Who Is This Shaping Our Future: 1. Lift Up Your Eyes

Passage: Matthew 2:1-12

Preacher: Dr. Jim Standiford

Series: Who is This Shaping our Future?

The story of the Magi coming to worship Jesus awakens us to the intention of God that Jesus is the savior, and the hope of the whole world.

Come, Lord Jesus, fill our minds with your word, fill our hearts with your love, and fill our lives with your light.  Come, Lord Jesus, we pray.  Amen.

Historically, this time of year people try to look to the future, but it is amazing how poorly some people see. In 1899 the Director of the U.S. Patent Office, Charles Duell, urged President William McKinley to abolish the patent office saying, “Everything that can be invented has been invented.” Even before the birth of Albert Einstein some prominent physicists were counseling young men not to go into the field of physics because they thought the scientific community was on the cusp of knowing everything there was to know about physics. In 1928 physicist and Nobel Prize winner Max Born told a group of visitors to Gottingen University, “Physics as we know it will be over in six months.” In 1943, Thomas J. Watson of IBM stated, “I think there is a world market for maybe as many as five computers.”

It wasn’t just government workers, scientists, or business leaders who had such dim hopes for the future. In 1870 a college president addressed the Indiana Annual Conference of the Methodist Church. He said, “I think we are going to see things happen in our lifetime that right now are just unbelievable.” The presiding Bishop was so intrigued that he interrupted the speaker and asked, “What kind of things do you mean?” “All kinds of things, Bishop. I believe, for example, that one day we will be able to fly.” The Bishop reprimanded the college president and said, “That is heresy. Just heresy. The Bible says that flight is reserved for the angels alone. We will have no such talk here at this Methodist Conference!” When the conference was over that Bishop, whose name was Wright, went home to his wife and two small sons, whose names happened to be Wilbur and Orville. Thirty-three years later, they would be the first to fly.

Today is Epiphany Sunday. The word “epiphany” means to manifest or show forth. It is used in connection with the story of the magi coming to worship the infant Jesus, for in this story Jesus shows forth a whole new future for Jews, Gentiles, all people, as the savior of the world.

Each of the gospel writers looks to the future, but each in a unique way. On Christmas Eve I spoke about Luke’s introduction of Jesus being very unusual in that women give witness to who Jesus is. This unusual approach was Luke’s way of saying that in Jesus a new future is opening for all of us.    

Matthew has his own equally new and unusual way of introducing Jesus to make the same point, the future will be different because Jesus is someone very unique in all the world. Matthew wrote his gospel for new Christians. It seems the boundaries of their thinking were already closing in tightly around them. They were thinking the new life in Christ was only for them and not for those different from them. Matthew indicts that thinking and proclaims God can and will act where we would not expect God to be.

Matthew opens their eyes with his genealogy. Jewish genealogies were traced through the male linage, but Matthew includes four women in his list of the ancestors of Jesus. Not only that, but these were women whose lives bore the scars of prostitution, incest, adultery, and murder. Matthew is laying the groundwork for proclaiming that a new future is dawning quite different from anything experienced before.

He continues his eye opening account when he introduces the magi who come to worship the infant Jesus. The word for “worship” here refers to the type of devotion shown only to God, so Matthew is saying, God is in Jesus. (Mathew 4:10) This story, a literary masterpiece in its brevity and beauty, foreshadows later developments in Matthew’s gospel of both worship and hostility shown to Jesus. Our Christian tradition and some Bible translations have come to identify these people as kings or wise men, but they are neither. The kings in Matthew 2 are Herod and Jesus. Herod is the sort of king Jesus later denounces in Matthew 20:25. He is a tyrant who violently lords over those he rules. By contrast, Jesus is the infant king, helpless and vulnerable, a ruler whose power is hidden in humility. The wise men in Matthew 2 are the chief priests and scribes who function as Herod’s advisors. They are learned in the scriptures, possessing academic knowledge that both Herod and the magi lack. However, their head knowledge does not open their hearts to the Messiah they claim to seek, rather they become involved in the plot to kill him. Matthew’s point about the magi is they are not hometown folk, they are foreigners, probably looking differently, speaking differently, acting differently. Yet, they exhibit positive qualities that Jesus will later associate with servants: (Matthew 20:25-28) they follow God’s direction, are humble, and seek no honor or power for themselves. 

We have so romanticized these first worshippers we look up to them. We should, because in spite of cultural differences, and distances, they were looking for some new revelation for life and in seeing a star followed it to see what it was about. They were first century open seekers looking for a new future.

However, most likely they would not have been warmly received. The first hearers of Matthew’s gospel would have thought these were the type of people that faithful people would stay away from, not speak to, or have any interaction with. The religious folk would have been scandalized that foreigners had the audacity to come into their area, their town, and worship a baby.

However, this is exactly Matthew’s point. The new, saving word of God is not just for some but for all, or as the gospel writer John put it, “God so love the world.” Not just for men but also women.  Not just for the perfect but also for those whose lives are scared by unmentionable human pain. It is for you and me, but also for those whom we think don’t deserve it. It is for those who believe like we do and act like we do, and for those who do not. It is for those who live like we do, and those who do not. It is for straights, and for gays. It is for those who struggle to believe anything at all, and for those who have lost their faith. On this Epiphany Sunday our call is to “show forth” God’s love to all.

God’s glory may be manifested where we least expect it. Sometimes God’s people become light for others; sometimes they appear to be blind to the light others can see. But one thing we can trust: always, the light is there, as God mysteriously yet graciously shines it forth into our human lives. The magi saw it as a star, focused on it, followed it, and found God’s love in the infant Jesus. If we fix our eyes on a star or any light, we will find that in time the points of the light will appear to stretch into the form of a cross, and it will no longer just rest over the place where the child lay, but will come to rest over our lives, and the whole world. Matthew saw a new future with Jesus as the fulfillment of all righteousness, the fulfillment of right relationships as God comes to us. This is the one shaping our future, lift up your eyes!

Thanks be to God.[i]