January 3, 2016 – Matthew 2:1-12
Matthew 2:1-12
The Journey of the Magi
Epiphany Sunday – January 3, 2016
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
The thing is, the star probably wasn’t very bright when it first appeared.
If it was a new star the magi had seen, it probably was a faint speck in the sky.
Hard to see sometimes and difficult to follow.
It’s not a million watt light bulb in the sky that makes everything crystal clear.
It’s a faint speck, this hope that they have, and that is enough.
Enough for them to load up the camels, leave the comfort and security of home,
and head out to a foreign land.
They have the faint glimmer, yes.
But they also have curiosity and, I think, they have hope.
Hope that the faint glimmer will lead to something worthwhile.
Something worth the effort and the time and the struggle they will put into the journey.
It’s also not at all clear to me that they know what they will find.
Or even what they will do when they find it.
I suspect they don’t know when they begin the journey.
They just have a faint gleam of hope, and so they follow that star.
It is often this way with hope.
You have a hunch, and intuition, something prompts you to invest your time and
imagination and skill and effort into something.
We call this day Epiphany Sunday and when we think of having epiphanies we think of
a huge bright light bulb going off inside your head.
We think of some obvious thing that we couldn’t believe we had missed.
We think of sudden overwhelming clarity about what we should do and
what we should be about.
But that’s not what the magi have.
If it were obvious, we think, then surely Bethlehem would be crowded with people who have
followed the same star.
If it were a fantastic shining bright million watt bulb in the sky surely everyone else would have
followed it too!
But apparently that is not what happens.
Apparently this is not what God gives.
Apparently this not how God works.
The magi see a faint hope, and they have enough hope within themselves to follow it.
This faint light that appears in a dark sky.
And then, too, they use the tools they have to follow that light.
A lot is left up to them, right?
They probably took wrong turns in their journey and had to get back on track.
They had to read the landscape and use their god-given brains to come to conclusions and
make decisions.
They didn’t worry if they went off course – they weren’t afraid to ask directions and
seek advice from the people around them and
adjust their course based on new information.
And they weren’t afraid to just keep going – they weren’t afraid to persevere on cloudy nights,
and trust the light of that faint star, that faint hope.
And when they find what they are looking for – when they find the one whom they are seeking –
it so matches their experience that they know this is what they’ve been looking for.
What appeared as a faint speck in a dark sky leads them to something – to someone –
who appears to be just that: a faint light in a dark landscape.
They find an infant, not a comic book superhero.
Born to peasants, not to superrich big deals.
Born in a small town, not the biggest most important city.
A small light perfectly placed in the darkness of poverty among those for whom he came.
A small light you might miss if you are not looking for it.
Were the magi to stick around for the rest of this child’s career they would see more of the same:
a relatively mundane career of feeding the hungry and caring for the vulnerable and
forgiving the sinful and sitting with those in deep darkness.
Not the bright light of a Caesar or a pasha,
but the faint light of one willing to go to the darkest places.
In this, the magi – the wise ones – recognize a real king, they recognize this is where God is,
that this is where God wants to be.
Not in the court, but in the country.
Not among the wealthy but among the worn.
Not in the light but among the light-less.
And so they worship – they worship!
The faint light has led them to God, to where God truly is.
And so this is where they offer their gifts, the very best they have.
We’ve just finished the season of gift-giving.
And for many of us it means exchanging gifts within a small circle of friends and family.
We give, and we receive.
We give within the small circle of friends and family, and we receive within that small circle.
But something happens with the gifts the magi offer.
They could have stayed cozy and sat by a warm fire and exchanged the gifts among themselves.
But this Christmas, something strange happens: they take the gifts they have
and give them to a stranger, a very vulnerable stranger.
They give gifts outside the circle to someone and to someone who
doesn’t immediately give a gift back.
Their giving has gone outside the circle.
And maybe this is the meaning they discover that is worthwhile:
that gift giving that doesn’t transcend your immediate known circle is limited.
This year at First Lutheran, there was a lot of gift giving that goes outside our circle.
More and more of our budget is going to the benefit of this neighbourhood.
I witnessed lots of giving to our programs this Christmas where people gave very
generously of the gifts of time and food outside the immediate circle of our church –
and found it unimaginably worthwhile.
We have found a small light of hope in what we do and in the one we find in our work.
We have found giving to the one who came to be a small light to those who sit in darkness
to be worthwhile, indeed to be what gives life its meaning.
I am not against giving within the circle!
In doing this we are emulating the life of the triune God,
which we imagine to be a loving community of three persons,
endlessly giving and endlessly receiving within the circle of its perfect love.
But the triune God was not content to leave it at that –
in Jesus coming to us, the triune God opens up the circle of its giving life.
So when we give outside our circle, we are also emulating the life of the trinity,
which in Jesus left the comfort of its safe, loving life to journey to us here and
become vulnerable and sit with us in darkness – and so open the circle of
divine love to us, that we too might enter within it and be embraced by
the love of the triune God,
the love we believe anchors all that exists.
Friends, we journey with the magi in 2016, and that is a comforting thought.
They are good travelling companions for us.
They help us to trust and to follow the faint lights of goodness and hope we see.
They can help us see that in the dark skies of life there is still light to be found.
They can help us see that in the sometimes dark landscapes of our lives there is still
a light of love to follow.
They can help us see that we do not need to have a superbright epiphany to move forward –
rather, just a little hope, a little faint light will do – and that that is enough.
They reassure us that it’s okay to take wrong turns because there is one waiting for us who
will not move.
They remind that we have been given companions for the journey who are great gifts to us.
And that there are those we can ask directions from if we lose our way.
2015 likely ended for us differently than we’d anticipated.
Just so: just as our plans for 2016 seem set, this year may take us in a different direction.
Job prospects may fall through, relationships may stagger, health may fail.
We don’t know.
But the small light in the darkness will remain.
We have knowledge and skills.
We have travelling companions.
And we have gifts to give within and outside our circle – gifts of friendship and love and
hospitality – and giving them generously will give our lives meaning and joy,
overwhelming joy and meaning, the same the magi found all those years ago.
So let us take the knowledge and skills we have, let us bring along the gifts we’ve been given,
let us take the hope that is within us –
and with the travelling companions we’ve been given let us set out and follow the light of
that faint star that continues to shine in darkness.
And together let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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