Luke and Matthew each give us their perspective, with different theological insights. While John doesn’t technically give us any details about the birth of Jesus, he does focus in his prologue on what it all means: “In the beginning was the Word…” Along the way he gives us that powerful metaphor of the light that continues to shine in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (That in itself is worth at least a half, I think!)
The fixed point in all of these narratives is
Jesus. He is the one we come to adore over these twelve days of Christmas.
Taken together, these two and a half stories get us to something like a script
for a pageant play. But clearly Luke dominates: everything else seems to fit in
and around his story. In fact most Christmas pageants are basically Luke’s
story with Matthew’s wise guys tagged on to the end, as latecomers to the party.
But there is also some benefit that comes to us from listening more attentively to each unique voice here. After all, we get four gospel writers, rather than just one, for a reason. Think of it like this: you are gathered around the family dinner table and everybody is talking at once and telling a story that everybody already knows. Each voice chimes in with part of the story: in the case of the Christmas story we hear once more about shepherds and angels and baby Jesus and stars and wise men and donkeys and light in the darkness. It all kind of fits together.
But now imagine, for a moment, in the aftermath
of all the big parties that you have a chance to sit and chat with Matthew over
a cup of coffee. And imagine he leans toward you and says something like this:
“look, Luke is my friend, and I know that’s how he remembers it and everything.
But here’s what I heard…”
When the altar guild set up for Christmas in
here, they left the three wise guys back in the chapel. But now they have
arrived. Today we are invited to listen more closely to what Matthew has to say
and to see if there isn’t a Word of the Lord here for us as we begin this new
year of grace together. Like Luke and John, Matthew doesn’t claim to have been
there. He is a second-generation witness; telling a story that somebody else
told him.
He begins with a genealogy that ties Jesus to
King David and Father Abraham. The family tree goes through Joseph, “the
husband of Mary.” Along the way, four important and interesting women get
named: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. Matthew, the most Jewish of the four
gospel writers, assumes that his readers will know the stories of those four
interesting women. Just as in our own family trees, each of those people left a
mark on Jesus. We may look like our mother or have a mannerism like a great
uncle or musical talent like an aunt. Matthew wants to situate Jesus in a
Jewish family that traces its lineage back to David, and still further back to
Abraham—each of whom in some way leaves a mark on him. (As do Tamar and Rahab
and Ruth and Bathsheba.)
Right on the heels of that genealogy, Matthew
tells us about a dream that Joseph had even before Jesus was born. Joseph had resolved
to quietly divorce Mary when he learned that she was pregnant. But in a dream
an angel tells him not to do that; but to go ahead and marry Mary and to give
the child his name: Jesus. Joseph awoke from sleep, does as the angel of
the Lord commanded him, takes Mary as his wife, but had no marital relations
with her until she had born a son. And Joseph names him Jesus.
Today we picked up the narrative again: “in the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem…”
See what I mean? No angelic choirs, no shepherds, no manger, no census. Just these rather strange stargazers from the east who come looking for the child, find him, and then go home by another way. For Matthew they are not latecomers who arrived after those poor humble shepherds. As Matthew tells it, these goyim from the east are the first. The theological point is that they are not Jews. Jesus is revealed to the nations—to the Gentiles. Jesus has come into the world to make a new creation where there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female: just people in it together on this fragile earth, our island home.
The entire season of Epiphany is an ongoing reflection on this theme. These wise guys with their highly symbolic gifts underscore a missional point that Matthew will reiterate at the very end of his gospel: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” (Mt. 28:19-20) The journey of the magi is about spreading the good news. It’s about telling the story.
The second point I want to make about these wise guys is to remind you of a metaphor that we sometimes take for granted because it is so common in the Bible. Faith is a journey. Like Abraham and Sarah, these magi go out, leaving behind the familiar. They follow the star to find the Christ. They are astrologers, so in that sense the star shouldn’t be a surprise. The point here is not of a magic star, but that God showed them the way, just as God shows us the way. The star functions as something like “the yellow brick road.” God is the ultimate GPS system, and this story seems to be suggesting that if we, too, trust God, then our own journeys will lead us to Christ.
T. S. Eliot reflected on this theme in his poem, “Journey of the Magi,” which I commend to you. Today, as it happens, we will celebrate Holy Baptism. Full disclosure: usually that would happen next Sunday when Jesus is baptized by John at the Jordan River. But I’ll be on my own journey next Sunday, on a pilgrimage called The Legacy of Racism in Montgomery, Alabama. Hathy and I signed up for this pilgrimage before I even ever heard of St. Michael’s, Bristol. We are headed there with my friends from The Society of St. John the Evangelist in Cambridge. So we get Baptism today which is not an ending but the beginning of a life-long journey. So today we get to welcome Charlotte Rose into the Body of Christ, reminding her and her parents and godparents and extended family of what they already know in their hearts: that she is a beloved child of God, forever.
One further point that I want to make about
Matthew’s Christmas story is that it seems very important to him to make it
clear that the magi come “to pay Jesus homage.” That phrase comes up three
times: at the beginning, middle, and end of Matthew’s story. In the middle it
is Herod, not the magi, who speak these words. He is lying, of course, when he
tells the magi that he wants to find the child in order to pay homage to him;
in truth he wants to destroy him. (Which is why the magi have to go home by
another way.) Even so, there is some irony here. The difference between wise
kings and despotic ones seems to be that wise ones know their authority is
derivative. They know who is really “king of kings” and “lord of lords.”
Our three kings come to prostrate themselves
before Jesus. They recognize Him for who he really is. Even before they offer
him their gifts, the magi pay him homage.
As we begin this New Year together and as this
year unfolds, we also come to pay him homage. Whatever our work, whatever our
calling, whether we are liberals or conservatives: we come here to bow down
before Christ. We come to pay him homage. That is where we find our unity: in
worship that keeps Christ at the center of our life together.
Luke’s story may be the most familiar and
beloved, and easily adapted for “the stage.” And it’s true that you can fit
Matthew and John into Luke’s story around the edges and it works just fine. But
there is some benefit in allowing Matthew to have the floor on this day and to
speak in his own voice before we put away all the Christmas decorations until
next year. Matthew’s Christmas story reminds us of at least three things as we
begin this New Year together:
1.
Christ is born not just for us, but for all the world. Our
work is to share that good news at all times, sometimes even with words.
2.
Faith is a journey: we don’t need all the answers; just to trust
in God to lead us to the Christ and to take the next step, and then the next...
3.
When we find the place, Matthew reminds us that the correct
response is to fall on our knees and worship this newborn king. Come,
let us adore him.
As this Christmas Season comes to a close I want to offer
a prayer from the late Howard Thurman who was Dean at Marsh Chapel at Boston
University from 1953 – 1965. It points us, I think, in the direction we need to
head as we call this Christmas a wrap. It points us, as a congregation in the
midst of a pastoral transition, to the work God has given us to do and that we
intend to model for Catherine Rose as we renew our own baptismal promises. Let
us pray:
When the song of the angels is stilled
when the
star in the sky is gone
when the
kings and princes are home
when the
shepherds are back with their flocks
the work of
Christmas begins:
to find the
lost
to heal the
broken
to feed the
hungry
to release
the prisoner
to rebuild
the nations
to bring
peace among the people
to make
music in the heart.
