Will Rice - Sermon #14 - Broken Glass and Wise Men

Rev. Will Rice
Grace United Methodist Church
Corpus Christi, TX
pastorwillrice@gmail.com

Matthew 2:1-12

This year, in an attempt to not fall off a ladder, I lined my front walk with Christmas lights. I think it turned out rather pretty. However, if you have been by the parsonage during the last few evenings, you may have noticed that the lights are out. It is not that I am done with Christmas, it is that my neighbor’s dog keeps running through my yard, tripping on the lights, pulling the stakes out of the lawn and breaking the bulbs.

As I was bent over in front of the house the other morning, reconnecting cords and picking up glass, I realized that those lights and that dog were a perfect metaphor (simile) for how the Christmas season tends to go. The weeks surrounding Christmas are full of beautiful light. As we string up lights and put up trees our hearts are lit up with the blessing of family, the joy of giving and receiving gifts, that special magic brought on by the sights and sounds of Christmas. And without fail, for someone, sometimes for everyone, something comes crashing through the yard breaking all the Christmas lights.

I will never forget last Christmas. I hadn’t even opened all my presents before I heard the terrible news, news that just kept getting worse, news of a wave so big and powerful that it would take days before we were even able to judge the scope of its impact. In an instant as I watched CNN Sunday morning the December 26th, Christmas was over. To be honest, it didn’t happen in an instant. Like many of you, the first time I heard the news it didn’t sink in. The human mind is an amazing thing. When we hear news of this magnitude, our mind tends to protect us. I don’t think it quite sunk in until about Tuesday. Whatever the precise moment it really sunk in, the joyful, innocent wonder of Christmas was pulled right out from under me.

Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright… didn’t seem as appropriate any more as counts of the dead surpassed 100,000.

It is not usually of that level of drama or magnitude, but that sort of thing happens every year. Christmas is interrupted by the death of loved ones and sudden illnesses. Firefighters are called out on Christmas day to try and help save everything a family owns from flames. Because Christmas falls at the end of the year, people often return to work after celebrating with their family only to find out their job is being eliminated as of the first of the year.

I think that this day of the Christmas celebration and this piece of scripture are both important in how we understand the coming of Christ into the world around us. There is a big temptation to just lump the wise men in with the rest of the Christmas story and move on. But there is important stuff here.

Today, we celebrate what is technically the last Sunday of Christmas, The Epiphany of the Lord. On this day, we recount a story that, even for people who don’t go to church much, we all know pretty well. For many, it is just the frosting on the cake of the Christmas story. The three mystical wise men come and present the baby Jesus with wonderful gifts. Through the years, tradition has added quite a bit to the scripture. We decided that there were three men somewhere along the way. It makes sense, there were three gifts. In the sixth century we even gave them names, Melchior, Caspar and Balthasar.

Today we celebrate the Epiphany of the Lord a Christian celebration older than Christmas itself. Before we look more closely at the text, let’s look at the word epiphany. It comes from the Greek word epiphinea which means manifestation or appearance. So we are celebrating the appearance of God in Jesus Christ, as we say at Christmas, Emmanuel, which means God with us. What is interesting is how this word has come to be used in modern English:

A comprehension or perception of reality by means of a sudden intuitive realization.[1]

As in “I just had an epiphany!” Let me give you an example of this. My wife and I have different opinions regarding coffee. She thinks it is a warm, tasty, morning beverage. I think it is a vehicle for delivering caffeine. Therefore, she likes decaf and I like caffeinated coffee. For some time, we compromised. We would take some decaf coffee beans and some caffeinated coffee beans and mix them together to make a sort of half and half concoction. The result was that my wife Alisha ended up having more caffeine than she really needed and I ended up having way less. Then one day, I had an epiphany! I realized we could have two coffee makers! Ever since, we have both been much happier and our marriage has been much stronger.

But the Epiphany we celebrate today is a little more important than mine.

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, ²asking, ‘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.’

Alright, who came from the East? Wise men? Three Kings? Magi? The Greek text actually says magoi, which really refers to some sort of magician/priest/astrologer. I don’t know if “wise men” is very descriptive. They have just gone to King Herod, a very powerful, paranoid and violent man, who considers himself “King of the Jews” as well he should, he was given that title by Rome. These “wise men” have gone to this “King of the Jews” and asked him for directions to find some new “King of the Jews.” As I like to point out to my wife, bad things happen when men ask for directions.

King Herod did what powerful, paranoid rulers do when threatened. He panicked.

³When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him;

All of Jerusalem with him, because they knew how wicked his temper could be. After all, Herod was already known for many executions during his rise to power and reign including those of his own wife and children. Jerusalem was not frightened at the thought of a new king; they were frightened at the thought of what their current king might do in response. And that fright was well founded, if we read on in Matthew’s gospel, we hear how Herod struck out in panic.

While what Herod would eventually do was quite violent, what he did first was just sneaky and deceitful.

⁷Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. ⁸Then 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.’

Herod had no intention of paying homage, he wanted the threat to his power destroyed! But due to the intervention of a messenger, Herod’s evil plan would be thwarted:

¹²And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

Christmas is a time for celebration, so it is tempting to end here, thanking God for intervening against Herod’s evil plan! But there is more to this story.

In the tradition of the Catholic Church, December 28^th, just three days after Christmas is observed as Holy Innocents day, which recognizes what Matthew talks about next. Even in our own tradition, last year year, it was assigned to be read the Sunday after, the very day after Christmas, which I did, though I am not sure how it went.

¹³Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." ¹⁴Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, ¹⁵and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, "Out of Egypt I have called my son." ¹⁶When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men.

Those wonderful, peaceful images portrayed in our Christmas carols: O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie, above thy deep and dreamless sleep, the silent stars go by... are being shattered by this not suited for all audiences, senseless violence.

Just like the feeling I had when the news of the terrible tragedy of the tsunami sunk in, just like many feel when the telephone rings with horrible news, the joyful, innocent wonder of Christmas is pulled right out from under me. In the true context of Matthew’s gospel, just like in the true context of the world we live in, Christmas is not the sugar coated, candy cane, fluffy snow story tradition has made it. It is true hope of Emmanuel, God with us even in and especially in a broken and hurting world.

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. ¹⁰When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. ¹¹On 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.

This is the epiphany. This moment that Jesus is manifested, made real to these wise men. In the context of their broken, dangerous world, a world in which Herod had tried to trick them into revealing the location of this new king, a world in which Herod wished to use that information to bring harm to this new baby king, a world in which a lot of innocent children lost their lives as a result, “they were overwhelmed with joy.” And, “they knelt down and paid him homage,” and “offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”

You see my metaphor of the dog and the Christmas lights in technically flawed. It is not the reality of our world crashing into and disrupting Christmas, it is Christmas crashing into, breaking into the reality of our world. It is more like those Christmas lights just jumped right out in front of that poor dog.

Think about that image for a moment. With all that is going on, these men are kneeling down and presenting gifts to a helpless baby.

This can change our whole perspective. Instead of seeing those harsh realities that barge into our lives as intrusions into and a derailing of our celebration of Christmas, perhaps we can realize that it is Christmas, it is Christ that is barging into those harsh realities.

I do have an epiphany. I do have a manifestation that brings me hope even in the midst of personal, societal, even global suffering. I know from the context of Christ’s birth, the context of Christ’s life and the context of Christ’s suffering death and resurrection, that Christmas is not a story that can be interrupted by the realities of our world, but Christmas celebrates the epiphany, the manifestation of God into the realities of our world. And this, gives us hope in the midst of despair, light in the midst of darkness.

Because of Christ, because of Christmas, because God is with us.

Glory to God. Amen

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[1] The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.