On this Epiphany Sunday, for our sermon text we’ll continue reading the story of the wisemen that Steve started earlier.

I’ve preached many times now on these passages. I don’t really get tired of them. A star. A baby, a manger, a stable, Mary, Joseph, Bethlehem. Three wisemen coming from the east. What a great story, that has captivated people for centuries!

In fact, I brought one of our little nativity scenes from home this morning to help us [put figures up on top ledge of pulpit]. Think about where we’ve come over these weeks. The young women Mary, miraculously pregnant, to whom God spoke through an angel. And Joseph, her husband who also received God’s reassurance that his wife and the child to come fell safely under the mantle of God’s plan. The baby foretold, Jesus, the one who will save his people from their sins, who will be God-with-us. The journey to romantic little Bethlehem. The actual birth of Jesus, and the word to shepherds watching their flocks who came to see. Mary treasuring all the amazing things, pondering over them in her heart. Beautiful.

And then the gospel writer Matthew so beautifully pastes in this other piece that we’ve read this morning. Remember that in Matthew’s gospel he will constantly tell us about the upside-down, inside-out, surprising element of the gospel. And so here, these wisemen come from the east, coming to worship. They were not Jewish, these astrologers, astronomers, perhaps royalty who studied both the movement of stars and their meaning. They followed after a particular star, of which, the scientists tell us, there were several remarkable occurrences in the sky roughly around the time we think Jesus was born, including Haley’s Comet. But unlike many of God’s people along the way, these wisemen, these outsiders, come to worship the new king.

They are certainly not Jews like Jesus, they weren’t waiting for God’s Messiah, yet they seem to exhibit far more faith than anyone who was. They leave home and journey for months, perhaps years. They follow God’s wondrous revelation in nature (the star) in order to get to Jerusalem. Then in Jerusalem they pay attention to the Jewish scriptures (Micah) and obediently head to Bethlehem.

Upon finding a child, they offer gifts. They kneel down, they worship. Remember, these are pagans, heathens, not believers. And yet God draws them and they respond. Their faith humbles us. You’ll notice that the experts in Herod’s court knew the scriptures, but apparently didn’t bother going 5 miles to Bethlehem to check things out. No matter. The Word of God has already begun to spread across the barriers of geography, race, religion. God’s “epiphany,” God’s revelation is not just for the Jews, not just for these people or those people but for everyone.

Isn’t it great?! These magi are exactly the wrong kind of people…but they’re invited to the feast of God! It’s just like Jesus’ parable about a man who invited people to a great banquet party, but those invited found excuses not to come and so the man said “those I invited didn’t come…so go to the street and alleys of the town (highways and byways) and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame.” All those you wouldn’t expect, all those who didn’t deserve. And when the house still wasn’t full, he said “Go further out, bring them in, anyone who will come!” It’s just like Ephesians 2:12 where Paul says “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near…(by the blood of Christ).”

It’s all here in the epiphany story. And for someone who loves theology, what a great summary of the gospel: revelation, mercy, grace, faith, outsiders brought in. It’s perfect. A star, a child, parents, a manger, the wisemen worshipping on bended knee. It’s soft, it’s gentle, it’s wonderful.

[SMASH! Knock the nativity figures off the pulpit]

And then Matthew blows the whole thing. It all goes out the window. And our faith gets rattled, quivers, sometimes falls apart. Because on the other side of the manger is fear, terror and death. As the wisemen reverently head off one direction, a storm named Herod blows in from the other. In an angry attempt to protect his power and reign, King Herod orders all the male babies under two in the vicinity of Bethlehem to be murdered. Bethlehem was a small town, so in the overall scope of things, maybe 20-30 lives are not that big of a thing. But tell that to the mothers (and I assume, the fathers,) whose weeping fills the skies in this story.

This writer Matthew didn’t make up Herod. He was a historical figure, who according to scholar Kenneth Bailey was “racially Arab, religiously Jewish, culturally Greek and politically Roman,” who made himself valuable enough to the occupying Romans that they let him act as king. He was power hungry and vicious. Anyone who made him suspicious was eliminated. He had his wife and mother-in-law killed. He had political opponents, hundreds or thousands of them, executed. Three different times he had his own sons killed. Even the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus said “It’s safer to be Herod’s pig than his son.” When Herod grew close to death, he knew that no one would shed a tear at his passing…so he had some of Jerusalem’s leading citizens arrested and left orders that upon his death they would be executed. He was determined that people would cry when he died. He was, after all, their King.

(It is interesting, though, that in Matthew’s story, once the wisemen bowed before the baby king, Jesus Christ…King Herod is never again called “King.” He becomes just “Herod”).

And so our peaceful picture is shattered. Jesus, the child who will “save his people from their sins” flees the terrors of life, back to Egypt where God had already rescued Israel once. Back to the same Egypt, in fact, where another nasty king (pharaoh) had once sought to execute Israel’s male children to preserve HIS power, and a baby named Moses had slipped through his clutches. Mary and Joseph flee with Jesus as refugees, seeking safety.

So, Matthew…Why this picture? Why such a horrible scene? Because it’s real life. Because the gospel unfolds itself in the midst of reality. Fear, danger, death are part of the life we live on earth. Herod murdering 30 children in an attempt to kill a potential opponent is only one small piece in a long line of atrocity. It is our history. The Gulag of Russia. Mao. The Holocaust. The killing fields of Cambodia. Sadam’s elimination of Kurds. The Serbs in Kosovo. Rwanda. Uganda. It is the world. It is the ugly and terrible manifestation of sin. One of the Presbyterian Confessions, the Confession of 1967 says “In sin (humans) claim mastery of their own lives, turn against God and their fellow (creatures), and become exploiters and despoilers of the world. They lose their humanity in futile striving and are left in rebellion, despair, and isolation.”

The scary thing is that this same description would work for all sorts of things we call much less harmful than murder, and far closer to our everyday experience. Listen to the words: “claiming mastery of our own lives…exploiting, despoiling, loss of humanity, striving, despair.”

One of my favorite singer/songwriters is named David Wilcox. He has a song called “Show the Way.” It starts out:

“You say you see no hope.

You say you see no reason we should dream,

that the world would ever change,

you’re saying love is foolish to believe,

‘cause there’ll always be some crazy…

with an army or a knife…

to wake you from your daydream and put the fear back in your life“

It is into thisworld, and among these people…that Jesus came. The incarnation, the Word made flesh didn’t float down from heaven, but came amongst the grime and grit…and beauty, the blood and terror…and love…that is real life. And as much as we wish it were otherwise, Jesus has not promised that it would be otherwise here. Every day we must face the question that Job faced in the Old Testament, Job who had everything: house, home, family, wealth and saw it all lost, destroyed and killed, everyday we choose with Job whether or not we are willing to say “The Lord gives, the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Our home group met this week, and had a great time…but it was kind of a hard week. We shared stories and prayed for parents in failing health, for friends with cancer, for painful relationships. I thought afterwards, “Does God have any idea how much faith it takes to believe in the midst of a world like this!?”

Well…the answer is “Yes.” In fact, the two sides of the manger shout out a resounding yes. The Incarnation of Jesus Christ tells us not only that Jesus came to save us (starting with a God-ordained child), but that Jesus came here, to a Herod-infested world. What does that mean? I’ve thought about several things this week:

• God knows our world. Has experienced it, walked in it, been betrayed by it.
• Even more unbelievably, God chose to come into this unbelievable mess. In

December I told you the story of little John-the-Baptist that I met in rural Uganda. He’s the one who lived with his 13 yr old sister as the head of their household because the adults in their family had died of AIDS. When we gathered in the little dilapidated hut, with no water, no parents, no hope, it was the hardest part of the whole trip for me. And when I walked outside to cry and breathe, my friend Dave came out to and said “Boy,” this is where the Incarnation really means something.” It seemed like a poor time for a theological discussion. “Can you believe,” Dave said, “that Christ came into this kind of world? Into this place?”

Thirdly, God came not only to bind up the wounds of the broken-hearted…but unbelievably and graciously, he also came in Jesus for the very people…who caused the mess.

[pick up nativity set pieces here, put back on pulpit]

Jesus came for those lost…and wandering…for those lashing out and damaging others…for those just logging time. For those, like you and me…in need of forgiveness.

We all have a bit of the Bible experts that Herod consulted in us, don’t we? Knowing the right things to do, but just not getting to them. We all have some of Herod in us as well, protecting ourselves at any cost. Of course Herod was an extreme case. But children die today from things we can prevent, and people are destroyed internally by things we say and do. Christ came for us and for our salvation, and when we understand this personally, we have no choice but to fall to our knees like the wisemen and worship.

• The other side of the manger shows us that our salvation is not just

about being beamed off of earth, nor about being shielded from difficult things. Instead it allows us to live life knowing how God feels about us, knowing we are not alone. It’s amazing how much JOY life gives when we can glimpse the truth that the God of heaven and earth loves US. That we can trust God when he says “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” When we see places where God triumphs in ways we never thought possible. And knowing that darkness does not always win and that ltimately…darkness does not win at all.

The end of David Wilcox’s song says this:

“It is love who mixed the mortar, and it’s love who stacked these stones

and it’s love who made the stage here, though it looks like we’re alone

in this scene set in shadows, like the night is here to stay

there is evil cast around us, but it’s love that wrote the play.

for in this darkness love will show the way.”

The gospel writer John has a much more concise and even better way of saying it: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”