Follow a Star-Epiphany 2012
FOLLOW A STAR
(The following sermon was preached by Pastor Barbara Melosh on January 8th, 2012.)
In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘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.’ When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:
“And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who is to shepherd my people Israel.” ’
Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then 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.’ 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. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On 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. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.
-- Matthew 2:1-12
When our children told the Christmas story here on Christmas Eve, most of it was the story as told in Luke—Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem to be enrolled for the census; finding no place to stay in the crowded city; taking shelter in a stable, where Mary gave birth to the baby Jesus and laid him in the manger. Angels announced the birth to shepherds and led them to the child. And then, our play ended with the grand finale of Epiphany, from Matthew—the wise ones coming down the center aisle here, adored with pink-feathered tiaras, crowns, and satiny stoles in rich colors, bringing their gifts of canned goods to the Christ child. I think most of us think about the Christmas story this way, a kind of mental cut-and-paste using scenes from Luke and Matthew together.
But today, as we celebrate Epiphany, we return to the story as it’s told by Matthew.
In Matthew, we don’t hear anything about a census, or Mary and Joseph’s journey to a city filled with people. In Matthew, the only angel in the story appears to Joseph, not Mary. There is no stable sheltering the holy family, no manger holding the baby Jesus, no angels appearing to astonished shepherds in the fields, leading them to the newborn baby. Jesus’ birth takes place off stage, reported after the fact. In Matthew, there’s no infant Jesus, even; by the time the wise men get there, he’s about two years old.
When artists imagine the manger scene, they often paint it with a soft glow around the Holy Family. In Matthew, the story begins instead under a shadow. “In the time of King Herod”, our reading for today begins—words to send fear into the hearts of those who heard them. The time of King Herod was a time of terror. Herod was one of the world’s most violent and ruthless tyrants, a powerful king who was hated and feared; a king who was ready to do anything to hold on to his power, including murdering his own wife, three sons, assorted in-laws and plenty of non-relatives—anyone he thought might get in his way.
The wise men are something of a mystery. Clearly they were foreigners, from a country far away and to the east of Judea, maybe Persia. Some consider them to have been scholars. More likely, they were magicians or astrologists, involved in practices that both Jews and early Christians regarded as “deceptive, even dangerous.”[1] Jews and Christians turn to Holy Scripture for revelation; these magi are star-gazing fortune-tellers. Yet they’re the ones who come looking for the promised Messiah.
They make the mistake of going to Jerusalem to consult Herod. “Where is the child born as king of the Jews?”, they ask him--a reckless and dangerous question. Herod is king of the Jews; his sons are to inherit that rule. The paranoid king Herod is frightened by this question from his strange visitors, and all of Jerusalem is frightened too, for when this king is threatened, no one is safe. Herod calls his scholars to study the scriptures; there, they see the prophesy, from Micah, of a king to be born in Bethlehem. King Herod resolves immediately to get rid of this threat, and to do it, he’ll use the magi as his advance intelligence. He sends them to Bethlehem to find Jesus, and charges them to let him know when they do—so he too can pay his respects, he says, but really, so he can find Jesus and kill him.
The wise men leave Jerusalem, Herod behind them and ahead of them, the star that leads them to Jesus.
And here’s the real mystery of this story. Why do they do it, these magicians and astrologers from a distant country? What are they looking for?
They are probably curious men, these magicians and astrologers, watching the night sky and charting the movements of stars and planets. They’re seekers, maybe, looking for signs of the times and signs about what is to come.
What leads anyone to leave home and follow a star? A lot of us are too comfortable right where we are. Or sometimes you feel that yearning for something you aren’t finding at home, but then you think about all the times you’ve laughed at someone who has risked everything to chase after a dream. Or maybe you’ve lost a lot and are afraid you’ll lose more, so you hold on to what you have, and cling to the safety of what you know. Or maybe you live in a dark place, and you’re longing for the light, but afraid of it too, for the light you long for will expose all that you have hidden in the dark corners of your life. Or maybe the darkness has seeped into your spirit and leached out all the hope, so you don’t believe things will be better anywhere else.
It takes faith and hope to leave home, a willingness to look foolish and take risks, to get off the paths you know and take an unfamiliar road with nothing more than a star to guide you. It takes courage to set off without a map, to ask for directions, and be ready to change your plans along the way. It takes trust to set out in the darkness, but it’s only in the darkness that you can see the stars.
We don’t know what moved these star-gazers to travel so far from home. But we know what they found, as the star stopped over that house. They came to Jesus and fell to their knees, overwhelmed with joy.
That is the promise for us today, this season of Epiphany. Our lives, our world, are in deep darkness, but in that darkness, the light shines. Our light has come. So follow a star, and trust that you’ll be led where you’re meant to go.
