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Sermon for the Epiphany of our Lord (observed) – January 5, 2025
Matthew 2:1-12
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
“Follow the crowd.” I’m not sure anybody really thinks this is good advice, and yet we all seem to do it over and over again in one way or another.
“Follow your heart.” This is the theme of just about every Disney movie ever made – many of which I enjoy very much – and it seems to be the guiding principle of our age. Sometimes following our heart, or our gut, or our instinct, is helpful. Other times, not so much. After all, as scripture tells us, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick – who can understand it?” So, there’s that.
“Follow the science.” This is something we’ve heard a lot of over the last few years. Science is affirmed as a good thing, generally speaking, in the Lutheran Christian tradition. It is seen as a good way to deepen our understanding of God’s creation. It is seen as a tool for serving our neighbors. However, the field has become alarmingly politicized in recent years. Exaggerated claims are used to advance agendas. Inconvenient findings go unpublished. Competing studies vie for our attention. All of this makes it harder than ever to know what to believe.
Follow the crowd. Follow your heart. Follow the science. These are the guideposts that often influence our lives.
These are the guideposts which seem to have influenced the magi as well.
The magi followed the crowd, at least in a way. In their journey from the east, probably Persia, they are sure to have followed major thoroughfares. We often see the magi depicted as traveling across a barren desert alone, but it is more likely that they followed trade routes, which were safer and faster and teeming with people.
The magi followed their heart, their gut, their instinct. They knew they were headed to Israel to worship a newborn king, and their gut led them to Jerusalem. That seemed to be the right place to go. It was the big city. The temple was there. The current king resided there. Their heart told them that surely this would be where they would find the newborn king.
The magi followed the science. “Magi” is where we get the word “magic,” but these magi were not magicians who learned illusions and tricks and sleight of hand. These were astrologers. They were the scientists of their age. They looked to the skies above and made complicated calculations which they believed could guide them. And when they saw a new star at its rising, signifying for them the birth of a new king, they followed it.
These magi, or wise men, followed the crowd. They followed their heart, their gut, their instinct. They followed the science. And where did these guideposts lead them? It led them to Jerusalem – not Bethlehem! It led them to Herod – not Jesus!
You can almost hear the Holy Spirit saying, “Recalculating, recalculating….”
It wasn’t until they heard a word from scripture that these wise men found what they were looking for. Herod consulted with the chief priests and the scribes about where the Messiah was to be born, and these students of the Word came back with a passage from Micah, chapter 5:
“‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.’ ”
Herod, with a dark ulterior motive, shared this word with the magi, and now the wise men showed true wisdom as they trusted this word. The star now alighted over Bethlehem, and they followed it to Jesus. Overwhelmed with joy, they entered the house. They saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they knelt down in homage and worshipped him, offering him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
In writing about the detour of the wise men to Jerusalem, Martin Luther wrote:
“Why did the star not take the Wise Men straight to Bethlehem without any necessity of consulting the Scriptures? Because God wanted to teach us that we should follow the Scriptures and not our own murky ideas.”
There are many kinds of knowledge, many types of intelligence – and God can use them! God DID use them to draw these eastern astrologers to worship his Son! These guideposts at least got them in the vicinity! But what ultimately got these wise men where they were trying to go was the scriptures, the word of God.
So too for us, there can be ways to pursue knowledge that is helpful. You can be smart as a whip and ask a lot of questions. Christianity is not anti-intellectual! But to be truly wise is to follow the scriptures and not our own murky ideas. The scriptures lead us to the deepest spiritual truths about ourselves and our world.
Today these very scriptures lead us to the Christ child, the one who is the way, the truth, and the life.
The scriptures lead us to the newborn king, who was given a tribute of gold by the wise men, which was a common way to honor a king.
The scriptures lead us to the one who is our great high priest, our great intermediary between a holy God and a sinful humanity. The wise men gave Jesus frankincense, which was burned by the priests in the temple as their prayers and sacrifices rose up to God.
The scriptures lead us to the one who is our savior, to the one who would give himself for us as an atoning sacrifice. The wise men gave Jesus myrrh, which was a fragrant ointment used to prepare bodies for burial.
The scriptures show us foreigners worshipping Jesus – Gentiles, non-Jews, eastern astrologers! – which tells us that Christ has come for everyone. He is Lord of all. He is the savior for people of all lands and cultures and languages and races and backgrounds.
Our own murky ideas can lead us astray. But today we join the wise men on their course correction as the scriptures lead us to Christ, who is our king, our priest, and our savior.
Let us join the wise men in worshipping him. Let us join the magi in offering our gifts. And let us commit ourselves today to following the scriptures, that we too might know the overwhelming joy he brings.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church