University Presbyterian Church - Chapel Hill, NC

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  A sermon preached for
University Presbyterian Church, Chapel Hill

by Anna Pinckney Straight

January 4, 2009

Isaiah 60: 1 – 6

 Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you. Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. Lift up your eyes and look around; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from far away, and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses' arms. Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice, because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you. A multitude of camels shall cover you, the young camels of Midian and Ephah; all those from Sheba shall come. They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the LORD.

Matthew 2: 1 – 12

 In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, "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." When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: 'And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.'" Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage." When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

They left for their own country by another road.  The wise men did.  They left by a different way in hopes of evading King Herod, it is true, but these words have come to mean more than just this. 

These words have also become a metaphor for the Christian experience.  Which one of us leaves an encounter with Jesus the Christ the same as they arrived?    We can’t.  You don’t.  It just doesn’t happen.  God changes us, inevitably, incontrovertibly, absolutely. 

It reminds me of a road sign I saw in Edinburgh last summer, big, too big for my suitcase, red, and posted high on a lamp post.  “Changed Priorities Ahead.”

                                         Changed priorities ahead.

If ever there were a sign that should be posted at the entrance of a church, that’s the one.

Jesus changes us.   And the Wise Men were changed.

Which leads to a question: Who was Jesus?  Who was this person?  This God?

It was a question that people started asking almost as soon as Jesus was born.

We’re told in Luke that it officially began when Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, without his parent’s permission, in the temple, and, as a child, engaged the teachers.  (Luke 2: 46-47).

As Jesus’ teaching and preaching and miracle making increased, the questions did, too.  Some thought that Jesus was John the Baptizer raised from the dead, and others a prophet like in the olden days.  (Mark 6:14, Luke 9:8, Matthew 14:1).

Jesus asked the question himself.  “Who do people say that I am?”  (Matthew 16:15, Mark 8:29  Luke 9:20).  Peter is the one who is bold enough to say it out loud-  “You are the Messiah.”  A truth so world changing it took real faith to speak what they were all thinking.

Who was Jesus?

In the early church, the questions didn’t abate, they increased and continued.[1] 

Was Jesus fully human or fully divine?  Both, it finally decided.  It was the only way the story could hold together, for Jesus to be all that he had been and was and would be.

Where did Jesus come from?  Was Jesus equal or created?  Words that make up one of our most ancient creed, Jesus is of the same substance, homoousious, as God the Father.

John Calvin further asserted Jesus Christ’s mediation for us in the world of salvation from God to humanity.

And then, in the enlightenment, this question of the nature of Jesus got kicked into high gear.   With reason and the mind placed at center stage, new questions were placed on the table.  Not just, “who was Jesus the son of God,” but “who was Jesus as a man who walked on the earth?”  The quest for the historical Jesus.  It suggested that there is a real Christ that has been obscured by the centuries of belief and theological work.  There was a belief that we could know the real life of Jesus, if only we dedicate ourselves to scholarly pursuits.

Albert Schweitzer, in what came after, the critique of the quest, suggested that we cannot understand Jesus without also understanding that everything Jesus said and did was influenced by Jesus’ expectation that the world would very soon be coming to an end.  Very soon.  Thoroughgoing Eschatology.

And now, there is a new quest, one that recognizes that the gospels are theological documents, and that while they may contain components of history, they should not be seen as the basis for a history, they are the basis for belief.

Who was Jesus?

Albert Schweitzer wrote[2]:

He comes to us as one unknown, without a name, as of old by the lakeside, he came to those…  who knew him not. He speaks to us the same words, "Follow thou me!", and sets us to the tasks which he has to fulfill for our time.

NT Wright has a different approach[3]

  We come to him [Jesus] as ones unknown, crawling back from the far country….  when we approached, we found him running to us as one well known, whom we had spurned in the name of scholarship or even faith, but who was still patiently waiting to be sought and found once more. 

Frederick Buechner gives us this interpretation[4]:

Lamb of God, Rose of Sharon, Prince of Peace—none of the things people have found to call him has ever managed to say it quite right.  You can see why when he told people to follow him, the often did, even if they backed out later when they started to catch on to what lay ahead.  If you’re religiously inclined, you can see why they went even so far as to call him Messiah, the Lord’s Anointed, the Son of God, and call him these things still….  And even if you’re not religiously inclined, you can see why it is you might give your immortal soul… [to have been there with him].

Who was Jesus?  It is a question that we started asking from almost the moment Jesus was born and it is a question we haven’t stopped asking yet.    Do we know Jesus or does Jesus know us?  Jesus, radical or peacemaker, liberal or conservative? Jesus, known to some as Jebus[5], Jesus, the son of God, wonderful counselor, prince of peace, the one who was born for us,  lived for us, died because of us, rose for us, and prays for us. 

We want to know, we want to know as much as we can about this person who caused Wise Men to travel and be “overwhelmed by joy.”  We want to know what it is that would cause shepherds to leave their flocks and be led to glorify and praise God (Luke 2:20).

But here’s the thing.  For all that we know and don’t know about Jesus, the wise men knew none of it.  None.

Whether that journey took three months or two years[6] the wise men left their homes and their families to go see a child they did not know who was the son of a God in which they did not believe.   They went anyway.   

Not because they were smarter or bolder than we are (their prophetic and symbolic, yet highly impractical gifts show us that), but because of God. 

It is not their initiative that brings them to Bethlehem, it is God’s.  As is the way of creation, “God’s grace precedes human action.”[7]

And so I don’t believe that the wise men left by another way because of what happened in Bethlehem, I believe it is because they arrived by a different way.  They arrived by God’s way.

The phenomenal action here isn’t the outsiders who followed the light, it is that the light itself in a world that has been shrouded, has shrouded itself, in darkness, the light continues to shine.

Shining upon the different priorities ahead.

God continues to take the initiative towards us.  To find and be found.  To hope that we will go by a different road and leave by a different road to ask questions, test the spirits, and develop into mature believers, mature disciples.  And to always remember that we go a different way at God’s initiative and God’s grace, which makes everything else possible. 

Let us respond to God’s initiative, to God’s light, this day by accepting the invitation to gather at the table. To be recipients of grace.  To feed and to be fed.

Thanks be to God for the light that continues to shine.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.