(prayer)
This is the third
Christmas-themed sermon I have prepared to be preached over the span of the
last eight days.
//
On Christmas Eve, the focus
was on the Gospel of Luke, chapter
two: shepherds visiting newborn Jesus laying in a Bethlehem feedingtrough -
because there was no room at the inn for Mary and Joseph who had traveled from
Nazareth for the Roman census.
//
Christmas morning: the
focus was on the poetic language of the Gospel
of John - whose homage to
Christmas was to claim that the eternal "Word [of God] became flesh and
lived among us" in Jesus.
//
Today: our focus comes from
the Gospel of Matthew - the story of
people of wealth and power showing interest in the fact that Jesus has been
born... or more accurately the assertion that Jesus' future destiny is to be a
Hebrew King.
//
I don't know about you, but
it sure feels like it has been way
more than eight days since Christmas Eve.
Last Sunday, I mentioned
that - on the afternoon of December 24th, I was in the dollar store (I was
still not finished shopping on the 24th) and one wall was already filled with valentine's day themed items.
We are only up to the
"day of maids-a-milking" and the world around us is already done with
Christmas.
I'm even early focusing on
the wisemen today - the cycle of the church year saves that story for January
6th - the Day of Epiphany. If you have
one of the 2017 Canadian Church Calenders, you can see (since Epiphany falls on
a Friday) that the lectionary has designated next week as Epiphany Sunday.
But... the United Church of
Canada does not force any particular cycle of Bible readings on its ministers
or churches, so I feel quite comfortable jumping ahead five or seven days.
//
//
On both December 24th and
25th, I included in my sermons the fact that Matthew and Luke are the only
gospels that contain Christmas
stories and that they contain many more differences than commonalities. I'm not going to spend time repeating those
interesting facts (that run counter to the common assumptions about the events
of the day Jesus was born); you can read
my sermon notes on the church website for that.
But I will note that what
the gospel of Matthew gives us is not a story about the birth
of Jesus.
At the start of the gospel,
we get to eavesdrop on Joseph's thought process as he decides how to respond to
the fact that Mary has become pregnant (apparently not by her fiancé,
Joseph). In the end, he is compelled to
marry her anyway. The actual birth
warrants only half a verse in the first book of the New Testament: [Mary
bore] a son; and [Joseph] named him Jesus (Mt1:25b). That is all that Matthew says about Christmas
Day.
What most people think of as a story
about newborn Jesus (the wisemen and their gifts) is really a story about toddler Jesus - likely one to three
years old when he was presented with gold, frankincense and myrrh. Don't let the Christmas Cards and nativity
scenes fool you: there were no wisemen alongside shepherds at the manger on the
night Jesus was born; there is not one
gospel that mentions a manger with a guiding star above it... not according to
the actual words of the Bible, anyway.
//
//
The actual words we heard from Matthew
actually make it clear that the wisemen did not visit Jesus on the night he was
born:
"In the time of King Herod, after
Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, magi from the East came to
Jerusalem."
AFTER Jesus was born.
//
The full story about the magi, Jesus
and King Herod is 22 verses long. For
brevity sake, I read only eight selected verses focusing on the Magi-Herod
storyline, but I will invite us to think about the whole story on this Sunday
Before Epiphany.
//
//
//
The bible doesn't explain the reasons
why they came to their conclusion, but the wisemen-magi believed that a certain
star in a certain location in the western night sky signaled the birth of a new
Jewish king.
What the Bible does tell us that they
chose to travel to the Judea to personally bring celebratory gifts to the
king's family.
//
When the wisemen arrived in Judea, they
(naturally) went to the current King's palace in Jerusalem... the assumption
had to be that the child foretold by the stars was a prince in Herod the
Great's household.
The story takes its first twist at that
point: Herod, the Empire-sanctioned King
of the Jews had no idea what the magi were talking about. No decisions about his eventual succession
had been made.
How Herod became King of the Jews is an important back-story to what we read from
Matthew today.
//
Although, there were periods in
Israel's history when power was passed along in family lines, there was no
formal practice of kingship being a perpetual hereditary process. Obtaining political power had more to do with
military support rather than family ties.
Such has always been the modus operandi
in the politics of dictatorship.
In fact, in Judea and Galilee, around
the time of Jesus' birth, vassel political leaders were appointed by the Roman
Empire based on people's locality and ability to maintain law and order. It also helped to stroke the ego of Rome:
building monuments and new cities in the name of the Empire and its leaders.
//
Herod's father (Antipater) was a
high-ranking official in the court of the high priest and ruler of Judea in the
mid-first century BCE, Hyrcanus II. Antipater used his influence to get two of
his sons appointed as governors of Jerusalem (Phasael) and Galilee (Herod..
eventually called 'the great'). They
were formally later named as tetrarchs (rulers) by the Empire. During a power struggle over Hyrcanus'
leadership, Herod traveled to Rome seeking support to restore Hyrcanus. Herod must have made quite the impact because
the Roman Senate named him as "King of All Jews" around the year
40BCE - a new designation for the Roman Empire, consolidating several smaller
leadership positions. After three years
of conflict, with the help of the Roman military, Herod ousted his opponents
and gained the power associated with his title.
So... King of All Jews was a unique title and position given to Herod the
Great as a loyal puppet leader within the world of the Roman Empire. The title King
of the Jews had really only made sense for three other people in history:
King Saul (Israel's first ever king), King David, and King Solomon, who were
all annointed as kings by a prophet of God, and whose successive reigns were
limited to about 1020 to 930 BCE.
After Solomon, the Hebrew people were
divided into separate northern and southern kingdoms. It was not until 900 years later, that
someone (Herod the Great) was able to truly claim the title, King of the Jews - although his
anointing was through an act of an imperial senate not by a god-inspired judean
prophet.
//
//
So... imagine what a shock it was to
Herod's system to have the magi tell him, that the heavens themselves were
announcing the birth of a new King of the
Jews.
//
In the centuries after Solomon's
kingdom was divided, a messianic ideology developed within some streams of
ancient Judaism. The term messiah simply means annointed one. It refers to the manner of recognition and
coronation of a new ruler - literally anointing their head with oil.
Messianic theology grew particularly
popular during times of oppression and occupation. That makes sense - when power is thrust on
the people from an outside foreign authority, people more fervently longed for
a day when a new leader (sanctioned by God) would emerge and restore Israel to
the independence of its former glory... "as in the days of King
David" became the catch phrase.
Herod knew of this theology... and more
so, he knew of the power that this hope held in the hearts of the Jewish
people. If the wisemen came to believe
that a Messiah (other than Herod) had been born, others might come to that
conclusion as well. This was a
frightening threat to the power that Herod had sucked up to Rome so hard to
attain.
The magi were seeking the
boy-to-be-king. Now that the palace in
Jerusalem was a non-starter, where to look next was the
question. Because, Herod was also
interested on finding his pint-sized would-be successor (for very different
reasons), he put his scholars on the case.
The messianic tradition drew them to
book of the prophet Micah - who spoke to the people of southern Judah during
the post-Solomon time of the divided kingdom (late 8th, early 7th century BCE).
O
little clan of Bethlehem, from you will come one who is to rule Israel, whose
origin is from ancient days. He will
lead in the strength and majesty of God.
He will be great to the ends of the earth. He shall be the one of peace.
Yes, Herod thought; King David's
birthplace. That makes sense.
So, Herod sends the magi to Bethlehem -
with instructions to come back and report on the child's exact location (under
the guise of offering tribute as will).
When he never sees them again, the King
was incensed. How could he figure out which child in Bethlehem it was. Then Hetod remembered what the wisemen said
about the star that started their journey: particularly, when it first appeared
in the sky.
The bible doesn't say so directly, but
this info was interpreted by Herod to indicate how long ago the child was
born... in other words: How old is he now?
The child would need to be stopped before he was old enough to attempt
to seize power.
Without a specific child to focus on,
Herod's fear and anger, led him to authorize systemic infanticide that must
have reminded people of the actions of an equally power-hungry and fearful
Egyptian Pharoah around the time Moses was born.
Moses 3000 years earlier, Jesus
survived the death squads because Joseph had taken his family out of Bethlehem
before hand. The tradition would later
draw another parallel to the ancient Hebrew stories finding a new life in
Egypt. Like his Old Testament namesake,
Mary's husband (Joseph) was inspired by dreams that guided his actions.
Herod the Great died just a few years
later which allowed the family to move back to the land of the Hebrews -
closing to begin a new life in Nazareth (rather than going back to Bethlehem on
the outskirts of Jerusalem).
Herod's territory was
divided among four successors: his sister and his three sons.
·
Salome (Herod's sister) controlled several cities on the
southern coast,
·
Herod Antipas became the tetrarch of Galilee. He is the Herod of the Easter story.
·
Phillip, the tetrarch of the region north and east of the Jordan
River,
·
Herod Archelaus, the tetrarch of Judea and Samaria, including
Jerusalem. Although, after ten years of
incompetent rule, Rome replaced him with a series military commanders called, Prefects: the most well known was
Pontius Pilate.
None of these were given
the title King of All Jews, although
Antipas really tried.
//
//
The author of Matthew chose to add a
Christmas Narrative to the tradition he inherited from Mark to lay the
groundwork for the central theme of the gospel.
Regardless, of what people might
believe about the literal historisity of Matthew one and two, there is no
missing the powerful symbolism those chapters provide to the wider narrative of
who Jesus was in the eyes of the early church of the mid-70s.
Jesus was the promised
Messiah - the King of the Jews, in the line and tradition of David. Matthew doesn't hide this message. Chapter one, verse one: An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David...
followed by a generation by generation tracing of Jesus' family tree all the
way back to father Abraham: the
common anscestor claimed by all Hebrew-born people.
Before we ever read about star-guided
Magi or a paranoid Roman puppet-king, Matthew declares Jesus the Messiah.
Throughout the pages of this gospel,
with reference to several Old Testament passages, Matthew makes the historical
and theological case for this declaration.
We read the passage from Micah, chapter
five this morning, and we heard it made reference to my Matthew. It tells us about the nature of Messiah
leadership... the people are fed and there is peace.
While these phrases have their
metaphoric meanings to refer to a person's spiritual well-being, the hard life
experienced by the people subject to the Roman occupation, would have pointed
to a hope in the literal meaning of these words as well.
I belive that Matthew points us in that
direction when he shares stories of Jesus both feeding spirits through teaching
and feeding bodies in the many meal-centred stories in the text.
And... Jesus shares ideas of peace when
he encourages the loving of both neighbours and enemies, but gives peace as he
opens up his welcome to those who are normally excluded.
//
Matthew starts off his gospel setting
up a contrast between the expected impact of the Messiah's rule of peace and
nourishment and the example set by Herod's fear and worry.
Herod knew that his grip on power was
tenuous. His path to King of the Jews was foraged by
privilege of birth, curried political favors and by extremes uses of force.
According to the late first century CE
Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, Herod was a paranoid ruler, quick to see
plots against his rule and legacy around every corner. We see that lived out in the story we read
today about the ruthless slaughter of the innocents.
That stood in stark scriptural contrast
to the reaction of the wisemen. They
responded to the news of the Messiah's birth by offering tributes of
celebration.
Matthew opens his gospel with two
reactions to the start of Jesus' life:
magi and massacre.
Two responses: gratitude and fear.
//
//
We have passed through the artificial
threshold that is the start of a new year.
From ancient of days, humans have appreciated the cycle of the year...
our regular (somewhat predictable) journey around the star at the centre of
this solar system.
Of course, not everything is
predictable. All we have is a history
and the knowledge of history's patterns to guide us.
We stand on the edge of what we are
calling a new year: the number 2017 owes
it's origin to the story of Jesus' birth.
AD (anno domini), Latin for 'the year of the lord'.
We know from other historical records
that Herod the Great died in 4BC. And
since, Jesus was as old as two when Herod ordered the death squads into
Bethlehem, Jesus' actual birth year was more likely 6-4 (ironically) Before
Christ. Chalk it up to a 6th century AD
adding error.
It doesn't matter what we call it:
2017. Stargate 201701.4.
Artificial or not, new year's day is an
opportunity to take stock of the time gone by and to anticipate the time to
come.
//
//
2017 - for all of us, each of us - will
contain joy and sorrow, sickness and health, some better, some worse. (Can you tell that I conducted a wedding
yesterday?)
We will have a little control, but not
as much as we would like. Mostly, we
will be reacting.
How will we react to the surprises in
store for us?
With gratitude?
With fear?
//
Of course, those are the extremes...
gratitude and fear... represented for us in today's reading by the magi and
Herod. There are a myriad of response
attitudes in between fear and gratitude that might crop up in a given
situation.
But... as far as it is up to us, where
will we strive to lean when the unexpected of 2017 confronts us: will we lean toward gratitude or fear.
//
Something to keep in mind as the days
unfold.
//
//
//
Let us pray:
God, we will stubbornly trust in your
goodness. In times when violence and
mistrust dominates our news, we will follow the ways of the Prince of
Peace. Amen.
**offering**
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