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Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Let There Be Light
Isaiah 60:1-6; Matthew 2:1-12
At last!
Through the long cold dark month of December, we watched and waited for Christmas. Week 1 of Advent, then 2, and 3, finally 4. And then came Christmas, right on schedule, filled to overflowing with angel songs and glorious heavenly light.
Then the countdown began again. Day 2 of Christmas, then 3 and 4 and 5, all the way to 12. (I know you're singing inside your head right now, about calling birds, lords a-leaping, and a partridge in a pear tree. Who can resist?)
Then, this Sunday, at last... The Wise Men entered the scene.
Three of them? So tradition says, though Matthew doesn't bother counting. But they do bear three precious gifts for the newborn King of the Jews.
Three kings? Matthew calls them "magi," a term used for the priests of Persia. Advisors to the king, they were. And guardians of all the Persian sacrifices. Scholars, too -- philosophy, medicine, science, and astrology. They could read omens and destinies in the night-time sky. And one star told them a miracle baby was being born way over there someplace.
So off they went on a pilgrimage to God only knew where. And they trusted God to lead them right.
The story Matthew tells is full of surprises, if you read it carefully. For instance...
- King Herod and all Jerusalem were caught off-guard when the magi showed up asking about a newborn prince. "Why wasn't I told?!"
- The magi thought for sure that a royal baby would be born in a royal palace. "You'll find no babies nursing inside these satin sheets."
- The religious leaders showed not a bit of interest or even curiosity about prophecy being fulfilled just a few miles down the road. "Ho hum. So much for tradition."
- Last, but far from least -- Matthew's "most Jewish of all the Gospels" is the one that brings Gentiles into the Christmas story. Instead of foreign idolaters and all-around religious bad guys, he gives us humble seekers after God's eternal light.
And they see it for all it's worth, not in the miracle star so much as in the miracle baby, Jesus.
Listen, folks... Wise men and women still search carefully to discern God's eternal light, and, once they find enough rays of it, will risk everything to follow wherever it might lead them. And, if Matthew's story is even halfway true, that light of all lights will bring you face to face with Jesus.
Listen to the GODcast!
posted by Jack Buckley at
4:04 PM
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