Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Will you bow your heads, please?
Lord, open our hearts and minds by the power of your Holy Spirit, that as the Scriptures are read and your word is proclaimed, we may hear with joy what you say to us today. Amen.
Excuse me. This morning's scripture is from the second chapter of Matthew, verses 1 through 12. You can find this in your pew bibles on page 783.
In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem asking, where is the child who has been born King of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising and have come to pay him homage.
When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him. And calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born.
They told him in Bethlehem of Judea, for so it has been written by the prophet.
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.
Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time. And when the star had appeared, then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, go and search diligently for the child.
And when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay homage to him.
When they had heard the king, they set out. And there ahead of them went the star that they had seen at its rising until it stopped over the place where the child was.
When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy.
On entering the house, they saw the child and Mary his mother, and they knelt down and paid him homage.
Then, opening their treasure chests, they they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Thanks, Josiah.
[00:03:08] Speaker B: Good morning.
It's such a pleasure to be here with you all today. I want to start today's message by going back to verse three of what Toby just read.
When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him.
In today's passage, we follow the journey of the Magi who search for the one born King of the Jews.
When they arrive in Jerusalem and state their purpose, they're met with fear. And this is odd for me, coming off the heels of Christmas, where we read about shepherds who rejoice at the same news, it's this fear, this strange fear, however, which creates an important contrast between King Herod and the king who the magi search for Jesus.
We have a tale of two kings today in this passage. And I want to begin by discussing King Herod, a king ruled by fear and who rules by fear.
So when I consider this experience, this experience of being ruled by fear, I was thinking about my own life. And I can remember one specific moment where I realized that I was under the rule of fear.
Now, the setting for you all is Italy. I was serving there as an active duty soldier. And the joke at the unit I was at is that we never deployed and we never would deploy.
But one morning I got a call. I was told we were deploying.
This deployment was something called an acerf deployment, which is a rapid deployment, something that happens in response to a urgent need.
For me, this meant that within the span of three hours, I went from hearing the news that I was leaving to arriving at the airport, preparing to board a plane to the Middle East.
This deployment that we were going on, we knew it was a response to a terror threat. And while most of us had never been on a combat deployment, we felt confident. We were a unit of paratroopers. We felt as though we were highly trained and confident in our skills. We felt ready. Still, it was a frenzied environment with people running around trying to accomplish last minute tasks.
In the middle of that frenzied environment, there was an announcement.
We were told that there was an active threat at the arrival airport. It was unsafe for us to take off.
Later, I'd learned that this active threat was was the same terror group that we were responding to. They'd learned about our arrival and they had set up surface to air missiles around the arrival airfield.
If we flew now, we could be shot down.
I remember in that moment feeling an overwhelming, crippling fear.
I've never felt that before, but it ruled me.
I was up all night and I felt a complete lack of control.
I was trapped in my fear and it ruled over me.
As we look at this passage today, the Magi enter the story looking for a king. And the first king they interact with is a king who rules by fear and who himself is ruled by that fear.
In verses one and two, it tells us that the Magi arrived from the east, which we know is probably modern day Iran or Babylon. They arrive from the east in search of the King of the Jews. Now the context they enter into is Jerusalem. It's a place under Roman occupation. And Herod the Great, the king at the time is a vassal king appointed by the Roman Senate.
Now, some know him for his architectural achievements. He built new temples, new amphitheaters.
But he's also historically oppressive. A king who's hated and feared by the Jewish people.
Historically, we know that Herod murdered members of his own family to maintain his power.
The Magi enter this context and meet this king in search for the king of the Jews.
When Herod hears this announcement, this search that they're on, Verse three tells us when King Herod heard this, he was frightened and and all Jerusalem with him.
Someone had been born with his title. Someone had an inherent claim to his dominion.
This announcement of a king who could challenge Herod's rule terrified him and all the people with him.
This isn't a king who acts rationally, but one who has a history with this people they know to be afraid of him. He is a king who murders even his own family to protect his reign.
The people are afraid because they know what the king is capable of when he is afraid.
This king, in his fear, then turns to the priests and scribes, asking for the location from scripture of this new king, this rightful heir. They tell him that scripture identifies Bethlehem. And with this information, instead of going to Bethlehem to praise this king who's somehow outside of history, yet within it, Herod creates a plan driven by his fear of losing control.
Verses 7 and 8 tell us this plan, they say. Then Herod secretly called for the Magi and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me words so that I may also go and pay him homage.
In this response, we see a product of fear, isolation and desperation.
Herod seeks no counsel. There's no record of him going to his advisors. He doesn't share his plans. Instead, in secret, his fear grows and he creates a plot acting alone with hidden intentions he doesn't take time to contemplate. He doesn't consider the implications.
He forms this plot based in and shaped by fear.
Now, the story continues, and the Magi do end up meeting Jesus. And because of a dream, they choose to go a different way. They choose not to return to Herod's palace.
Now, we didn't read this today, but Herod's story comes to completion in verse 16.
After the Magi complete their journey and choose not to return, Herod enacts his plot. Verse 16 tells us when Herod realized that he had been outwitted by The Magi. He was furious and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and younger, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.
In Herod, we see the full manifestation of fear.
In desperation, we look for a source, an enemy, someone to blame for our feeling of helplessness. And for Herod, fear had so warped his thinking that infants became the enemy.
In King Herod, we see the fruit of fear, deception, isolation, desperation and violence.
Those living under this rule produce these characteristics and they in turn become trapped in the cycle of fear. In King Herod, we witness this cycle. Fear blinds us, isolates us, causes us to feel helpless and desperate.
It's a cycle that feels impossible to escape.
In my own story, I became trapped in that cycle of fear. As I waited for an update, while others slept or stayed awake talking, I isolated myself, pretended to sleep, and let my fear fester.
I realized how helpless I was, how out of control I was.
I could die on that plane without having any say in the matter. And that terrified me. As someone who was regularly jumping out of airplanes, facing dangers in my everyday work, I thought I was confident, I thought I was capable. But when the fear of death faced me, I became ruled by fear.
As I sat there, trapped within this cycle, an announcement was made. It was time for us to take off. We had a small window where we could land and we should be okay.
As I began to grab my stuff and move towards that airplane, our commander stopped us. His name was Lt. Col. Aboho and he wanted to call us all together to speak to us before we boarded the plane. Now, I don't remember the speech, but I remembered the ending.
Lt. Col. Aboho ended his speech by saying, I want you all to know that I love you.
I'll never forget the impact of that statement.
I'd never heard a commander say anything like that and I didn't know what to make of it.
But his love wasn't just words. It was action.
Our commander boarded our flight, choosing to fly with us to our dangerous destination. And he had an option. He had the option to fly to a safe place in the rear to oversee the mission from a secure location.
But he accompanied us.
I remember as I watched him board alongside us, thinking about the words he had said, I felt courage. I felt hope and joy.
While some of my fellow soldiers laughed about it, trying to make sense of what that could mean. All of us boarded that plane in confidence.
Later on, when we would reminisce about that moment, every person remembers that comment.
It changed something within us and caused us to embark on our journey with renewed courage.
Love has a tremendous capacity to break the cycle of fear.
First, John 4:18 tells us there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.
A simple reminder of my commander's love was enough to embolden me. The crippling effect of fear cannot stand against the powerful redirection of love.
Turning back to the passage, we look again at the Magi, and we realize that the magi didn't know what the king would look like.
The king they were looking for, this king of the Jews. They didn't have a description, but they don't offer their gifts to Herod. They don't worship him. Instead, they continue onward and they never return.
Having witnessed a king whose reign was marked by fear, they knew that this was not the king they were looking for.
In the magi story, we do meet the king they searched for.
And when we read this story through the lens of that king's rule, we see God's love shaping every aspect of their journey and God's love embodied in the king they find.
First, we see God's love in the invitation.
In verses 2 and 4 and 6, we have these concepts of the star. In scripture, this star has led them hundreds of miles, excuse me, from modern day Iran to Jerusalem. This is a star that has moved hundreds of miles with them to show them where this king was. And the interesting thing about this is the magi are astrologers, not priests.
Their expertise were the stars. And I think it is so incredible that God used something familiar to them to invite them to the king.
This personalized invitation is then clarified through scripture. In verses 4 and 6, Herod asks the priests and scribes for the birthplace of the new king. And in verses four through six it says they. The scribes and priests told him in Bethlehem of Judea, for so it was written by the prophet. 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.
This passage that they read is Micah 5, 2. And I think it's incredible because this passage was written over 500 years prior to Christ's birth.
God's plan to bring a king is one hundreds of years in the making. Even before the star appeared, God was penning the details of his invitation in history through the prophets.
First Corinthians 13:5 Tell us love does not insist on its own way. And we see that in this invitation.
Unlike Herod's rule proclaimed by the conquering nation. Jesus rule is proclaimed by the stars themselves, by prophets centuries before his birth.
Yet there is no obligation.
Instead, God offers the Magi an invitation written into history and visible in the stars, which they know so well.
They accept this invitation and follow the star beyond Herod's palace until the star stops over a house and they realize they have arrived.
Verse 10 tells us, when they saw the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy.
I love the Greek here because it's essentially translated to they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy.
That's a lot of joy.
Joy isn't a reaction, it's a fulfillment.
It's the product of our heart's deepest longing. And while Herod's rule produced fear among the people, Christ's reign produced joy, abundant joy, even before his ministry began.
God's love satisfies our hearts and produces joy. Their joy was in part the product of reaching the end of their journey, realizing that the invitation was true and the king was really there.
This amount of joy, however, goes beyond completing a journey.
They still haven't seen the child.
This joy is expectant.
It's the joy we know when we are on the precipice of realizing our heart's deepest hope, when our heart anticipates fulfillment.
Heart ruled by love is a heart full of joy.
Having experienced this joy, the Magi enter the house.
Verse 11 tells us, on entering the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
Again, when we look to the Greek here, this word which we translate to knelt down is pesantes, which actually translates better to fall to the ground, fall prostrate, brought to one's knees. It's a term in the Greek we see most often used for worship of deities.
Jesus is only an infant, yet he elicits this response.
God's love prompts us to respond in love, in adoration.
First John 1. Excuse me. First John 4:19 tells us we love because he first loved us.
Because of God's love for the Magi, they experience the capacity to love and adore Christ.
While their gifts are gifts fit for a king, their worship is fit for a savior, a messiah.
Their worship is a response of love prompted by God's love.
Once they have worshiped, God's love continues towards the Magi. In the final verse of this passage, when the Magi are told in a dream not to return to Herod.
They respond to that dream and they go a different way home. And it's funny, because this is the first time in the passage that they veer off course.
I don't think it's a coincidence that this happens after they meet Christ.
Though they could have submitted to Herod in fear, knowing what he was capable of, they could have returned and told him what they had seen, they chose to change their course.
God's love is not simply a feeling or an experience.
Submitting to the King of Love is an active relationship, one in which God protects those he loves. And under that protection, we may find ourselves going a different way.
Through the Magi, we witness God's love in action, a love which defines the reign of King Jesus.
When we submit to the King of Love, we experience the fullness of God's love in our lives, and it changes us, changes our direction.
The Magi's experience with King Jesus did change their life, but their story ends there. We don't hear from them again.
For those of us sitting here, however, we have that full story of that king.
When he grows into an adult. He teaches about his kingdom, the kingdom of heaven.
In Matthew 5, he talks about a kingdom where the meek, the poor in spirit, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the peacemakers, are the ones who are citizens of this kingdom.
This is a kingdom ruled by a king of love, in which the greatest commandment, according to Matthew 22, is to love God with our whole being and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
And then it's taken a step further in Matthew 5, because it's a kingdom where we're called to love our enemies as well.
And while citizens of his kingdom are called to this radical love, the king, King Jesus, takes his own love one step further.
He says in John 15:13, Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends.
And this is what the King of Love does.
At the climax of his reign, he chooses to die for the world he loves.
This is the reign of the King of Love.
This is what it looks like to rule.
Excuse me. To be under the rule of love.
Today marks five years to the day since I got on that plane with the commander who said he loved me.
Later in that deployment, I would face that fear again.
I would be woken up to an alarm which indicated an active threat. I would again feel that deeply rooted fear of death. But in that moment, I realized something.
I serve a king who knows death.
I serve a king who died so that I may live My king intimately knew my fear, but the love of my king on that cross meant that I did not need to fear.
That whole deployment made me realize the power of fear as well as the power of my king's love.
There were real reasons to be afraid.
But by choosing to submit to the King of love, I in turn found the capacity to respond in love. My commander's love before our flight got us all on the plane and emboldened us. But my king's love, that took hold of my fear and replaced it with peace and joy.
It caused me to love my fellow soldiers and actively find ways to serve them, even on deployment. It caused me to create meaningful friendships with locals we would interact with. And eventually, it would cause me to change my entire vocation to chaplaincy, a position in which my primary purpose would be loving and supporting soldiers.
Although most of us don't go through experiences like that, and many of us might not have looked death in the face, we all understand what it feels like to live under the rule of fear.
Even without King Herod in our lives, fear so often takes control of us and overwhelms us.
The fear of failure, the fear of loneliness, the fear of losing control.
It's easy to fall under the rule of fear when opportunities to be afraid are so present.
But in the Magi story, we see a truth about all humanity that I think is such important.
Whether we realize it or not, all of us are searching for a king.
We're all searching for something to rule our lives.
Our journeys may not look like the Magi's, but our desire is still the same, causing us to search for a king. And in our search for the king, where do we land in the Magi's journey?
Maybe we stopped in Jerusalem and submitted to Herod, entering into a cycle of fear because we thought that was our only option.
Perhaps we made it to Bethlehem, but concluded that no king would live in a house and not a palace.
So our search became directionless.
And maybe we have chosen to submit to Jesus, but the idea of going a different way terrifies us.
So we return to Herod.
As we move into this new year, we have an opportunity to examine our own lives, recognize what rules our life, and choose to submit to a different rule, a different king.
Though Herod sits on a throne, he is not a king capable of offering joy.
Although Jesus crown is a crown of thorns, his kingdom is all creation and his rule is above all kings.
While the different way may seem scary, it is one. We do not walk alone, but God by the holy spirit accompanies us surrounding us in the attributes of love and strengthening us in our weakness and giving us courage to move onward.
Whatever your story is today, know that the star is still there.
The invitation still stands. The overwhelming joy is still available. The opportunity to respond in love and adoration is still ingrained within us and the opportunity to break the cycle of fear and go a different way is still possible.
It's possible because the king of love still reigns.
Which king will you choose?
Let's pray.
Lord God, thank you for your presence.
Thank you for your invitation Lord and thank you for stepping down from heaven to be our king, our God with us.
Lead us on this journey God and give us wisdom as we determine who we serve and by what rule we desire to be under.
God, draw us in with your love and let that be what we are ruled by.
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
[00:27:11] Speaker A: Amen.
