Sermon Title: "Where Is The Child?"
Date: January 2, 2011
Minister:  The Rev. Charles Ensley

Lesson:  Matthew 2:1-12

Rev. Susie showed me a holiday quiz she gave to the 6-2-8 Middle School group two weeks ago.  It asked questions such as 1) what “my true love” gave on the seventh day of Christmas, and 2) the names of three of Santa’s reindeer beginning with the letter D.  The answers are  1) “seven swans a-swimming” and 2) Dasher, Dancer and Donner.  It also asked which of the four Gospels tell of the birth of Jesus.

If you were here on Christmas Eve, you may have noted that Rev. Susie began reading from Luke, then turned to Matthew to read the same lesson we heard today.  Luke records the announcement of the angel Gabriel to Mary that she was to bear a child by the Holy Spirit.  He writes of the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, the birth in a stable, the angels’ song to the shepherds and their visit to see the baby.

Matthew comes at it from a different way.  He begins his Gospel with the genealogy of Jesus, going through 42 generations by name from Abraham to the time of Jesus.  You never want to instruct a new reader of the Bible to begin with Matthew chapter one, verse one!  Finally at verse 18 he tells of an angel appearing not to Mary, but to Joseph, to inform him that Mary is to have a child conceived by the Holy Spirit, and he is to be called Jesus.  The actual birth account is completely missing, but is referred to in no more than 14 words in the beginning verse of chapter two:  “In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea…”  The remaining 11 verses tell of the wise men’s visit, which is not found in Luke’s account.  There are no shepherds abiding in the fields nor angels’ songs in Matthew.

So the answer to Susie’s quiz is that the birth narrative is found only in Matthew and Luke, and they must be combined to tell the whole story.  In both Mark and John’s Gospels, they begin with Jesus as an adult coming for baptism, although John has that stunning prologue, also read on Christmas Eve:  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (1:1)

Matthew is the most Jewish of the Gospels.  That is why he spends half of the first chapter on the genealogy, to prove Jesus’ Jewish heritage.  Matthew, writing in the first century, had a growing frustration at the majority of his fellow Jews who dismissed his messianic claims for Jesus, and may have even ostracized and persecuted some of his co-believers.  Thus it was the wise men—the magi—Gentiles rather than the Jews, who followed the star to Jerusalem and innocently alerted Herod.  And upon finding Jesus, “They responded well, and the insiders didn’t,” says Fr. Donald Senior, president of Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.  “Indeed the magi are sometimes used simply as a way of expressing Christianity’s openness to the far-flung and the unlikely.”

Why would Herod, the present king and ruler of the Jews in Judea, react with fear?  Herod the Great was known for extensive building projects in Jerusalem, including the Temple.  But Herod was also known for ruthlessness, having had one wife and two sons killed, in addition to many political rivals.  Herod died within a year or two of Jesus’ birth.  In those final years, his paranoia about rivals was infamous.  So depending on how kindly or snidely one reads his words, Herod instructs the wise men to report Jesus’ whereabouts to him “so I may also go and pay him homage.” (2:8)  But the wise men—being wise men—disobey.  Some disobedience must be risked, especially if obedience endangers innocents.  Their defiance gave protection to Jesus.

But the point of this whole story, why we’re still talking about it on this Epiphany Sunday, is that people came asking, “Where is the child?”  In other words, Matthew says that this baby is God’s gift to the whole world, the people out beyond the boundaries, the people who get confused about these boundaries between respectable religion and primitive magic, or as we experience today, the difference between being “religious” and “spiritual.”

These seekers from the East have something to teach us.  There is a sense in which we, in our present age, know them well.  They will get to their destination, that is the promise, but not before a long trip.  We, too, live in an age of seeking, of longing and yearning, where life can be conceived of as a search, a journey.  People are looking, searching, seeking something greater than themselves to believe in.

A popular term of the last decade or more has been “seekers.”  I still call my meetings for prospective new church members Inquirers Meetings, but if I wanted to use the current jargon I’d call them Seekers Meetings.  But there is a difference, for the majority of those who attend as Inquirers join this church.  Seekers are persons who are searching, earnestly I want to affirm, but are not sure for what they are looking.

It is possible that some of you here this morning may feel a bit like an outsider.  You don’t know that much of scripture; the words of the Bible seem strange to you.  You are not all that familiar with the music and have some difficulty joining in the hymns.  It is as if you have come from another land to this strange world called Christianity.  And yet you, like those wise men of old, are a seeker, you are a searcher.  You are here because you are looking for something more.  The worldly wisdom, by which you function in much of your life, is not adequate to the task of the demands of your life at this point.  The stars you have been following, by which you have made your way through the world, are growing dim, and you are looking for a more trustworthy guide.  You may not think of yourself as a particularly gifted person.  You may not believe yourself to be blessed with great spiritual perception, not destined to perform heroic and saintly deeds.  And yet you have come searching, and you have brought what you have.  And if you should encounter God here, something beyond the stars, you are willing to lay down what you have at the manger and worship.

In all these ways, you can identify with these wise men who came asking “Where is the child?”  This story, this Sunday of the church year, is for you.

Others of you can claim to have already found the child; you’ve already come to the manger, knelt down, and laid what you have before the Christ Child.  Yet as much as we may love to sing Away in a Manger, you accept him as more than a baby in a manger

The wise men found the child they sought, and they knelt in awe before him.  Then, being warned in a dream, they returned to the East by another way and are never heard of again.  But we cannot worship that cradled infant forever.  We may follow the wise men’s lead, but then journey farther and deeper in our faith through worship, prayer, study, devotion and service to be the believers and followers of God Incarnate, your own Savior and Redeemer, the One who walks with you on life’s journey all your days.