"Three Kings Kneeling”

“Three Kings Kneeling”

“All nations will come to your light. Mighty kings will come to see your radiance.” Isaiah 60:3 NLT

Intro: Larry grew up in a multi site church.

The average Worship attendance was over 6000.

The church had eight different primary worship services.

There was a staff of over 100.

The church budget was almost $110,000 dollar a week.

The senior pastor had just turned 46 years old and had been at the church for eleven years.

The main church building was located in an older well established suburban area

about 10 miles outside the city.

But they had an inner city ministry.

A downtown worship center.

And two other sites located about ten miles apart.

So when Larry moved to Eastern Kentucky

finding a church similar to what he had grew up in was out of the realm of possibilities.

If you had five minutes to talk to Larry and invite him here to join this church what would you say to him?

How many of you still have your Christmas tree and decorations up?

The Church ends the Christian calendar year today

with the final story of the wise men who visit Joseph, Mary and the child Jesus.

I remember as a young kid participating in Christmas pageants.

They would always start the youngest children out as sheep

I suppose when they came on stage they made the most noise

The sheep move around the most.

So it was the perfect role for four and five year olds.

I grew up in such a barbaric age

there was at least one adult shepherd who had a cane or staff

And they were not afraid to use it if the sheep got too loud or out of line.

As kids got a little older they graduated from sheep to angel.

I don’t know if there is a truism in this or not?

It did not matter. Boy or girl.

When you reach about seven or eight you got dressed as one of the angels and had to sing.

Joseph and Mary were always the young couple with the youngest new born baby in the church.

When a young couple announced that they were expecting their first child the pageant director would always congratulate them by saying, “We know who will be playing Joseph and Mary in the Christmas play next year.”

But the characters that every young boy wanted to be were the wise men.

The wise men had the coolest costumes.

There robes weren’t bath robes like the shepherds wore.

The wise men wore robes of purple and blue with gold strips.

And they worn gold color crowns with rubies and emeralds.

The kind of head ban that we only saw on t.v. or the movies.

Plus they got to carry what looked like treasure chests

Bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

There was always a fight among the older boys about who got to be the three wise men.

The ones who lost would end up being a shepherd.

Or worse, the tallest angel, you know the one with a reading part.

There has always been a mystery surrounding the wise men.

The song written in 1857 by John Hopkins, “We Three Kings of Orient Are”

labeled the wise men as Oriental Kings

The 6th Century church named these foreign travelers as Melchoir, Balthasar, and Caspar.

The Western Christians get the Three Kings to Bethlehem early enough to see baby Jesus still lying in the Manger. Maybe because they wanted to end the story on a beautiful starry night.

Not with the scary story of Joseph and Mary and young Jesus having to run for their life into hiding in Egypt.

When Herod found out he had been outwitted by the wise men who left another way without telling him where Jesus was. Herod became so furious he sent soldiers to kill all the boys around Bethlehem.

The death of innocence, and the slaughter of children two years and younger.

A cry of anguish is hear in Ramah—weeping and mourning unrestrained. Rachel weeps for her children refusing to be comforted—for they are dead. The End.

I suppose that in our day of terrorism and chaos and violence and police shootings

that kind of Christmas play ending might not seem so out of the ordinary after all.

In fact it is more rare and uncommon to see “Mighty Kings Kneeling”

“Arise Jerusalem! Let your light shine for all the nations to see! For the glory of the Lord is shinning upon you. Darkness as black as night will cover all the nations of the earth, but the glory of the Lord will shine over you. All nations will come to your light. Mighty kings will come to see your radiance.”Isaiah 60:1-3

I say we are living in the day of this prophecy being fulfilled.