Sermon Matthew 2:1-12

Well, its the end of the Christmas season. The twelve days of Christmas are over for another year. The presents have been opened and for some the tree has been put back in storage to wait for next year. Or that tree that was purchased a few weeks has been taken down or still sits by the window with increasingly drying needles.

The craziness of Christmas and all that goes with it is all but over. Most of the stores have taken down the Christmas stuff ...boxing day is over and all the Christmas decorations have been packed up waiting for next September ... the stores and secular culture are all about done with Christmas ... but here in the Church we still have some of the Christmas story to finish ... Christmas for us does not end with boxing day ... over even New Years ... We have much more of the story to tell ...

This morning we heard that familiar story of the three wise men from the east. I like this story ... I remember singing "We three kings of orientar ..." ... and I'm sure some of you kids remember the fun verion of this one ... "We three kings of orientar ... tried to smoke a rubber cigar, it exploded and ..." I forget the rest of it. But I love that hymn ... even after I learned that in the story they weren't kings but were wise men ... I still loved that story ... but as I got older and re-read this story ... I came to realize that this is a really strange story. A very weird story. Perhaps it is because we have heard it so often that it loses it's weirdness, but as I reread this story preparing for this sermon, ...

I wondered why Matthew would include this story in his Gospel ... No one else did ... Luke has the Shepards ... Mark and John have neither stories ... So why did Matthew choose to include this odd story of the wise men from the east? I wonder if it was the oddness of Matthew's own life that made him include the strange wise men from the east in his gospel.

Do you remember the story of Matthew? Matthew the tax collector turned disciple and gospel writer. Matthew ... former tax collector goon for the Emperor ... if you don;t like paying taxes today ... things we a lot worse in Jesus time ... you paid your regular taxes to the emporor ... then you paid "the special tax" to the tax collector ... you paid the tax or you got beat up ... or worse ... That is who Matthew was ... a tax collector ...

But then Matthew answered the call of Christ and changed from being a thug for the Roman government ... into a different person ... into a disciple and a gospel writer ... perhaps that is why Matthew included this story of the strange ones who find Jesus ... of the foreigners who answer the call of God to journey from what they know ... to what they don't know ... following the new star and finding a new way in Christ.

We may not be bullies or thugs ... but aren't many of our stories are as strange as Matthew's? Many of us may have started out in the church, but have gone on journey's away it, only to find a longing in our hearts, a curiosity about Christ calling us back. Or maybe we did not grow up going to Church ... maybe at some point in our lives we followed friends who invited us to come to church with them. There are many ways that people end up finding themselves as followers of Jesus.

Each one of you has a reason for being here this morning ... something that drew you here. You made a choice ...

... well some of you didn't make a choice ... your parents made you come ... but one day you will be old enough to make a choice ... and we hope that you will decide to continue to travel with us as we follow the star of Christ together.

For this is what we are doing this morning. We are looking at the stars ... trying to figure out what God is telling us ... we are listening to these three wise men and their astrological predictions.

I know that some of you are familiar with the horoscopes ... with Astrology. Astrology, the idea that the stars rule the destiny of our lives. That is what some think that the wise men were ... they read the stars to see how they ruled our lives. But then they saw a new star ... a star that moved strangely in the night sky ... something that they had never seen before ... they were curious. They knew the skies better than the average person today would. They knew that comets, planets, stars, and other natural phenomenon did not travel like this new star ... so they set out on a journey towards this strange star that spoke of a great king and they came to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph ... a baby ... the Starchild ... named Jesus ...

And he is a new star ... a new astrological sign ... a new ruling star ... a new destiny ... no longer are we Taurus in the house of Aries ... or Sagittarius in the house of Leo ... because of Jesus we are not to be ruled by any star or anyone other than Christ ... we are Christians in the house of Christ.

And this is why we gather in God's house. We have been chosen by Christ and have accepted the gift of being Christian. We have found a new star which guides us through the darkness of our lives towards Bethlehem.

We journey together as the gathered community of Christ ... People who have been brought to this place by God through various ways and roads. And with people all over the world ... people that are familiar, people that are strange and even weird to us, with people who are young, people who are old, people who are rich, people who are poor, people who were former tax collectors, people who were former astrologers, people with a past, ... we all gather together to follow Jesus into God's future. It is no accident that we travel together ...

It is within the community that we help each other to see the light of Christ, for sometimes our lives become very dark and we need others to carry the Christ light for us. Sometimes we do not yet know how to see where God is leading us and we need others to help us see.

Perhaps is was not a coincidence that Matthew says that there were three wise men who were seeking Christ. For it is promised that when two or three gather, that the Holy Spirit is there ... the Spirit that rested on Jesus ... the Spirit of God ...

And as our culture closes the book on the Christmas story ... we know that the star still shines for us ... as we hear the rest of the story throughout the year ... we come to know more deeply the love that God has for us ... this God who called three wise men to journey across deserts ...

The One who was born in the silence of the night ... showing us a new road through the wilderness ... the road of Christ ... and we look for the holy road of God ... for we have seen the Starchild and we know his name ... and he is a light unto our path ... he is the morning star ... leading us to new life in Way of Christ ... AMEN ...

Sermon Matthew 2:1-1
by James Love