Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Imagine leading scholars from some foreign country coming to Washington, D.C., in the early 19-60s, looking for a newborn future president of the United States. Would not such scholars have been laughingly dismissed? That imaginative illustration has some similarities with the situation in today’s Gospel Reading, but, of course, like any analogy, the comparison only goes so far. Today is “Epiphany”. The Greek word behind that name originally meant an official visit from or appearance of a king or emperor, his showing himself publicly, as it were. (That Greek word is related to that Greek word used of the appearing of the star in today’s Gospel Reading.) But, the king making the official visit is not one of the individuals from the east who came to Jerusalem, nor is the king making the official visit King Herod in Jerusalem, but the king making the official visit is the Christ, the Child in a Bethlehem house. And, while that King is in some sense making an official visit, the two more‑important aspects of His “Epiphany” are, first, the showing forth of the divine nature in the Christ Child’s human flesh and, second, that showing forth of the divine nature in the Christ Child’s human flesh’s being to the Gentile wise men (making Epiphany a sort of complement, as it were, to the Christmas birth announcement to the Jewish shepherds). Those Gentile “wise men” came to Jerusalem saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?”, and so the theme for this sermon is similar: “Where is the King?”
Today’s Gospel Reading tells us simply that “after” Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, these wise men from the east came to Jerusalem asking their question. Their coming to Jerusalem might have been as late as nearly two years “after” Jesus was born (the Child and His mother are in a house, and He is referred to not as a baby or infant but as a young child). Their coming to Jerusalem was “in the days of Herod the king”: not Herod the tetrarch, who put John the Baptizer to death and was so interested in seeing Jesus, but Herod the tetrarch’s father, the so‑called “Herod the Great”, who had only married into the Jewish line, who had only became king by earning favor with the Romans, and who only wanted people to think He was religious, doing such things as building a new Jerusalem temple that rivaled other similar structures around the region. The wise men, who were called “magi” by our previous Bible translation, were more like “astronomers” or “philosophers” than “kings”, which is what a popular Christmas carol calls them. They came from the east, likely Babylon, where they had seen a star that they associated with one foretold in the Old Testament Scriptures, at least portions of which Scriptures were probably introduced in Babylon by the Old Testament prophet Daniel, one of Babylon’s wise men half‑a‑millennium earlier. These wise men came to Jerusalem because it was the country’s capital, and capitals are where one expects to find kings (just as Washington, D.C., is where one would expect to find a president). The wise men came to Jerusalem saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?”
To be sure, there were kings in Babylon, or in whatever country the wise men came from. Yet, the wise men left there (at least for a time). The wise men left their country with its false gods and those who worshipped them. They left their country with its likely unbelieving rulers, with its sexual immorality, with its materialism, and with its whatever other sins that we might imagine they had then as we have today. The wise men left their country seeking a king, but not a king like Herod. If Herod had been a faithful king, he would have had his own scroll of the Old Testament and known it backwards and forwards; he would not have had to ask the chief priests and scribes the location of the birth of the Christ (the Messiah, God’s anointed Prophet, Priest, and King). Herod thought he was the king; he was hardly seeking another king. The wise men left their country seeking a king, and, as the cliché church‑sign saying goes, “Wise men still seek Him”. Are you and I even seeking a king (let alone asking “Where is the King”)? Or, is our hope and confidence in the kings or rulers we have? Do we even want a ruler or Lord at all? Would we not rather be in charge of our own destiny? Who wants to submit to a Lord Who ultimately is in control of where we are in our lives and what we are permitted to experience?
The wise men’s asking “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?” naturally troubled King Herod, because a king by birth was a threat to his throne, and the wise men’s question’s troubling the paranoid and murderous King Herod not surprisingly also troubled all Jerusalem, which knew how Herod might react to the threat to his throne. If they all had only known their Old Testament prophesies better, they might have seen the coming of the Christ, with the resulting judgment of the impenitent and salvation of the penitent, as a call to repent. Like Herod and all Jerusalem should have, so we should repent—turn in sorrow from our sin, trust God to forgive our sin, and want to do better. Only those who do not so repent need to be troubled by the coming of the Christ, for to those who repent there is comfort in the coming of the Christ.
I mentioned that the imaginative illustration with which I began this sermon has some similarities with the situation in today’s Gospel Reading, but, of course, like any analogy, it only goes so far. One of the ways the comparison breaks down is that even if the leading scholars from some foreign country had gone to Hawaii in the early 19-60s and somehow had managed to find there the newborn Barack Obama, he still would have only been a future president of the United States. When the wise men found the Christ Child with Mary His mother in Bethlehem as prophesied, He was already the King. God in the flesh, Jesus Christ was born and always acted as the King. The Baby in the manger was the King. The Child in the house was the King. The Corpse on the cross because of your sins and mine was the King. The One resurrected out of the tomb because God accepted His sacrifice on our behalf is the King. The One ascended to the right hand of God the Father Almighty to rule all things for the sake of His Church is the King. He is the Good Shepherd of God’s true Israel, of all those who repent and believe and so receive forgiveness of their sinful natures and for whatever their actual sins might be.
Already several weeks ago, news reporters were doing their annual investigation of whether there is anything in the astronomical record to support the story of a star guiding the wise men to the Child Jesus. One news story I read reported the usual scenarios of a conjunction of planets, a comet, or a nova or supernova, and then the story said the historical data “meshes” with the Biblical data, but the reporter did not consider the appearance, disappearance, and reappearance of the star, and its precision guiding of the wise men to the place where the Child was. So, instead of a conjunction of planets, a comet, or a nova or supernova, we do best to think of a temporary and supernatural light consistent with the other miracles of Jesus’s birth. Such a miraculous star was a sign given by God’s Word to point to its fulfillment, and God gives us similar miraculous signs (or sacraments) that effect the fulfillment of God’s promises for us.
“Where is the King?” The King is in the preaching of the Gospel, like that preaching done by St. Paul in today’s Epistle Reading (Ephesians 3:1-12). “Where is the King?” The King is in the water and the Word of Holy Baptism, which works forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe. “Where is the King?” The King is in the pastor’s words of individual Holy Absolution, which forgives our sins before God in heaven as from God Himself. And, the King is most especially in the bread and wine of Holy Communion, with His body and His blood, given and shed for you and for me for the forgiveness of sins, for life, and for salvation. The wise men came to Jerusalem to worship the King, and that is exactly what they did. When the wise men saw the Child with Mary His mother, they fell down and worshiped Him. Imagine! High, mighty, and wealthy men, who were often in the presence of the king of Babylon, fell at the feet of and worshiped a low, weak, and poor Toddler probably not even two years old! By faith they saw not a Toddler but the King of the World, as by faith we see Him in water, words, bread and wine. In such places we find the King and receive His gifts, which is the highest worship of the Gospel! Like the wise men, our receiving His gifts then in turn prompts us to offer gifts of our own.
More than fulfilling the prophecy of today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 60:1-6), the wise men opened their treasures and offered the Christ Child gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. We likewise do not lay up for ourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but we lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven, for that is where we want our treasures and our hearts to be (Matthew 6:19-21). Before spending our resources on anything else, we give back to God an appropriate proportion of what He has given us, not earning His favor or salvation but indicating that we need Jesus far more than we need our time, talent, or other treasures.
The wise men got an answer to their question, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?” They found the King they sought, worshiped Him, offered their gifts, and eventually departed to their own country. Likewise, we get an answer to our question, “Where is the King?” We find the King we need here, we worship Him by receiving His gifts, we offer our gifts in thanksgiving, and we go back into the world, at least for a time. Jesus Christ is our King and Lord, and we submit to Him, all the more because He ultimately is in control of where we are in our lives and what we are permitted to experience. We live in the forgiveness of sins from Him and with one another, and we know that there is more to His Kingdom than life in this world.
On The Epiphany of Our Lord in 18-58, William Chatterton Dix, a manager of a marine insurance company in Glasgow, Scotland, and a scholarly layman, was recovering from a serious illness. He read the Gospel for the day and by evening had composed a poem based on that Gospel Reading. In a few minutes, we will sing an altered form of his poem as our Closing Hymn, but right now let us pray an altered form of the hymn’s final two stanzas as the conclusion to this sermon:
Holy Jesus, ev’ry day, / Keep us in the narrow way;
And when earthly things are past, / Bring our ransomed souls at last
Where they need no star to guide, / Where no clouds Thy glory hide. …
There forever may we sing / Alleluias to our King. (Lutheran Worship, 75:4-5)
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +