Journey to Jesus(5Dec10)
Series: Advent 2010
Advent M2: Sermon Notes (10 12 05)
Speaker: Ken Shigematsu
Title: Journey to Jesus
Text: Matthew 2:1-12
BIG IDEA: God uses stars and Scripture to lead us to Jesus.
This summer, with Joey in the stroller, I walked to the playground area of a park. I noticed a young girl about 4 or 5 years old, whose eyes were watering, she seemed quite emotionally upset. I turned to her mother and asked, “Is your daughter OK?” Her mother said, “She’ll be OK. She’s just upset. She’s upset because a girl who she thought was one of her best friends did not invite her to her party.” “Wow!” I thought. “Even for a girl 4 or 5 years old, whether she is included or not is really important.”
When I was an adolescent, I was apathetic about a lot of things. As I shared recently, I was probably most apathetic about my school work. But one thing I was really passionate about was being accepted by a certain group of peers. It was extremely important for me to be accepted by particular peer group. I worked really hard to make that happen.
We may think that as adults we are beyond all that.
C. S. Lewis, the Oxford scholar, wrote an essay entitled The Inner Ring. He writes, “You discover gradually in almost indefinable ways that it [this inner ring of inclusion and exclusion] exists and that you are outside it; and then later, perhaps, you are inside it. It is not easy, even at a given moment, to say who is inside and who is outside…I believe that in all of our lives at certain periods… between infancy and extreme old age, one of the most dominant elements is the drive to be inside the local ring and the terror of being left outside it.”
Last Sunday as Mardi spoke on the genealogy of Jesus from Matthew 1 she described how inclusive God is; how he invites people like Tamar, a discarded woman, Rahab, a prostitute, Ruth, a member of a despised minority group, Bathsheba, a woman mired in scandal, a woman who would have been featured on the cover of the National Enquirer had she been alive today. Mary, who though revered today, at the time she was pregnant with Jesus would have been suspected of being unfaithful to her fiancé.
Today, as we continue our advent series through the Gospel of Matthew, we are going to be looking at how God invites the Magi to the birthday party of His Son.
If you have your Bibles, please turn to Matthew 2:
1 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:
6 “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.’”
7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”
9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.
Who were the Magi? They were men who came from the east, literally men from the land of “the rising” sun (not Japan, but the general direction from which the sun is seen to rise, the east). Scholars believe that they were likely from Persia, modern day Iran or Iraq.
The Magi have been described by people across the centuries as wise men. Were they wise? Yes, but not in the way we would typically think of as wise. They were specialists in discerning the meaning of the stars. They were astrologers. Contrary to the popular Christmas carol, the Magi were probably not kings, but gave guidance to kings by decoding the messages of the stars.
How would a Jewish person have regarded these Magi? A typical Jewish person would have regarded these Magi, these astrologers, as idolaters, sorcerers, magicians—in fact we get the word “magician” from the same root word as Magi. From a Jewish perspective these Magi were Gentiles—racially, culturally, and spiritually outsiders to the one true God.
So, why does Matthew include these Gentiles in an account written primarily to Jews? The same reason he includes women Mardi spoke about last week in his genealogy of Jesus in a culture where women were marginalized.
Matthew wants to show us that God invites “outsiders” to the birthday party of his Son.
We read of the Magi making their way toward Jesus. Why? What possessed the Magi, to take such a long journey, a journey that might take 6-12 months? What compelled the Magi to set out on a journey, which according to T.S. Eliot, would require them to travel during “the worst of the time of the year… in the dead of winter”? God.
We see in this story that long before the Magi ever took one step toward Jesus, God had been taking steps toward them. Long before the Magi ever sought Jesus, God had been seeking them. He had been wooing them to the birthday party of his Son.
C. S. Lewis writes, "I never had the experience of looking for God. It was the other way around. He was the hunter; I was the deer. He stalked me, took unerring aim, and fired."
A friend listened to Ann Lamott, author of Traveling Mercies, speak in North Carolina. In her talk she described her conversion experience.
She said, “I have a black cat who follows me around the house. Wherever I go (the kitchen, my bedroom) my black cat follows me around. God felt like my black cat, always following me around. So, I finally just said to God, ‘ah F ___, come
on in!”
We see in this story that long before the Magi ever took one step toward God, God had been taking steps toward them. Long before the Magi ever saw Jesus, God had been seeking them. He had been wooing them to the birthday party of His Son.
What did God use to draw the Magi to Jesus? Not a trick question. He uses the star. We don’t know what kind of star God used to point these people to his son. Some commentators have suggested that it may have been a comet, a Supernova, or some kind of shooting star. A couple of the very best commentators on the Gospel of Matthew, Davies and Allison, point out that prior to the renaissance understanding of astronomy most commentators understood the star to be animate—an angel. They point out that people in the ancient world, the ancient Jewish world, in particular, identified stars with angels. So the star that led the Magi to Bethlehem may have been an angel. (Just a little trivia: If you have a Christmas tree, to put either a star on the top of the tree, or an angel, may be appropriate because the star may have been, in fact, an angel.)
Are there stars that God has brought into your life who have drawn you closer to Jesus? Anne Lamott describes some of her stars, in the book Traveling Mercies (she describes her stars as Lily Pads), “My faith did not start with a leap, but rather a series of staggers from what seemed like one safe place to another. Like lily pads, round and green, these places summoned me and they held me up while I grew. Each prepared me for the next leaf on which I would land and this way I moved across the swamp of doubt and fear. When I look back at some of these early resting places—the boisterous home of the Catholics, the soft armchair of the Christian Science mom, adoption by ardent Jews—I can see how flimsy and indirect a path they made. Yet, each brought me closer to the verdant pad of faith on which I somehow stay afloat today.”
Do you have stars or lily pads that have led you closer to Jesus?
As I look at my own life, sometimes I trace the stars that have led me closer to Jesus. I think about how when I was a young boy our family moved from Tokyo, Japan to Vancouver (via New York City and London, England); and I came to a place where I would be more likely to hear about Jesus. As I referred to in our series on the Ten Commandments, as a young teenager I was caught shoplifting. When I recognized how much pain and shame that I had brought my parents, I realized I had to chart some kind of new path in life. I didn’t know what it would be, but that opened me up to Christ.
When I was 15, I attended a summer camp down in Washington State called The Firs. Our counselor was a young named Bam Bam, aka Ken Hamilton, a guy from California who spent the week taking us rappelling, driving the water ski boat for us as we skied, playing basketball with us. At the end of that week he shared from John 10:10 how Christ didn’t come so that our life would be boring, but so that we could live our lives to the maximum. Seeing the joy of Jesus Christ in his life moved me to commit my life, as fully as I knew how, to Christ. There are other lily pads, but those are a few.
Perhaps as we draw closer to Christmas, or perhaps at the turn of the New Year, take a few moments to reflect on the lily pads that have drawn, or are drawing you, closer to Jesus.
The French mystic, Simone Weil, has said there are just two things that pierce the human heart—beauty and affliction. I suspect that the lily pads that have drawn, or are drawing you closer to Jesus are pads of either beauty that you see in people, or affliction and pain. Even after we initially meet Jesus, God continues to use both beauty and affliction to draw us to him.
To quote Simone Weil again, she says that in Christianity we are not promised to be delivered from all of our troubles, but we are assured that God will supernaturally use our troubles for his purposes. We are not promised that we will always be delivered from trouble, but that God will use our troubles for our ultimate good and his eternal purposes in us. I don’t want to sound glib, but our scars in the hands of God can become stars that lead us more deeply into God’s love.
As we look toward Christmas and the New Year, if you know Christ, take time to pray about how God might use you as a star in the life of someone else.
God is calling those of us who know Christ to be a light to others. Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.” He also said in the Sermon on the Mount, “(If you know me), You are the light of the world.” He wants you to be a kind of a star that would lead people to Bethlehem—to Jesus.
Paul talks about this in Philippians 2:14-15:
14 Do everything without grumbling or arguing, 15 so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky
God calls us to be a star in this our time. The greatest gift is to be led to the Christ. If that is the greatest gift for us, what a gift it is to shine like a star and point others to the Christ.
In the story of the Magi, we see how God uses a star to draw people to his Son, but if we continue reading the text, we see that the star is not quite enough. We see that the star led the Magi to Jerusalem, but could not get them to Bethlehem—to the place where Jesus was. Only God’s Word could do that. A star can guide us to the target, but the Word of God gets them to the bull’s eye of Jesus Christ.
According to the passage, the Magi came into the street market in Jerusalem and they started asking people (Matth. 2: 2), "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him."
As a result, King Herod heard a rumor that a King for Jews had been born. Herod was deeply troubled by this news. After all, he was not a Jew, nor a Roman (he was an Edomite). Naturally, he was threatened by this potential rival to his throne.
So, Herod called together the chief priests and asked them, “Where is this King who was to be born?”
Matthew, in Matthew 2:3-6, tells us that the priests referred Herod to words written by the prophet in Micah (chapter 5, vs. 2.): “But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.”
After Herod heard these words, he summoned the Magi and told them where Jesus would be born. With this information, the Magi set out to Bethlehem to meet the new King Jesus.
The Magi were led by the star to Jerusalem, but didn’t know how to proceed from there… it’s Scripture that points them to Bethlehem. As they set out the star reappears and brings them to Jesus.
The star can get us to Jerusalem, but it’s Scripture that leads us to Bethlehem—to Jesus. It’s great that God uses creation and the stars. As Anne Lamott’s and other people’s stories, show us, even other religions can act like stars making us more receptive to Christ. But the vehicle that God has used most powerfully, clearly to lead people to His Son, is Scripture. Are we allowing Scripture to point us to Jesus Christ? Stars can lead us to Scripture; and Scripture can lead us to Jesus.
Let me say on the side that simply having access to Scripture, however, even studying Scripture, doesn’t guarantee that we will be led into a life-changing relationship with Jesus. In Matthew 2:3-6 we read:
3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:
6 “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.
We see in this text that King Herod summons the chief priests and the teachers of the law.
This is a rebuke to me because if we were to translate this into contemporary language, we might say, “And King Herod summoned the senior pastors and all the Bible study teachers and the long time believers in God, and asked them where Christ was going to be born, and they reply ‘In Bethlehem,’ because this is what is written in the prophet Micah 5:2.” The senior pastors and the Bible teachers, the long time believers in God; i.e., those who had been exposed to the Scriptures, those who considered themselves followers of God, those who knew that Christ is going to be born in Bethlehem. There are signs that lead even the pagan Magi and the evil King Herod to believe that the Christ is about to be born. Surely the senior pastors, the Bible teachers, and those with the Word would also have had that intuition; and yet why are they not the first ones in Bethlehem? These people have been waiting for centuries for the Messiah, for one who is a son of David to become their king… and you think they would be running to Bethlehem.
But they don’t do anything with the knowledge from the Scriptures that the Christ will be born in Bethlehem. The outsiders—the Magi and Herod seek out Christ—but the long time believers literally sit on their knowledge. They are not moved by the Scriptures. They are not moved by the signs in the world that Christ is about to be born.
It is possible to have all kinds of knowledge of the Scriptures like the chief priests and the keepers of the law had back in the day of Jesus’ birth, but not to do anything with it. Jesus, thirty years after this, was speaking to the religious leaders of his day, some of whom who have actually been around when he was born. They would have been a generation older than him. Some of them may have been children of religious leaders who were around when Jesus was born.
And Jesus says to them in John 5:39-40:
39 You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you possess eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
It is possible to have knowledge about the Bible, even a lot of knowledge about the Bible, but to not do anything about it.
Here at Tenth we have been inviting people to join the practicing the presence movement. We are encouraging people to connect with God at least 4 times a week, 15 minutes per day, in Scripture and prayer. We have intentionally called it Practicing the Presence: Meeting Jesus in Scripture and Prayer because we don’t want practicing the presence to be an just academic exercise where we gain more knowledge about the Bible, but a spiritual practice through the Bible and through prayer and with help of the Holy Spirit where we are actually led into a life-changing friendship with Jesus.
Jesus after having taught his disciples some important truths in the Upper Room the night before he was crucified said, “Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them” (John 13:17).
Jean Leclercq observes that in the ancient secular usage of the meditari [to meditate on a text] meant to reflect, but more than this implied “an intent to do it.” (emphasis added) Books were also rare in the ancient world. In the sixth century, for example, to have a book would have meant you would have had to slaughter a whole flock of sheep to pay for it—the equivalent of thousands of dollars today. Because books were so rare and precious in the ancient world, meditari (to meditate on a text) was viewed as something that would lead to something we did and not merely something we thought. Medical doctors in the ancient world prescribed meditative reading to their patients as physical exercise on an equal level as walking or running or playing sport.
Today we live in a time when people don’t necessarily believe that meditating on something means that it leads us to actually do something. But we experience true blessedness when we do the things that God calls us to in Scripture. One day when our son is a little older I’d like to do a triathlon. I enjoy biking, running, swimming. I took swimming lessons all the way through junior high. At the encouragement of a friend who is training for a triathlon, I recently decided to take a couple of swimming lessons at the centre. My swimming instructor has been able to help me improve my stroke (example, don’t slap the water with your hand down, come into your water with your hand at a angle, stretch as far as you can reach, make an S curve with your hand). But, it is not enough to just know about what to do. I have to get into the pool and start practicing. It is true of any sport.
The same is true of music or art or a craft like carpentry. It is not enough to just study these things. You have actually got to do it, so they become part of your muscle memory.
And so it is with Scripture. We can’t just study it to gain more knowledge about God and about coming to Christ and about following Christ. We have to do something with it.
Jesus said, “Now that you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.”
Eugene Peterson is a pastor and Bible teacher that I have a great deal of respect for. He translated the contemporary version of the Bible called The Message and he is a very trusted guide on matters of spiritual life.
Eugene Peterson says if you feel stuck in your spiritual life, if you feel like you are not moving forward, he says: “Find a commandment in the Scripture. Just start obeying it—doing it. It may not be the biggest commandment, but find a commandment; find something to obey, something to do, and you will find yourself moving forward.”
We have just come through a series on the Ten Commandments. I have been hearing from a number of people in our community by e-mail and in person how much they have appreciated the Ten Commandments. In many cases this is the first time they have heard the Commandments. I am grateful that this series has been helpful to some. But it is not enough just to know the Ten Commandments, but with God’s help we need to live them. We know some things, as a result of this series, about Sabbath, about God’s call to pursue sexual purity, to live generously, to speak the truth. It is not enough to know these things. We are blessed as we actually do them.
Unlike the insiders—the pastors, the teachers of the law and those who had had access to the Word for a long time, and like the Magi—like the outsiders—let’s follow the Word and allow the Word to bring us to Jesus.
One year the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York ran a series of ads on posters all over the city for Christmas. The posters were decorated for Christmas and had a simple caption—COME HOME. What a great message, no matter what your background ethnically, socio-economically, spiritually. No matter what you have done. No matter what your history. No matter how long you have been away from home. Come Home…
God is saying to us--by inviting the marginalized women of the genealogy of Jesus and drew the Magi--God is calling each of us home—home to Jesus Christ.
Like the Magi, may our stars of beauty and affliction and the Scriptures lead us to seek and find the bright and morning star, Jesus Christ.
Advent M2: Sermon Notes (10 12 05)
Speaker: Ken Shigematsu
Title: Journey to Jesus
Text: Matthew 2:1-12
BIG IDEA: God uses stars and Scripture to lead us to Jesus.
This summer, with Joey in the stroller, I walked to the playground area of a park. I noticed a young girl about 4 or 5 years old, whose eyes were watering, she seemed quite emotionally upset. I turned to her mother and asked, “Is your daughter OK?” Her mother said, “She’ll be OK. She’s just upset. She’s upset because a girl who she thought was one of her best friends did not invite her to her party.” “Wow!” I thought. “Even for a girl 4 or 5 years old, whether she is included or not is really important.”
When I was an adolescent, I was apathetic about a lot of things. As I shared recently, I was probably most apathetic about my school work. But one thing I was really passionate about was being accepted by a certain group of peers. It was extremely important for me to be accepted by particular peer group. I worked really hard to make that happen.
We may think that as adults we are beyond all that.
C. S. Lewis, the Oxford scholar, wrote an essay entitled The Inner Ring. He writes, “You discover gradually in almost indefinable ways that it [this inner ring of inclusion and exclusion] exists and that you are outside it; and then later, perhaps, you are inside it. It is not easy, even at a given moment, to say who is inside and who is outside…I believe that in all of our lives at certain periods… between infancy and extreme old age, one of the most dominant elements is the drive to be inside the local ring and the terror of being left outside it.”
Last Sunday as Mardi spoke on the genealogy of Jesus from Matthew 1 she described how inclusive God is; how he invites people like Tamar, a discarded woman, Rahab, a prostitute, Ruth, a member of a despised minority group, Bathsheba, a woman mired in scandal, a woman who would have been featured on the cover of the National Enquirer had she been alive today. Mary, who though revered today, at the time she was pregnant with Jesus would have been suspected of being unfaithful to her fiancé.
Today, as we continue our advent series through the Gospel of Matthew, we are going to be looking at how God invites the Magi to the birthday party of His Son.
If you have your Bibles, please turn to Matthew 2:
1 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:
6 “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.’”
7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”
9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.
Who were the Magi? They were men who came from the east, literally men from the land of “the rising” sun (not Japan, but the general direction from which the sun is seen to rise, the east). Scholars believe that they were likely from Persia, modern day Iran or Iraq.
The Magi have been described by people across the centuries as wise men. Were they wise? Yes, but not in the way we would typically think of as wise. They were specialists in discerning the meaning of the stars. They were astrologers. Contrary to the popular Christmas carol, the Magi were probably not kings, but gave guidance to kings by decoding the messages of the stars.
How would a Jewish person have regarded these Magi? A typical Jewish person would have regarded these Magi, these astrologers, as idolaters, sorcerers, magicians—in fact we get the word “magician” from the same root word as Magi. From a Jewish perspective these Magi were Gentiles—racially, culturally, and spiritually outsiders to the one true God.
So, why does Matthew include these Gentiles in an account written primarily to Jews? The same reason he includes women Mardi spoke about last week in his genealogy of Jesus in a culture where women were marginalized.
Matthew wants to show us that God invites “outsiders” to the birthday party of his Son.
We read of the Magi making their way toward Jesus. Why? What possessed the Magi, to take such a long journey, a journey that might take 6-12 months? What compelled the Magi to set out on a journey, which according to T.S. Eliot, would require them to travel during “the worst of the time of the year… in the dead of winter”? God.
We see in this story that long before the Magi ever took one step toward Jesus, God had been taking steps toward them. Long before the Magi ever sought Jesus, God had been seeking them. He had been wooing them to the birthday party of his Son.
C. S. Lewis writes, "I never had the experience of looking for God. It was the other way around. He was the hunter; I was the deer. He stalked me, took unerring aim, and fired."
A friend listened to Ann Lamott, author of Traveling Mercies, speak in North Carolina. In her talk she described her conversion experience.
She said, “I have a black cat who follows me around the house. Wherever I go (the kitchen, my bedroom) my black cat follows me around. God felt like my black cat, always following me around. So, I finally just said to God, ‘ah F ___, come
on in!”
We see in this story that long before the Magi ever took one step toward God, God had been taking steps toward them. Long before the Magi ever saw Jesus, God had been seeking them. He had been wooing them to the birthday party of His Son.
What did God use to draw the Magi to Jesus? Not a trick question. He uses the star. We don’t know what kind of star God used to point these people to his son. Some commentators have suggested that it may have been a comet, a Supernova, or some kind of shooting star. A couple of the very best commentators on the Gospel of Matthew, Davies and Allison, point out that prior to the renaissance understanding of astronomy most commentators understood the star to be animate—an angel. They point out that people in the ancient world, the ancient Jewish world, in particular, identified stars with angels. So the star that led the Magi to Bethlehem may have been an angel. (Just a little trivia: If you have a Christmas tree, to put either a star on the top of the tree, or an angel, may be appropriate because the star may have been, in fact, an angel.)
Are there stars that God has brought into your life who have drawn you closer to Jesus? Anne Lamott describes some of her stars, in the book Traveling Mercies (she describes her stars as Lily Pads), “My faith did not start with a leap, but rather a series of staggers from what seemed like one safe place to another. Like lily pads, round and green, these places summoned me and they held me up while I grew. Each prepared me for the next leaf on which I would land and this way I moved across the swamp of doubt and fear. When I look back at some of these early resting places—the boisterous home of the Catholics, the soft armchair of the Christian Science mom, adoption by ardent Jews—I can see how flimsy and indirect a path they made. Yet, each brought me closer to the verdant pad of faith on which I somehow stay afloat today.”
Do you have stars or lily pads that have led you closer to Jesus?
As I look at my own life, sometimes I trace the stars that have led me closer to Jesus. I think about how when I was a young boy our family moved from Tokyo, Japan to Vancouver (via New York City and London, England); and I came to a place where I would be more likely to hear about Jesus. As I referred to in our series on the Ten Commandments, as a young teenager I was caught shoplifting. When I recognized how much pain and shame that I had brought my parents, I realized I had to chart some kind of new path in life. I didn’t know what it would be, but that opened me up to Christ.
When I was 15, I attended a summer camp down in Washington State called The Firs. Our counselor was a young named Bam Bam, aka Ken Hamilton, a guy from California who spent the week taking us rappelling, driving the water ski boat for us as we skied, playing basketball with us. At the end of that week he shared from John 10:10 how Christ didn’t come so that our life would be boring, but so that we could live our lives to the maximum. Seeing the joy of Jesus Christ in his life moved me to commit my life, as fully as I knew how, to Christ. There are other lily pads, but those are a few.
Perhaps as we draw closer to Christmas, or perhaps at the turn of the New Year, take a few moments to reflect on the lily pads that have drawn, or are drawing you, closer to Jesus.
The French mystic, Simone Weil, has said there are just two things that pierce the human heart—beauty and affliction. I suspect that the lily pads that have drawn, or are drawing you closer to Jesus are pads of either beauty that you see in people, or affliction and pain. Even after we initially meet Jesus, God continues to use both beauty and affliction to draw us to him.
To quote Simone Weil again, she says that in Christianity we are not promised to be delivered from all of our troubles, but we are assured that God will supernaturally use our troubles for his purposes. We are not promised that we will always be delivered from trouble, but that God will use our troubles for our ultimate good and his eternal purposes in us. I don’t want to sound glib, but our scars in the hands of God can become stars that lead us more deeply into God’s love.
As we look toward Christmas and the New Year, if you know Christ, take time to pray about how God might use you as a star in the life of someone else.
God is calling those of us who know Christ to be a light to others. Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.” He also said in the Sermon on the Mount, “(If you know me), You are the light of the world.” He wants you to be a kind of a star that would lead people to Bethlehem—to Jesus.
Paul talks about this in Philippians 2:14-15:
14 Do everything without grumbling or arguing, 15 so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky
God calls us to be a star in this our time. The greatest gift is to be led to the Christ. If that is the greatest gift for us, what a gift it is to shine like a star and point others to the Christ.
In the story of the Magi, we see how God uses a star to draw people to his Son, but if we continue reading the text, we see that the star is not quite enough. We see that the star led the Magi to Jerusalem, but could not get them to Bethlehem—to the place where Jesus was. Only God’s Word could do that. A star can guide us to the target, but the Word of God gets them to the bull’s eye of Jesus Christ.
According to the passage, the Magi came into the street market in Jerusalem and they started asking people (Matth. 2: 2), "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him."
As a result, King Herod heard a rumor that a King for Jews had been born. Herod was deeply troubled by this news. After all, he was not a Jew, nor a Roman (he was an Edomite). Naturally, he was threatened by this potential rival to his throne.
So, Herod called together the chief priests and asked them, “Where is this King who was to be born?”
Matthew, in Matthew 2:3-6, tells us that the priests referred Herod to words written by the prophet in Micah (chapter 5, vs. 2.): “But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.”
After Herod heard these words, he summoned the Magi and told them where Jesus would be born. With this information, the Magi set out to Bethlehem to meet the new King Jesus.
The Magi were led by the star to Jerusalem, but didn’t know how to proceed from there… it’s Scripture that points them to Bethlehem. As they set out the star reappears and brings them to Jesus.
The star can get us to Jerusalem, but it’s Scripture that leads us to Bethlehem—to Jesus. It’s great that God uses creation and the stars. As Anne Lamott’s and other people’s stories, show us, even other religions can act like stars making us more receptive to Christ. But the vehicle that God has used most powerfully, clearly to lead people to His Son, is Scripture. Are we allowing Scripture to point us to Jesus Christ? Stars can lead us to Scripture; and Scripture can lead us to Jesus.
Let me say on the side that simply having access to Scripture, however, even studying Scripture, doesn’t guarantee that we will be led into a life-changing relationship with Jesus. In Matthew 2:3-6 we read:
3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:
6 “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.
We see in this text that King Herod summons the chief priests and the teachers of the law.
This is a rebuke to me because if we were to translate this into contemporary language, we might say, “And King Herod summoned the senior pastors and all the Bible study teachers and the long time believers in God, and asked them where Christ was going to be born, and they reply ‘In Bethlehem,’ because this is what is written in the prophet Micah 5:2.” The senior pastors and the Bible teachers, the long time believers in God; i.e., those who had been exposed to the Scriptures, those who considered themselves followers of God, those who knew that Christ is going to be born in Bethlehem. There are signs that lead even the pagan Magi and the evil King Herod to believe that the Christ is about to be born. Surely the senior pastors, the Bible teachers, and those with the Word would also have had that intuition; and yet why are they not the first ones in Bethlehem? These people have been waiting for centuries for the Messiah, for one who is a son of David to become their king… and you think they would be running to Bethlehem.
But they don’t do anything with the knowledge from the Scriptures that the Christ will be born in Bethlehem. The outsiders—the Magi and Herod seek out Christ—but the long time believers literally sit on their knowledge. They are not moved by the Scriptures. They are not moved by the signs in the world that Christ is about to be born.
It is possible to have all kinds of knowledge of the Scriptures like the chief priests and the keepers of the law had back in the day of Jesus’ birth, but not to do anything with it. Jesus, thirty years after this, was speaking to the religious leaders of his day, some of whom who have actually been around when he was born. They would have been a generation older than him. Some of them may have been children of religious leaders who were around when Jesus was born.
And Jesus says to them in John 5:39-40:
39 You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you possess eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
It is possible to have knowledge about the Bible, even a lot of knowledge about the Bible, but to not do anything about it.
Here at Tenth we have been inviting people to join the practicing the presence movement. We are encouraging people to connect with God at least 4 times a week, 15 minutes per day, in Scripture and prayer. We have intentionally called it Practicing the Presence: Meeting Jesus in Scripture and Prayer because we don’t want practicing the presence to be an just academic exercise where we gain more knowledge about the Bible, but a spiritual practice through the Bible and through prayer and with help of the Holy Spirit where we are actually led into a life-changing friendship with Jesus.
Jesus after having taught his disciples some important truths in the Upper Room the night before he was crucified said, “Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them” (John 13:17).
Jean Leclercq observes that in the ancient secular usage of the meditari [to meditate on a text] meant to reflect, but more than this implied “an intent to do it.” (emphasis added) Books were also rare in the ancient world. In the sixth century, for example, to have a book would have meant you would have had to slaughter a whole flock of sheep to pay for it—the equivalent of thousands of dollars today. Because books were so rare and precious in the ancient world, meditari (to meditate on a text) was viewed as something that would lead to something we did and not merely something we thought. Medical doctors in the ancient world prescribed meditative reading to their patients as physical exercise on an equal level as walking or running or playing sport.
Today we live in a time when people don’t necessarily believe that meditating on something means that it leads us to actually do something. But we experience true blessedness when we do the things that God calls us to in Scripture. One day when our son is a little older I’d like to do a triathlon. I enjoy biking, running, swimming. I took swimming lessons all the way through junior high. At the encouragement of a friend who is training for a triathlon, I recently decided to take a couple of swimming lessons at the centre. My swimming instructor has been able to help me improve my stroke (example, don’t slap the water with your hand down, come into your water with your hand at a angle, stretch as far as you can reach, make an S curve with your hand). But, it is not enough to just know about what to do. I have to get into the pool and start practicing. It is true of any sport.
The same is true of music or art or a craft like carpentry. It is not enough to just study these things. You have actually got to do it, so they become part of your muscle memory.
And so it is with Scripture. We can’t just study it to gain more knowledge about God and about coming to Christ and about following Christ. We have to do something with it.
Jesus said, “Now that you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.”
Eugene Peterson is a pastor and Bible teacher that I have a great deal of respect for. He translated the contemporary version of the Bible called The Message and he is a very trusted guide on matters of spiritual life.
Eugene Peterson says if you feel stuck in your spiritual life, if you feel like you are not moving forward, he says: “Find a commandment in the Scripture. Just start obeying it—doing it. It may not be the biggest commandment, but find a commandment; find something to obey, something to do, and you will find yourself moving forward.”
We have just come through a series on the Ten Commandments. I have been hearing from a number of people in our community by e-mail and in person how much they have appreciated the Ten Commandments. In many cases this is the first time they have heard the Commandments. I am grateful that this series has been helpful to some. But it is not enough just to know the Ten Commandments, but with God’s help we need to live them. We know some things, as a result of this series, about Sabbath, about God’s call to pursue sexual purity, to live generously, to speak the truth. It is not enough to know these things. We are blessed as we actually do them.
Unlike the insiders—the pastors, the teachers of the law and those who had had access to the Word for a long time, and like the Magi—like the outsiders—let’s follow the Word and allow the Word to bring us to Jesus.
One year the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York ran a series of ads on posters all over the city for Christmas. The posters were decorated for Christmas and had a simple caption—COME HOME. What a great message, no matter what your background ethnically, socio-economically, spiritually. No matter what you have done. No matter what your history. No matter how long you have been away from home. Come Home…
God is saying to us--by inviting the marginalized women of the genealogy of Jesus and drew the Magi--God is calling each of us home—home to Jesus Christ.
Like the Magi, may our stars of beauty and affliction and the Scriptures lead us to seek and find the bright and morning star, Jesus Christ.
posted by Shigematsu at 1:31 PM
1 Comments:
thoroughly enjoyed reading....oswald
my email id....heynamaskar@gmail.com
u were my pastor @ 10 when i ws in vancouver...1996-2000
Post a Comment
<< Home