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The Bible is the story of people on the move. Abraham moves to
Canaan from a distant
land in the East. Jacob flees famine in Canaan and moves to Egypt, where his descendants are enslaved. Later, Moses brings
them back to Canaan, to the land of promise and freedom, but with Pharaoh at their heels. Later still,
the descendants of
Moses are taken to Babylon in chains, but today we hear the prophet preparing them for their return to Canaan, preparing them
for their return home to freedom and life.
Much later still, when Jesus was born, the Magi, wise men from the East, travel to Bethlehem, and after laying their
gifts at Jesus' feet, they return to their homes. Then Mary and Joseph flee to Egypt with the infant Jesus, to escape the
terror of Herod, and four years later they return to Nazareth.
These are journeys we're all familiar with. And today, on this Second Sunday of Christmas, St. Paul reminds us that
it was not for the sake of travel that all these journeys happened. They all happened for a purpose, Paul tells us. All the
pilgrims of the Bible, from Abraham to the Magi, traveled in search of something. And all were led on their way, led by God,
Paul says, led toward an inheritance that God himself had planned for them from before the creation of the world.
It was God who led Abraham to the land of promise in the beginning. It was God who led Jacob to Egypt. It was God
who led Moses and the people back to Canaan. It was God, the prophet tells us this morning, who gathered the exiles from the
ends of the earth and led them back to Jerusalem. It was God, who, by the leading of a star, guided the wise men to
Bethlehem, and it was God, who, in a dream, warned them not to present themselves to Herod, but to return to the East by
another route. And it was God, in a dream, who led Joseph to take Mary and the infant Jesus to the safety of Egypt and then
to return home again to Nazareth when Herod's threat was past.
In all of it, says Paul -- through angels, through dreams, through the leading of a star -- it is God who guides
us home, who leads us to an inheritance prepared by God himself from before the creation of the world. This is an
astonishing assertion that should have all who believe it trembling all the way to our toenails.
In Wonderland, Alice finds herself on the road. And at the edge of the woods, she looks up and sees the Cheshire Cat
sitting on the limb of a tree. And Alice asks the cat, "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" And
the cat says, "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to." "I don't much care where," responds Alice. "Then it
doesn't matter which way you go," says the cat. "Oh, well, so long as I get somewhere," explains Alice. "Oh, you're sure to
do that," says the cat, "if only you walk far enough."
But when the wise men saw the star, they followed its lead because they wanted to get somewhere in particular. The
Magi were good and holy men who sought wisdom and truth, philosophers from a foreign land who spent their lives seeking
truth, and trying to live it. These wise men, like all people of their day, believed that wisdom and truth lay in the stars,
because the stars were the fixed places of the heavens. The stars were stable and pursued their unvarying courses. They
revealed the order of the universe, so you couldn't get lost if you followed the stars. And so, when they saw the star in
the East, a star that was new to them, they followed it, because it pointed to a new wisdom, a new revelation, a new epiphany
in the world.
We now know that the stars are not fixed at all. They are very much in motion, and it's by studying the stars that
we have come to know additional truths about God's world, truths about black holes and singularities and all that, and about
how God's world might have grown and changed since the time of creation. So the stars, even though they are very much in
motion and not at all what the wise men of Jesus' day thought they were, are still places where we look for truth.
And even though stars are not fixed in their places as the wise men thought, they are still reliable guides for
getting places in particular on earth, if you know where it is you want to get to, and that's why navigators still keep their
eye on Betelgeuse, or on the North Star, because relative to earth they are still relatively fixed.
One of the wise men of our day, Yogi Berra, said, "If you come to a fork in the road, take it." But, wisely, he also
added, "If you don't know where you're going, you could end up somewhere else."
Where do we want to get to? Where do we as God's people in this place this morning want to get to? Which star do we
follow? That's the question.
If one of your destinations in life is money, you might follow The Wall Street Journal or the little screen with the
latest quotations from New York and London and Tokyo. If one of your destinations in life is sports, perhaps you'll follow
ESPN or The Sporting News. If one of your destinations in life is somewhere in the world of politics, then CNN or The New
York Times may be among the stars you keep track of. All of these, and lots of others, are stars that are useful for our
moving around in the world in the 21st century.
The Wall Street Journal , however, and ESPN and The New York Times, are all parochial stars, minor, localized stars
that are helpful for our particular place and time in history, and for limited destinations.
But what star is there that can guide us for life? What star can lead us to life itself? What star can lead us
home, whether now in the present, or earlier in the past, or later in the future? Is there a light that can lead us to
wisdom and revelation, to love and to grace, whenever and wherever?
St. Paul says that God, the Father and Creator of the stars and of all that is, chose you -- chose you -- before
he made the stars and the world. He chose you in Christ, says Paul, "before the world was made, marking you for himself
beforehand to be his adopted son or daughter through Jesus Christ." That is stunning news! If it hasn't got your attention,
someone should pinch you.
"To be his son or daughter," says Paul, "is the Father's purpose and destination for you," and "he has let us know
the mystery of his purpose -- that he would bring everything together in Christ, everything in the heavens -- all the stars
themselves -- and everything on earth."
"Where is he?" the wise men asked when they arrived from the East. "Where is the Christ? Where is he who has been
born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East and have come to worship him."
The Magi knew where they wanted to get to. And they went. Led by the star, led by the new star in the heavens, they
made their way to Bethlehem to the inheritance God had chosen for them and has chosen for us. They made their way to Christ,
in whom all things in heaven and on earth are destined to be brought together by the Father. And when they found him, they
offered gifts. And they worshiped.
Christ, Paul reminds us, is the Light who explains the mystery of God's purpose for us. He is our destination, our
home, whenever and wherever. He is the One in whom we find sense and purpose in life, regardless of time or
circumstance.
The world still follows other lights, of course, because there are other, competing destinations; there are other
stars whose gravities attract and pull us. And that's why Herod, who had all the power in Judea that Rome would permit him,
went looking for the Light the wise men had seen. He wanted to snuff him out, because he feared he might overcome the dim
light of his own star.
But the mystery of God's purpose was that all stars, and all things in heaven and on earth, would be brought together
in one, in Christ, to fulfill God's own purpose for us, and for the world, even for Herod.
So an angel, a messenger of God, appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Take the child and his mother and go to
Egypt, and stay there until I tell you, because Herod intends to search for this child and to kill him." So Joseph took
Jesus and Mary to Egypt, and they did not return until the threat of Herod was over, because it was God's purpose that this
child would not perish, but that all things would be brought together in him.
Because Joseph heeded the message of the angel, the Light the wise men saw in the East is still with us. The Light
of all eternity remains in the world. And the questions also remain, the questions of heaven and earth, the questions of
life, the questions Herod himself asked, the questions that each of us ask: Where is this Light now? Where is it today?
What does it mean for us? Where does it lead?
Karl Barth, one of the great theologians of the twentieth century, once observed something very important about
Christian worship. He said that when we Christians affirm in the Creed that "we believe in the holy catholic church," we do
not mean that we believe in the Church. We mean, rather, that we believe that God is present and at work in the Church. We
mean that "in this assembly [here today] the work of the Holy Spirit takes place.... We do not believe in the church," he
said, "but we do believe that in this congregation -- [and in congregations like it throughout time and the world] -- the
work of the Holy Spirit becomes an event." Becomes an event as real today as that event in Bethlehem long ago.
"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" said Alice. "That depends a good deal," said the
cat, "on where you want to get to."
Where do we want to get to?
"To attend the typical Protestant Sunday morning worship service," wrote Edward Farley, "is to experience something
odd, something like a charade. The discourse -- invocation, praises, hymns, confessions, sacred texts -- indicates that
the event celebrates a sacred presence. But this discourse is neutralized by the prevailing mood, [a mood] which is casual,
comfortable, chatty, busy, humorous, pleasant, and at times even cute," a mood which is a sign "not of a sacred reality, but
of various congregational self-preoccupations... Lacking is a sense of the terrible mystery of God, which sets language
a-tremble and silences facile chattiness. If the seraphim assumed this Sunday morning mood, they would be addressing God not
as 'holy, holy, holy,' but as 'nice, nice, nice.' (Edward Farley, The Christian Century, March 18-26, 1998, pp. 276-277)
Worship, Farley reminds us, is not the ritual activities of a Sunday morning. Worship is not singing hymns about the
omnipotent power of God. Worship is not listening to therapeutic sermons on how to be released from guilt or to dogmatic
sermons on salvation by grace rather than works. Worship is a personal engagement with the sacred, an engagement with that
which is both ineffably mysterious and ineffably gracious and loving. Worship is opening ourselves to mystery and to
gracious love. Adoration before that which is both mysterious and lovely, that's what worship is!
"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" said Alice. "That depends a good deal," said the
cat, "on where you want to get to."
Where do we want to get to? Do we want to get to the place where the Holy Spirit is an event? Do we want to get to
the place where God bends down and kisses the world? Do we want to get to the place where love marries sin, and redeems it?
Do we want to get to Bethlehem, to the place where, "silently, silently, the wondrous gift is given," to the place where "God
imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven," to the place "where Christmas comes once more"?
If we want to get to Bethlehem, then our question this morning is not the question of theology (Is it grace that
saves us, or works?). If we want to get to the place where love marries sin, and redeems it, if we want to get to the place
where love is born, and where love lives and dies for the sake of his beloved, then ours is the question of the Magi: "Where
is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the East and have come to worship him."
If home is where we want to get to, if the love prepared for us from before the creation of the world is what we
desire to enjoy, then our song is not the song of power. It's not "Onward Christian Soldiers," nor is it "God the Omnipotent
King, who ordainest thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword." If we want to get to the place where God bends down and
kisses the world, if we want to experience the event of the sacred, if we want to engage both mystery and love, if we want to
engage the mysterious union of love marrying sin and redeeming it, then ours can only be the song of the Magi: "Glorious now
behold him arise! King and God and Sacrifice. Heaven sings alleluia: alleluia the earth replies! O star of wonder, star of
night, star with royal beauty bright; westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect light!"
If we want to get to Bethlehem, and home, then ours is the star of the Magi.
In the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. |