
and women of the Bible can become like our stain glass windows, we see the
beauty and glory of what they represent, but we miss the blood, the sweat and
tears behind the story.
Think for a moment of someone
like Noah, building his ark, muscles aching at the end of a long day. Think of
Joseph walking though the streets of Bethlehem, with a pregnant wife
desperately searching for a safe place to spend the night.
In most cases, we know the
triumphant conclusions of these stories, Noah saves the human race and Joseph
finds a stable for his wife to give birth to the Savior of the human race.
But they each had a long hard
journey to make before they got enjoy the brand new beginning that God made
possible in their lives.
Tonight I want to spend a little
while discussing some other key participants in the birth story who don’t
always get their due.
In recent years it has become
popular to discard them from nativity scenes or tell people they did not arrive
on that first Christmas eve.
I am speaking of course, of the
three wise men, or magi, that followed a star to the town of Bethlehem in order
to behold the wonder of Jesus’ birth.
Now although we know their quest
was successful, I am sure their pilgrimage must have involved a good deal of
hardship and a considerable amount of doubt.
Travel two thousand years ago
might not have looked like I-285 at rush hour, but there were just as many
dangers, if the bandits didn’t get you, a sharp turn in the weather could.
The poet, T.S. Eliot understood
this in his poem, the Journey of the Magi.
In his poem, he imagines what
the Magi must have thought so many years after their well-known journey.
A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year,
For a journey, and such a long
journey;
The ways deep and the weather
sharp.
The very dead of winter,
And the night fires going out, and
the lack of shelters,
And the villages dirty and
charging high prices;
A hard time we had of it,
At the end we preferred to travel
all night,
Sleeping in snatches
With the voices singing in our
ears, saying
That this was all folly.
As Eliot suggests the Magi
overcame much adversity and personal cost to travel to Bethlehem. Their bodies
were tired and their minds were weary. Merchants raised prices (well that
certainly hasn’t changed much)
Above all the practical voices
in their ears told them “that all this was folly” that what they had hoped to
find, that what they expected would be waiting for them, did not exist at all.
Maybe you can relate to the
magi’s dilemma.
You have come to church, unsure
if this religious stuff is worth the trouble or that a birth 2,000 years ago
really matters today.
Instead of Christmas carols, the
songs of the so-called sophisticated of our present age sing in your ears, that
there is no God, only human beings.
Isn’t life only about accumulating
personal wealth or physical pleasure?
That is certainly the
contemporary fables we see played out on television in shows like Survivor
and The Apprentice.
Yet, the story of the wise men
reminds us that in order to attain something lasting and life changing, we have
to give something up that might seem valuable.
The Magi would not have met
Jesus at his birth, if they had stayed home. They had to leave behind the
comforts of their lives and go to look for him.
We too, like them, must journey
to find the Lord. But the journey for
modern folks is not always geographical.
It is an inward spiritual quest
that draws all people to seek a closer relationship to our creator and God’s
son, Jesus Christ.
Your journey to be closer to God
can begin tonight, if you are willing to seek God with the same kind of courage
and trust that the wise men showed.
You see the life of a person on
a journey is different. The Magi for example, could not take all of their
possessions with them on their search.
They left behind their many
servants, their rich and luxurious homes and set out with only the things they
could carry with their small entourage.
The same applies to a spiritual
journey. Too much stuff, too many possessions can be distracting.
If we are overly concerned with
acquiring money, we cannot use it to help other people.
If we are overly concerned with
impressing other people, we will not have the humility to help a person who
needs our assistance.
If we are too concerned with the
anxieties of our daily lives, we will not make the time to pray even for a
brief moment.
Let’s face it a lot of
contemporary life is about isolation, isolation from each other, God and our
selves. This point was driven home for
me in an airport restaurant not too long when I observed a family of four,
eating dinner together.
They sat in their booth,
headphones on their heads, watching a movie on DVD, cut off from conversation,
and each other.
Yet the longer I live, the more
I believe that Christmas is for people exactly like the ones who I saw at the
airport.
Remember, Jesus’ entire ministry
was devoted to people that were not regular churchgoers, those who were
isolated people because of job or circumstance.
The tax collectors, the
prostitutes, the fishermen, all these and more from the Gospel stories were
just as spiritually hungry as we are tonight.
For you see, celebrating
Christmas is not only about taking a journey to find God.
It is an opportunity for the
Christian Church to reclaim Jesus for people that really need him.
To say it another way the magi
knew that, although, they traveled to see a birth, they were also to experience
death, not a physical death, but death to their old ways of thinking.
Indeed Eliot’s poem, quoted
earlier ends with the following lines.
I had seen birth and death
But had thought they were
different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like
Death, our death.
The magi had to die to their
doubts and fears. They had to empty themselves of all their riches and of all
those things that gave them a false sense of confidence.
On this night the magi say to
all of us, “I have given my life to Christ, even when the only thing guiding me
is a faint star in the midnight sky.”
This is an admission that is not
easy to make, and frankly it is even harder to live this confession in a world
that is so full of sin and doubt.
But being wise like the magi
involves seeing our death to the world as something quite different.
Death like Eliot described is
really all about the possibility of new life, much like the kind that Noah saw
when he opened the door of the ark after the flood and the same kind that
filled the hearts of Mary and Joseph with such joy as they gazed on the face of
their newborn son.
Christmas announces to the world
that a Savior has been born. The magi respond by giving Jesus three precious
gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh.
Yet we don’t need fancy gifts
for God. We only need a heart that is humble, honest and ready to start the
search.
I have never believed much in
coincidences. I believe that every person at St. Martin’s is here for a reason.
God made it possible for you to be with us tonight.
My prayer is that like the wise men, you will find what you are seeking and that in your death, you will find a new life that is more valuable than any gift you may have ever received.