From this morning’s service at Todmorden:
Isaiah 60:1 Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you.Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. Lift up your eyes and look around; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from far away, and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses’ arms.Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice, because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you. A multitude of camels shall cover you, the young camels of Midian and Ephah; all those from Sheba shall come. They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.
Wow, that’s a different start to the new calendar year:
we are to arise and shine, ok got that one; the wealth of the nations shall come to us, sounds good; and a multitude of camels from different lands shall arrive. We will need some extra space I think!
Looks like we are going to have visitors!!!
What does this say to us today?
How was your Christmas? What do you mean you’ve packed up the tree, tidied all the tinsel and put it back up in the loft or that special box you have for the Christmas decorations? Was that it? All that time preparing and it’s all over?
The churches calendar suggests that Christmas is not over until early February!! But please don’t tell the shops, or they’ll continue to play all those Christmas records again. Can you have too much Cliff Richard and Mistletoe and Wine?
Where have the Holy Family gone? The manger is empty – we saw that on Christmas Day. For those who read Luke’s account they stuck around Jerusalem for some time, before Jesus was presented to the Temple. But if we look at Matthew’s Gospel they are to flee away.
Here are your camels possibly; how else did they travel those distances: uber?. The wise men, not Kings, nor 3 of them, probably astrologers from the East, beyond Grimsby, have arrived. These could be those from Sheba, Oman?, to the south, or from further East, such as Persia (a country very much in our news today) or even India. They bring gifts. How welcome might we have been to travellers from afar, bearing very expensive but unusual even bizarre gifts?
‘They’ being men, as women are not mention again. I wonder if it was the way that people wrote then, rather than deliberately not mentioning them, they were overlooked. Nevertheless, gifts are brought.
Q1 So my first question for you to discuss is: what did the wise men bring and why?
Gold, fit for a king; frankincense, fit for a priest to burn as incense; and myrrh, fit to get a King ready for death.
Here perhaps we might ponder whether the gifts we have heard brought by the Magi were metaphors, gifts which had deeper hidden meaning – more value than the item itself – you might have had such a gift at Christmas?
Q2 The Chief priests and scribes, also known as the Pharisees told the King where they might find this new ‘king’. How would they know where to go?
The star which rose up and was seemingly stationary over Bethlehem. They could also draw upon Roman astrology which predicted that a king would come from Judea. That’s why they needed to know when the star first appeared. Scientists now think it was Saturn and Jupiter being seen in the same space of sky, which would create a very bright source of light and would appear stationary for some period of time.
Herod gets a big part to play in today’s lesson. I feel that we may want to boo and hiss when his name gets a mention.
Q3 How was Herod so horrid, and why?
He was a puppet ruler of Judea, put there because of Emperor Augustus. Just as here in Todmorden there is that of being an outsider or ‘one of us’; Herod wasn’t one of them, his family line was from the Edomites and not of the Hasmonaeans who had ruled the place for decades earlier. Herod had previously killed his wife, Mariamme, about 20 years before Christ’s birth and then banished or killed (disputed) his next wife, Doris, in 7-4BC, just before the birth of Christ, just in case they overthrew Herod. [Note Christ’s birth may have occurred in or around 6-4 BC] The Jews didn’t like Herod one little bit. Many wonder that if all the boys under 2 years old were killed and if so, why did John the Baptist also escape?
Q4 Mary & Joseph, with Jesus, escaped to Egypt. Why?
This was written between 80-90 AD, so the author of the Gospel wasn’t probably a witness to the birth. The Temple in Jerusalem had been torn down, destroyed, in 70 AD and the Jews still felt really badly about this. This Gospel was written for them, the Jews. They needed to know that this Jesus was someone really special. And he was, is.
For he came from the line of David, hence born in Bethlehem; and his story is closely linked to Moses as they sought refuge in Egypt before returning to their homeland. This resonated very strongly with the Jews this Gospel was written for, they readily understood the prophecies from the Old Testament and the deeper meaning.
So what of today?
This baby was born in circumstances not for for an earthly king, had dubious parentage, is worshipped not be the locals but by visitors from afar. Whereas Herod ruled illegitimately, by force and bloodshed, the wise men from the East, brought gifts and found their saviour, despite any knowledge of the Torah. The Jews who had expected their Messiah, now found themselves worshipping with many more people, even outsiders.
How would we feel if outsiders came here and sought to change the way we look at things, worshipped?
After many months of electioneering we may be very glad that it has all been completed. There has been much conversation about immigration, or overseas workers, of acceptance of the other. Where do you see this here in the Gospel?
Paul writes in his letter to the people of southern Turkey many years before the author of Matthew got to work writing his Gospel “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” …for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
As we start this new year, I wonder if we may be able to see everyone as one in Christ Jesus? That we may accept one another freely.
The Magi didn’t attend ‘church’ but they knew who Christ was…as may have Herod. If an enemy is one whose story we have yet to hear, can we welcome them and build bridges?
We leave today, knowing of the story of the Wise Men as they visited King Herod, how the Holy Family were worshipped by foreigners, given gifts which highlighted the life ahead for Jesus, and how he was seen as in the line of both David and Moses.
Our message for today is that we are all one in Christ Jesus, that colour, race, sex nor gender shall separate us from the love of God, which binds us together.
We can make everyone welcome – will we?