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If No Sound
What Are you Following?©
January 3, 2010
Isaiah 60:1-6
Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14 (UMH
795)
Ephesians 3:1-12
Matthew 2:1-12
Amy DeWitte
Not long after we moved to Huntsville I was trying to tell someone
how to get to the parsonage - someone who had never been there before. I was on
the phone with her as she was traveling along Oakwood Avenue trying to look for
landmarks and street signs. She was trying to find the correct road to turn
down and wondering if she was even going in the right direction. At one point
she asked, “Should I be going toward the mountain or away from the mountain?”
I was flummoxed. I thought we were surrounded by mountains! What
did she mean “toward the mountain or away from the mountain?
I have this theory that there are two kinds of people in the world:
those who have a strong sense of direction and those who don’t. Maybe I say this
to try to make myself feel better, as if I’m not the only one out there who
doesn’t have a strong sense of direction!
The other day I was driving with Joe in a place I don’t think we’d
been before. I don’t know why I felt the need to say it, but I was pretty sure
I knew where we were going and I boldly declared, “We must be going north.” In
fact we were going south, and Joe told me so. I argued with him for a minute. I
felt fairly confident that we were going north. So, I looked up for the sun,
which was to my right in the sky, and looked down at the clock to realize it was
indeed 2 o-clock in the afternoon. The sun was in the western sky, and we were,
in fact heading south.
Joe said, “I don’t know why you’d argue with me. I taught
wilderness survival at camp. I always know what direction I’m going.” Joe falls
in the other category - the group of people who do have a strong sense of
direction.
The wise that we read about today in the gospel of Matthew would
fall into that category, too. Day or night, they knew where they were and they
knew where they were going, mostly because they were masters of the sky. The
didn’t just know the North star, but all the stars. They new their names, and
they knew where they were by what time of year it was. They watched as planets
moved in relation to each other. They followed meteors and comets, and they knew
all the stories that were associated with them. They knew when something was
different or special in the sky. And so it was when they saw that bright star
shining.
Something was different in the sky around the time when Jesus was
born. Every 800 years or so, Jupiter has this strange interplay, this dance,
with Saturn. Among astrologers, Jupiter the biggest planet, is the king of the
night sky. Saturn was thought to be the star that was the protector of Israel.
The king. Israel. What did this movement mean, what was going on?
Was there a new king for Israel?Some of thee wisemen, these men who knew
direction, saw a star rise in the night sky and something, I don’t know what,
caused them to wonder after that star. Could it be a new king? A new king for
Israel?
They were, of course, not Jews. They didn’t know the stories about
the coming Messiah. They didn’t know the Jewish prophesy, but they picked up
and followed that star. When they had gotten as far as Jerusalem, they started
asking around: “Where is the child who is born king of the Jews? For we saw his
star at its rising and we have come to pay him homage.”
Herod heard about this, and he was frightened - his power might be
in jeopardy, so he called together the priests and the scribes to see what they
know about where the messiah was prophesied to be born.
They knew: "In Bethlehem of Judea.” And they quoted from a passage
we read together just a couple of weeks ago from Isaiah: “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 sent the wise men out to look for the Messiah, saying that he,
too, would like to go and pay the child homage. Of course, he had intentions
that you and I know were less than honorable. So the wise men set out again to
find the child they had travelled all that way for. They followed their star
until it stopped over the place where Jesus was and they went into a house were
they found Jesus and his mom, Mary. They knelt down and honored him, gave gifts
of gold, frankincense, myrrh. They knew that there was something special about
this kid. They knew the sky; they knew when something new and exciting was
happening because of the stars; these were guys who knew which direction they
were going, and they were bound and determined to find the new king of the Jews,
There was an ad in the paper Christmas day you might have seen.
There was a whole page awash in dark blue and purple. In the corner there were
men riding camels, and in the middle of the darkness shone a big bright star.
The caption asked, “What are you following?”
The wise men knew their sky. They were going in a particular
direction. They were following something on purpose. Just like the shepherds we
met in the fields just two weeks ago, they were looking for something on
purpose. The shepherds were Jews, sons of Abraham. They were told to look
for a baby wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a manger. The wisemen,
Gentiles, not even knowing who they were looking for or where they were going,
followed a star to the place where they would find the new king of the Jews.
Each were given signs of what to look for, each given a sense of direction that
they would understand.
Lowly shepherds, wealthy astrologers. Jews and Gentiles. From just
across the field and from far far away.
Each looked into the face of Jesus and honored him, embodying what
Paul would later describe in his letter to the Ephesians, a mystery that no one
had yet understood - that both Jews and Gentiles can be heirs of the promises of
God, that insiders and outsiders matter, that Jesus came for all, that all
humankind could be united with one purpose, one direction, if only we knew what
they were following.
Do we embody that mystery? Do we live into that promise? Are we
following after a singular purpose? In fact, how do we answer that question
from the newspaper ad? What are we following?
Copyright © 2009 Amy DeWitte. All Rights Reserved. No portion of
this writing may be reproduced in any form without specific, written
permission of the author.
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