Epiphany (Observed)
When is Christmas Over?
St. Matthew 2:1-11
5 January 2014 – Redeemer
When is Christmas over? If you follow the church calendar it is over today. This is the twelfth day of Christmas. Tomorrow is Epiphany and a new season in the church year begins. If you are simply thinking about families, feasting, and presents then Christmas is over when the gifts are delivered.
Today the wise men serve as the perfect bridge between seasons. They have come to Bethlehem for their Christmas – to receive the gift of Christ as their Savior and to adore Him as God’s Son.
Where are the gifts given at your house? Do you ever need to give directions where to find your Christmas presents? Of course not. You find your gifts under the tree. A green tree, a colorful bow, shiny paper – these all mark your gifts and make it clear to you where to find them.
The wise men’s journey to their gift was not so easy. Their trek began 600 years before we read about them in St. Matthew’s Gospel. It began in war and bloodshed. It began with God’s anger against his people. It began with God using King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon to call His people to repent – to repent for hating the gifts of God and to repent of seeking God’s gifts not in the Lord’s temple but under every tree and high place in Israel.
The armies of Babylon invaded Judah and took her people captive. God’s children didn’t want to receive their Father’s gifts so He took them back. They didn’t want freedom so He let them be enslaved. They didn’t want His compassion so He demanded their very lives from them. This time of slavery filled your Sunday School days with the memorable stories of Daniel and the Lion’s den, three men in the fiery furnace, and Daniel interpreting the King’s dreams.
In this captivity Daniel became chief of all the wise men of Babylon. He confessed the faith in the courts of King Nebuchadnezzar and King Darius. He told them of the fall of Adam and Eve, the great flood in the days of Noah. He recounted for them the prophecies of Balaam who said a star would rise out of Jacob and of Isaiah who declared a virgin would give birth to God in the flesh. Daniel preached sermons about Judah’s sin and of the Lord’s gracious promises: a serpent crusher for Eve, a saving flood of forgiveness through Noah, and God in the flesh through Isaiah. The wise men of Babylon recorded the words of Daniel, copied them from age to age, and stored them in the musty old history stacks at the Babylonian regional library.
600 years later that Word of God which Daniel delivered to Babylon was still being read and studied by the Babylonian wise men. The seed of God’s Word had taken root in a foreign land and it was about to blossom and bear fruit. A star arose in those eastern skies and the wise men remembered “the star rising out of Jacob.” They recalled the promises of Immanuel – God with us, born of a virgin. And so they went to Daniel’s land, to Judah, but they didn’t have all the directions, so they sought the King in Jerusalem, the capital city, the seat of church and state.
In Herod’s palace Herod’s own wise men found the final directions recorded by the prophet Micah. The gift of the Lord’s King was delivered in Bethlehem, the least of the clans of Judah. Finally, after six hundred years of directions the wise men arrive – “and going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped Him.” The gift of Jesus promised first to Adam and Eve was now delivered to the wise men – Merry Christmas Magi!
As Pastor Gorlitz pointed out in last week’s sermon a disturbing irony occurs in this text. The wise men from the East know the Scriptures better than the wise men of Jerusalem (a mere six miles from Jesus’ birthplace). The Jerusalem wise guys have to pull out their Lutheran Study Bibles to find the prophetic particulars in Micah. They didn’t even know the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. God had wrapped Himself in the flesh of Jesus and laid Himself right under Jerusalem’s nose, but she didn’t see Him and didn’t want Him.
Would that ever happen in your house at Christmas? The presents are laid out under the tree, but your children have no interest in them at all. Has a child ever said, “Oh I wish Christmas Eve service lasted longer so we don’t have to go home and open presents?” It may not happen for Barbie dolls or a video games, but it does happen for Jesus.
We do not want the Savior God sends. No one wants a Savior from sin because that would mean I am a sinner and I need God’s help. I might like a savior from cancer or a savior from winter or a savior from depression or a dead-end job or a troubled marriage. I would worship a Wall Street Savior or Mayo Clinic Savior or a Washington Savior – I would welcome a Savior who fixes all the trouble out there, but to receive a Savior named Jesus means I am a sinner, that all of the trouble out there has it’s source here. It means that I am in need of God’s own forgiveness.
We do not want God’s Savior and even when we want a Savior we often look in all the wrong places. We look in our hearts for happiness or in our bodies for health or in our families for peace or in our stomachs for satisfaction. But God is not found in us – He did not come as a thought or an idea or a plan. He came in the flesh of Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary, and laid in a manger in Bethlehem.
He did not come as the desired gift, but as the necessary gift. His work was not glamorous or attractive. It was messy. It was bloody and deadly. He is named Jesus because He saves His people from their sin. Sin is not pretty. It tears apart our families and hurts more than cuts and broken bones. Sin fuels the fighting side of the Law industry and the camouflage side of the funeral industry and the money side of the health industry. Into this mess Jesus comes and while on earth He confounds the Lawyers, destroys the funeral business, and put the doctors out of business. How? He undoes sin. He bears it, takes it, and dies with it, buries it, and rises victorious over it. What can a lawyer say to forgiveness? What can a funeral director sell to people getting raised from the dead? What can a doctor do for lepers who are cleansed and lame people made to walk? Jesus saves us from sin and when sin is forgiven all the evil it causes is undone. Yet still, no one looks at the bloody mess of Jesus at the cross and says, “Yes, that’s what I want for Christmas” except for those made wise by God’s Word and brought to faith in Jesus.
The wise men were convinced by the 600 year old word of God that this King was to be sought in Judah. The sages of Herod’s court directed them to Bethlehem and the star led them to a little bungalow at 329 Jacob Street N, just down from Coborns. It was the last place in the world you would expect to find the King of the Jews, God Himself in the flesh, and yet there He was according to His Word.
Christmas is over when the gifts are delivered. The good news for you, dear children of God, is that Christmas never ends, because the gifts are always being delivered – Jesus delivered to Mary, delivered on the cross, delivered from the tomb. Forgiveness delivered to you in Word and Sacrament and with forgiveness is the delivery of life and salvation. Merry Christmas to you. Now and forever in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Pr. Bruce Timm
5 January 2014 anno Domini