Aha!
Matthew 2:1-18
January 4, 2004 (Year C, Epiphany Sunday)

An epiphany is an “Aha!” experience.  It is that moment when your eyes our opened and you really “get it.”  A wonderful example of this is in that great classic of Christian theology and piety: The Blues Brothers.  Jake (John Belushi) and Elwood (Dan Aykroyd) find themselves in a church in Chicago where the minister is ‘the hardest working man in show business’: James Brown.  During the course of the wide open preaching and singing a shaft of light pierces a window and falls on Jake.  James Brown points his finger at him and says: “Do you SEE the LIGHT???”  Jake starts shouting, “Yes, Yes! ...I have seen the light!”  And he realizes they have to get the band back together to save the orphanage they grew up in.

On a more serious note, many of us have had that “Aha!” experience when we finally comprehended long division in elementary school. 

An epiphany is a revelation – something that was hidden is now uncovered and we are able to receive it.  That’s what we are celebrating on this Sunday: The Epiphany of Our Lord.  The child Jesus was revealed to the wise men after they had sought him through many months and a long journey.  When they showed up in Herod’s court they may not have said, “We’re on a mission from God,” but that was their motivation!

I want to suggest to you that the experience of the Wise Men is a type, a model for how we all encounter Jesus Christ.  They are the model “seekers.”  The magi show reveals what it means to be on a journey back to God.

I.  The first reality about seeking God is that we DON’T begin the process!  God initiates the search.  God initiates contact.  Left to our own devices we would not even begin looking for the one born King of the Jews.  You see, God created the heavens that would be the first step in bringing the Magi to Christ – they didn’t begin the process.  More than that, it is God who gives us the desire to look for something deeper, truer, and more real – something transcendent.  It is God who gives us the longing to begin the search even before we know what we are searching for!  Fallen humanity has no real inclination to seek for God unless God first places the desire for salvation in our hearts.

A.    Now as shocking as it may be, the 2000 Book of Discipline of the UMC contains this beautiful statement of how God takes the first step in our search for him:

   We acknowledge God’s prevenient grace, the divine love that surrounds all humanity and precedes any and all of our conscious impulses. This grace prompts our first wish to please God, our first glimmer of understanding concerning God’s will, and our "first slight transient conviction" of having sinned against God.

      God’s grace also awakens in us an earnest longing for deliverance from sin and death and moves us toward repentance and faith. [From The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church - 2000.]

Part of that prevenient grace is found in creation itself.  The heavens compelled the wise men to seek Christ.  Gazing at the night sky they may have observed a certain arrangement of the visible stars and planets, which according to their lore, indicated a royal birth. 

Matthew 2:1-2  After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east£ and have come to worship him.”

B.    While we do not believe that the stars dictate, or even reflect, human events we can appreciate a great truth here: CREATION MEANS SOMETHING!  CREATION COMMUNICATES THE REALITY OF A CREATOR.  It was creation that started their quest:

Psalm 19:1-4  The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.  Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.  There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.  Their voice goes out into all the earth,  their words to the ends of the world.

Romans 1: 20  For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

C.    Another wonderful quality of God’s seeking love is revealed in that God will use whatever means available – even unusual means, means we don’t approve of! – to draw true seekers to himself.  The wise men operated with the best science of their day.  For them the line between astronomy and astrology was blurred at best.  But they were genuinely seeking to know the truth and God used a planetary conjunction or a supernova or something we cannot conceive of to reach out to these truth seekers.

·        It amazes (and even offends me somewhat!) that God actually uses “seeker sensitive” churches with their dumbed-down, anemic gospel to draw people to himself!  But he does!

·        That’s what the incarnation is!  A shocking, offensive (the doctrine was a scandal to both Jews and pagans) display of the almighty God being willing to get in the gutter in order to rescue the likes of us! 

II.  Creation alone is not enough to find the truth about God.  The Magi began with a star, but ended up being guided by God’s word.

Matthew 1:4-6  When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet [Micah 5:2] has written:  “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.’”

A.    REVELATION IS NECESSARY FOR US TO TRULY KNOW ABOUT GOD.   We can no enough from creation to be without excuse, but not enough to lead us to the answer we are seeking.  John calls Jesus the Word.  God’s living Word, God’s self-revelation came to us at Christmas.  We can know God as the all-powerful, all-wise author of creation without the Bible – but we cannot know him as a loving heavenly Father without his word!

B.    When there is no ultimate standard for truth we will not end up at the right destination.  All roads do NOT lead to God.  Some lead to terrible ends.

All religious roads, if only followed sincerely, must equally lead to God.  This way of thinking is very comfortable and seems very enlightened—until someone starts to think logically and ask obvious, hard questions like: Does that include Jim Jones’s road to Jonestown? Satanism? Where do you draw the line? [HANDBOOK OF CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS, Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli]

III.  The wise men show us that those who genuinely seek for truth will find Jesus Christ at the end of their journey.  And when you find him the only rational thing to do is to fall down before him and worship!

Matthew 2:9-11 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. 

Two months before [Orthodox priest] Aleksandr Menn was evidently felled by an ax on 9 September 1990, he was asked in a radio interview broadcast across Russia, "Does one need to be a Christian, and if one does, then why?"

   "I think there is only one answer, and it as follows," he said:

   "Man always seeks God. The normal state of man is, to some extent, to be connected with a higher power, even when the higher power in the human mind is distorted, and turned into something secular. Eras of Stalinism ... and all other isms seek some false god even if God is taken away. This turns to idol worship, but still the inner instinct of seeking God is there. ...

   "The question is totally different when it is put this way: Why Christianity? Is it because of the sacred scriptures? No, every religion has sacred scriptures, and sometimes with a very high quality of spiritual content. ...

   "Then why Christianity? Morality? Certainly. I am happy that in our society the high moral values of Christianity are accepted, but it would be totally erroneous to maintain that there are no moral values outside Christianity. ...

   "Then why Christianity? Should we embrace ... a position that God is revealed and therefore can be found in any religion? No, because then the uniqueness and absolute character of Christianity will disappear. I think that nothing will prove the uniqueness of Christianity except one thing--Jesus Christ Himself."

      "Among these religious teachers there is only one who says, ‘And I say to you’ as if he is speaking on behalf of God. As the Gospel of John would say, ‘I and the Father are one.’ Among the great teachers of world religions, nobody ever said anything like that. This is the only instance in history when God so fully revealed himself through a man – Jesus Christ, the God-man."  [Larry Woiwode, Books & Culture, Vol. 2, no. 2 and Other sources.]

CONCLUSION:  I want to tell you a story that brings all this together:

     This past week we visited friends who told us of a friend of theirs from India.  He was a part of the Brahman caste and his parents desired to send him to the UK for the best possible education.  They were a little concerned that he desired to study art instead of medicine or engineering, but they relented.

     A part of this young man’s Brahman worldview was that wealth was in some way equated with godliness.  The closer to the god, the greater the material blessing.  This was coupled with an appreciation for diligence, self-discipline, and moral behavior.

     When he arrived in the UK he assumed that the wealthy, educated students he would be spending his university career with would share these attributes.  Nothing could have been further from the truth.  He was shocked at the immoral and degenerate behavior of his classmates.  As a result he found his worldview challenged.

     He was in that frame of mind when he was required to paint a landscape for a college assignment.  As he composed his work he was struck by how everything he view fit together.  In his tradition there were literally thousands of gods who controlled very specific events or objects.  Each of these gods vied for supremacy.  He thought to himself that they could never cooperate long enough to bring such order, harmony, and beauty into being.  He began to see that there was a single designing Hand behind what he observed – there was one great Creator at work.

          He began to hunger to find the truth about this creator and as he passed a church one day he noticed a man sweeping the steps to the building.  He approached this man and asked him: “Please sir, could you tell me about God!” The fellow happened to be the rector of the church and beginning at that point he told the young Brahman the gospel of Jesus Christ.  This young art student had an epiphany!  Just like the magi from the east he had sought the truth and his journey ended where theirs did: He found Jesus Christ.  And hearing the good news he fell down before Jesus, offered him his most precious gift – his very life – and became a disciple.

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Matthew 2:1-18

2:1 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him."
3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people's chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. 5 "In Bethlehem in Judea," they replied, "for this is what the prophet has written:
6 "'But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.'"
7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him."
9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.
13 When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. "Get up," he said, "take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him."
14 So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, 15 where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called my son."
16 When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. 17 Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
18 "A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more."
NIV

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