“A Wise Choice”
Sermon on Matthew 2:1-12
Epiphany-C
December 31, 2006
Rev. J. Curtis Goforth, O.S.L.
In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, 2asking, “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.” 3When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; 4and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born.
-Matthew 2:1-4
I am told that I was a real handful when I was growing up in my home church. Well, you know the saying, “What goes around, comes around.” I think it’s safe to say that it’s come around now. My home church always put on a Christmas play with the children of the church. And one evening, I was being especially disruptive downstairs as some of the younger children were getting ready for their parts in the play, and my pastor came downstairs to try and bring us under some sort of control. I was playing one of the wise men that night. I had borrowed my father’s robe and I had a crown on my head. So rather than yelling at us, he saw a teaching moment in the midst of the chaos of the Christmas program. He found an ingenious way to get the wise men to settle down. He told us that the first one to find the place in the Bible where it spoke of the three wise men would get the $100 bill he flashed before us out of his wallet.
I am not nearly so brave as to put that much money on the line just to make some children calm down, but he was. And so I ran around the church looking for the first Bible I could find. I knew it was in the New Testament, but I wasn’t sure where. I also knew that it was in one or more of the first few books in the New Testament. Luckily, I turned to Matthew 2:1-12 and saw the heading printed on the page that read, The Visit of the Wise Men. I read on through the story and I knew I had found it. The other wise men weren’t nearly so wise as I was. I proudly exclaimed that I had found it first and that I would happily accept my $100 bill.
But you see, my pastor went to Duke, and he wasn’t nearly so dim-witted as to put $100 of his own money on the line knowing that he might lose it to some smart-alecky kid who got lucky in finding a passage of Scripture. He reminded me of the terms of his challenge. He said that I had to find the section in the Bible where it spoke of the THREE wise men. Once again, I pointed to the section that our gospel lesson came from this morning and said, “Give me my money!” He asked me to read it to him. And so I did. And you know what I discovered? I discovered that the Bible never mentions that there were three wise men. It only says that there were wise men from the east and doesn’t include the number of wise men that were there. All that is said is that there was more than just one. I had been had! And when I learned Greek, I realized that the masculine plural could also include women in the group. In Greek, if you have a group of 100 women and only one man, you must put that word in the masculine plural.
What my pastor taught me that night has stuck with me ever since. It is of supreme importance that we read what the Bible actually says and not just what we think it might say. If we read what is there, we will quickly see just how little we know about the Magi. We know there was more than one of them. We know they came from the East, which would mean they were Gentiles. We know they brought gifts to Jesus of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The only real place you could get frankincense and myrrh was in Saudi Arabia. But that doesn’t mean the Magi were from there. We know they followed a strange star in the sky that led them to Jesus. And we know they paid the young child homage as though he were a king. We really don’t even know how old Jesus was when the Magi got there other than the fact that he was no older than two because Herod ordered the killing of all children two and younger once the wise men didn’t return.
I mentioned that according to the Greek of the story that the wise men could have even included a few women. But I think they were men. I mean they got lost and they gave very impractical gifts. If they had been the three wise women, they would have asked for directions, arrived on time, helped deliver the baby, cleaned the stable, made a casserole, and given practical gifts.
So many people get so worked up about things in the Bible that we just don’t know much about. There are entire television shows devoted to the mysteries of the Bible. But isn’t it more profitable to focus on the things that we do know? Isn’t it more productive to spend our time reflecting on the things in the Bible that we know something about? Well, here’s something else we know something about. The wise men, the Magi, came to visit Jesus during the reign of King Herod. Now King Herod was not a very nice guy, nor was he a very good ruler. He was known for his hot temper and his mean spirit. He was always worried about other people taking away his throne.
So, when the Magi come to Herod searching for the newborn King, he is quick to play along and he calls together his scholars and they tell them where this Messiah will be found. But Herod tells the Magi to return to him once they have found the Messiah so that he might go there and worship him too. The Wise Men go home by another way after being warned in a dream, but Herod is determined not to let anyone usurp his throne and he orders the killing of all male children two years and younger in the land! But Jesus and Mary and Joseph flee to Egypt until Herod dies.
We know a lot more about Herod than we do the mysterious Magi. I am fascinated by Herod and the way he lived and ruled. He was a very cautious king, and he would go out of his way to make sure that he alone would be king, even if it meant massacring innocent children. Herod was an evil man even. He went out of his way to see that he alone would rule his world. He wasn’t at all willing to yield his power and his control to a young child born in Bethlehem. He wasn’t willing to give what was his to this newborn King, he wanted to keep his gold and his possessions to himself and not waste them on others, much less this poor child.
But don’t you dare look down on Herod, until you acknowledge the Herod inside you. We shouldn’t scoff at Herod until we recognize that there is a little bit of Herod in each of us. Herod didn’t want to yield control of his life or kingdom to someone else—neither do we. We don’t want to give up control of our lives either. Herod didn’t want to give his possessions to Jesus—and if we are honest, we don’t like to give what we have to Jesus either. Are we really so different from Herod?
In that Christmas play I was in as a kid where my preacher conned me out of $100, I had a choice of being one of the wise men or of being King Herod—the costume was basically the same. It was up to me. I could choose to be the king of the world or I could choose to be one of three Magi and bow down to the King of kings. You have a choice too. There’s a little bit of Herod in each of us. But there’s also a little bit of a Magi in us. You have a choice as to which you want to be. You can try to rule on your own, or you can allow Christ to be the ruler he came to be. Choose wisely. Amen.
