🔊 Sermon 1/4/2025

Grace, mercy, and peace are yours in God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, amen.

Today we hear the wise men ask, where is he who has been born King of the Jews?

May their search teach us a holy and right way to daily look for Jesus and to remain ever closer to him.

These were wise men, astronomers, scientists at a time when folk wisdom and science was mixed with a good helping of superstition.

These were spiritual men, people who looked for signs in the sky, astronomers who knew and traced the stars and knew their courses and who would take notice when a new star on a new course acted in a new way, shone brightly in the night sky.

God had prepared them to know the times and the seasons so that when the star appeared, they followed the leading of the Lord.

Sacred history tells us that these men were influential men of learning and leadership.

They were from the East, and we are told that they were named Melchior, Caspar, and Balthazar.

There is a longstanding tradition that believers receive blessed chalk on Epiphany, and on this day, above your front door, you mark the year and the initials of these wise men to bless your house for the year, and you all have blessed chalk that will be handed out at the end of the service today.

It is an honor for the church to offer you that house blessing each year at Epiphany.

The typical understanding of these wise men included their visit to the stable where Jesus lay in a manger, but as is often the case, Scripture is more specific about the details that our tradition tends to wash out.

You see, we know from Scripture that these wise men came from the East when they saw the miraculous star, and when they made it to where the star had pointed them, they were influential enough to go before the leaders and even King Herod, and there was Asty where the special one was to be born.

Where is he, they asked, who has been born king of the Jews?

They called him a king.

The king Herod was not amused, and what king, unless a son was born in his house and his blood would be joyous that another king had been born in his place?

For in this time, king fought against king, bloody battles were waged, and it is true that the victor always took the spoils.

So Herod inquired of these wise men to find the baby as well.

Undoubtedly, they had come with an entourage, for important men didn’t travel alone.

They knew in their understanding of the sky that the leading of the Holy Spirit was guiding them to worship the king who had been born, and they came to worship and bring gifts.

Herod begged that when they found the newborn king that they would come back to tell him so that he could go and worship too, leaving Herod hopeful that he could seek Jesus in his way, but for a much different purpose than worship.

For Herod, like all those outside the family of God, he lived for himself, and the only worship that he wanted was the worship of himself.

God spoke to these wise men after leaving Herod and told them that Herod’s nefarious plot was one that would hurt the child and for them to go back a different way.

It seemed likely that they had told Herod that the star began shining some two years earlier because when Herod found out that the wise men had outsmarted him, he had all the male children, two years and under, killed.

He ordered this murder that we call today the slaughter of the holy innocents.

In that evil murder of the boys at that time, we have this remembrance that teaches us to give all that we have to our Lord, for these children without knowing gave their lives for Jesus.

Mary and Joseph took the gifts that were given by the magi, the wise men.

It is said that these gifts were expensive enough that it helped fund their trip to Egypt to keep the child safe.

You may know that on our altar we have an antimension given to us by our bishop, and in that antimension holds the relics of the holy innocents, so it is an important thing for us to remember.

The question of how do you seek Jesus is why epiphany is so important.

These wise men were not Jewish men.

They were not men of faith in God, of the Hebrew people, and they were believers from afar, and to them the truth of Jesus was revealed by the Holy Spirit.

Their epiphany, their revealing of Jesus to those not of the Jewish household is our epiphany.

For this we thank God, not being Jewish, not of the Hebrew lineage, but we are still loved and adopted as full sons and daughters into the family of God.

We simply keep faith, the free gift of faith that God gives us, and in that faith he adopts us as beloved children of our great Father in heaven.

The gifts given our Lord by these mysterious men from the East point to great truths about Jesus.

You see, everything is meaningful in God’s church, and the gifts given our Lord point to three great truths about Jesus—gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

These were gifts that only the wealthy could give, gifts given by kings to kings, and their meaningful significance may have been fully understood, may not have been fully understood by the wise men themselves, but we know the wisdom of the Blessed Mother.

It could have been obvious and maybe a bit painfully honest that these gifts represented things that she did not want to face.

For gold given him signified that he is a king.

Frankincense pointed to the fact that he was our high priest making intercession for us at all times and then giving himself sacrificially.

But the third gift must have given Mary and Joseph pause.

The gifts were expensive and important.

In that time and culture, these were gifts that not common people would get, but myrrh was not a common baby-welcoming gift either.

Myrrh then, as in some cultures still today, is used as an embalming spice.

And Jesus would go to face death for you and for me.

While surely thankful for the expensive gifts, it was likely a jarring truth that the Holy Family began to understand at that moment.

Because you remember that on the eighth day of his life, Mary and Joseph made their way to Jerusalem to present him to God in the temple, and it was there that the elderly couple Anna and Simeon prophesied over him, reminding Mary that in her blessed joy that a sword would pierce her soul as well.

The suffering and death of Jesus was a painful experience for Jesus, of course, but also for Mary, a pain that only a mother who has lost a child can know.

Yet in her pain, she kept close to her God.

The encounter with the wise men tell us to seek Jesus.

This is a law in God’s love to the Christians, as an unbeliever has no power or cause within themselves to even want to seek him.

But even the wanting to know more about Christ and his promises is a faith-filled gift from God the Father.

Do we seek him in worship daily?

Do we look for his hand of blessing on our walk with him each day?

Or as King Herod, do we seek him to shun him and to keep him from our lives, to not think of him nor to have him know more of us fully so that we can grow closer to him?

Seek him so you may be found.

The holy life of Jesus and his cruel death, burial, and glorious resurrection are all gifts to you today.

Seek him, friends, while he may be found, as there will come a day when there is no more time to seek him, and all the glory that you miss in not walking with him will be lost to time.

But be of good cheer.

He stands ready always to love and to bring you closer to him.

Confess your sins, study his word, walk humbly each day with him, for it is only in him that you can know real peace.

May the God of all comfort bring you his peace in every step of your path as you live for him the rest of your days.

Amen.