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Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Push Back the Shadows
Isaiah 60:1-6; Matthew 2:1-12
On Sunday we celebrated Epiphany, the visit of the "Wise Men" who followed a special star to find the newborn King of the Jews. How interesting that Matthew, the most Jewish-inflected of all the Gospels, is the one that includes these pagan Gentiles in the Christmas story. Great good news: The light of God's love and mercy in Christ shines out from Bethlehem into the whole wide world! Everybody's welcome, so y'all come!!
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Our church is host to a child care center, open all day long Monday thru Friday. I love the ambient noise and palpable energy those kids create on our campus!
They also give me a refresher course in real life. What I take for granted is all brand new to them. What they take for granted I forgot or gave up on long ago.
I saw one of them cover her eyes with her hands and say, "You can't see me!" Since we're invisible beyond those hands, she must be as well.
Magical thinking. But wrong.
I think about this now because of Sunday's story about the "Wise Men" who opened their eyes wide to follow a special star from Mesopotamia all the way to the little town of Bethlehem.
We call them "The Three Kings," but Matthew says they're "Magi." We derive "magic" from that name. Not quite wizards, they were wise in philosophy and the sciences, able to read signs of the times and give good counsel to their kings. No wonder they were captivated by some unique astral phenomenon -- a comet? convergence of planets? supernova?
Whatever it was, they dropped everything and set off to see just what it was that rated such a spotlight introduction. But they didn't go blindly.
Numerous writers of that era report a widespread anticipation was in the air. Jews and Romans alike had a hunch a great king would soon be born to change the world. Caesar Augustus even modestly accepted the title "Savior of the World." Curiously, the omens all pointed to obscure Judea as the royal birthplace.
So that's where the Magi headed.
No new baby was to be found in Herod's Jerusalem palace, though. Confusion and curiosity, yes. Followed by a quick search of prophetic scrolls -- which pointed them towards Bethlehem.
The Magi hit the road, promising King Herod they'd let him know where he too could pay his royal respects to the miracle baby.
But what the king really wanted was to snuff his little rival as soon as possible. He was famously jealous about his kingly power. He'd even had his wife and other family members murdered to protect his hold on things.
So, Herod said a loud NO to God's light. Magical thinking! He couldn't prevent the darkened world from growing brighter as God's light of love and truth pushed back the spiritual shadows.
But the Magi's YES rang loud and true. With open eyes and hearts they followed God's light, and wound up spreading its grace and truth wherever they went.
Did I mention the king's spiritual advisors? They were Bible scholars, able to find the proper prophecy in no time flat. But they weren't smart enough to go with the Wise Men. They put away the scrolls and went back to their religious busy-work.
They simply murmured HO HUM. How tragic to be that close to the truth and still miss it by a country mile!
I'm convinced the greatest spiritual risk in this life is to be simply indifferent to God's truth.
And not one of us is immune to that great danger.
If you're an outsider to the church, it's easy enough to assume "those people" need whatever it is religion offers. God, if there is a god, bless 'em. But not for me.
Inside the church, it's tempting to get so busy with rituals, rules, and programs that whatever God is doing "out there" doesn't matter much. If it even exists.
Either kind of spiritual boredom puts us in the worst kind of peril. What if, in the end, it makes God yawn most of all?
Better by far to be wise men and women ourselves, finding and following God's pure light whenever it shows up, wherever it leads.
posted by Jack Buckley at
11:15 AM
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