This morning, we are going to have a closer look at the wise men, or Magi. Even though they came after Christmas, I don’t think Christmas can’t be fully understood without them. Many of us think there were three wise men, but Scripture doesn’t actually say how many there were.
They were not Jews, but gentiles – they were astrologers who studied the skies and came from a country to the east of Israel, probably Persia or Babylonia, saw a star that they had never seen before, and it was heading westward towards Israel. They were so amazed that they followed it.
This could have been no spur of the moment decision. They had to cross deserts and harsh country – modern day Iraq probably– so preparations would have to be made. Not only water and food for themselves and their camels, but for some reason they also packed precious gifts; all because they had seen a star they had never seen before.
God was in the process of revealing himself not only to Jews but to gentiles, people like us.
To fulfil Old Testament prophesy, the birth of the saviour of the world was first revealed to the Jews, i.e. the shepherds; then the gentiles, the wise men.
As gentiles, they did not follow any of the Jewish law but were compelled to follow that star because they knew that a new King, the King of the Jews, had been born. But somehow they knew he was more than that. The gifts they brought were prophetic gifts; gold is a gift fit for king, and Jesus is certainly that, he is king of all kings.
But frankincense and myrrh are gifts for priests and undertakers. Frankincense comes from an old French word and literally means ‘high quality incense’ and it came from what we now call Somalia in North Africa and was very expensive.
The high priest would go into the holy of holies (the most sacred part of the Jewish temple) and burnt the best quality incense they could find. The incense was symbolic of the priest’s prayers to God on behalf of the people, so reconciling the people to God.
How did the Magi know that this baby, would reconcile all humankind to our Glorious Father in heaven? Myrrh is not only also a form of incense and perfume, but was also used when preparing dead bodies for burial.
How did they know that this baby, this little baby would need to die on the cross of Calvary and be resurrected to bring about this reconciliation, which effected an eternal prayer to the Father that saved me and you and all peoples of every language, tribe, and nation.
How did they know this? Because God gave them a revelation – an epiphany.
When I was younger, I played sport including, at school, athletics. But I was pretty average at high jump. I could just about get over the low bar. If you will permit me to draw an analogy between high jump and our ability to love God and love our neighbour, we all, if we are honest with ourselves, are stuck at the low bar.
No matter how hard we try we just can’t jump any higher. Early on in Matthew’s gospel, we come across a long speech by Jesus called the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), which we will be spending some time in later this year, which tells us in detail exactly where God’s high bar is; and it is way up here!
When we read it we are left with the certainty that we are sinners and in our own strength will never in a million years be able to leap the high bar of God. No one except Jesus ever has.
For example, we all know that murder is wrong; but if we are angry at someone, if we insult someone, even in our thoughts and say to ourselves ‘That bloke’s an idiot!’ – in God’s eyes it is the same as murder.
Our bar – God’s bar.
But this is our revelation: This little baby whose birth we celebrated just last week is exactly, exactly!, the difference in size between our low bar and God’s high bar. We call this beautiful bridging of the unbridgeable, the Grace of our Lord Jesus. Pure unmerited favour.
Our loving Father knows we are stuck at the low bar, yet, and this is the great mystery of the love of God, he reveals himself to us and loves us just the way we are, stuck at this low bar that the Lord and the church of God call sin.
But he loves us so much he doesn’t want to leave us there, he wants us to be just like Jesus, and from the moment we first believe to the moment our Father takes us home, we are being made more and more like Jesus; we jump higher if you like. And he has stuff for us to do during this process that he determined us to do from before we were even born! He has things for us to do in situations that only we could understand!
How does this work? This is our revelation. This is when the beautiful grace of our Lord Jesus is manifested by God himself; God the Holy Spirit. Where His action is made evident in, and to us. It is all God, not us.
The Holy Spirit is available to and comes with great power to all believers. The Holy Spirit comes to us with gifts that enable us to serve the world and the church according to our nature that God gave us. It is much more powerful and personal than we can imagine.
These gifts of the Spirit are given for a purpose. Not to tell us how disappointed he is that we can’t jump the high bar, but to tell us how much he loves us! All it takes is repentance that we can’t love God or our neighbour as God wants us to, and faith that the power of the Holy Spirit is for all believers. It is the Holy Spirit that gives us this epiphany that Jesus Christ is Lord and God.
When we ask God to make himself real to us and in our loves, it is God the Holy Spirit that confirms that God is with us in Christ Jesus in our own Spirit.
This is my prayer for this parish, that God the Holy Spirit would reveal the risen Christ to us, so that Christ may be formed in us. This is the way God shows his love for us, and all because God himself came as a little baby, born in a stable in Bethlehem.
Let me pray …