Sermons are preached. They are not writing. So, above is the sermon. Below is the sermon “plan”. (Unedited, all my mistakes kept!)

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Sharing the story of Epiphany...

… they simply went home by another route.

Matthew 2:1-12 - January 3, 2021 - Heartstrings at First United Methodist Church

Once upon a time (King David)

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, in a land far, far away, in a little village called Bethlehem, a baby was born. This was not just any baby! He wasn’t born to wealth, or power, or class, but one day the Spirit of God would descend upon him, and he would grow to be called “King of the Jews.”

His mom named him David. We know him as King David… But I’m getting a little ahead of myself… long before he was king, he was just the youngest boy in his family… he had 8 EIGHT older brothers! (We don’t know if he had any sisters, the scriptures don’t tell us). If he did, I bet they doted on their baby brother and I bet he ate it up! When he was still a boy a man came to their town. A priest, on a journey to find a king. He lined up all the other brothers, but they were not good enough for the priest. So, their father, reluctantly called David in from the fields. “This, this is him,” said the priest. In front of all his older brothers, the priest took oil and poured it on the young man’s head, “you are king of the Jews.” That was when the spirit of God came to rest on that baby that was born in Bethlehem.

And David did grow to be King of the Jews As King, he not only captured the heart of the nation of Israel, but also God’s heart. He was broken, and flawed, a musician, poet, and warrior. He had tremendous victories against the Philistines, the Geshurites, the Gezites, the Jebusites, and the Amalekites. He brought Arc of the Covenant to Jerusalem… he built a temple… a place for all his people, for all generations following him, to go and worship God…

And when he died, his people mourned him. His nation started falling apart. The one nation split into two, the northern Kingdom was brought down and spread out until there was nothing left but “Samaritans”, the Southern kingdom brought down and taken to Babylon… Bad king after bad king followed, bad alliances, bad choices…

The people never forgot their king. They have never lost hope that there would be another king. A king from the line of King David. A warrior king that would bring all the tribes together again. A king that would overthrow their oppressors. A king that would usher in a thousand years of peace and prosperity for his people… A king that would be born in a little village, just outside Jerusalem, Bethlehem.

A thousand lifetimes later…Astrologers

A long, long time ago… but not nearly as long ago… a thousand years later… a thousand years and a million stories after they lost their king… in an even stranger land, even farther away…

There were some priests, about to go on a journey to find the king… but these priests were different. They were astrologers… They didn’t worship the God of Israel! The story of those people was not their story. Those people not their people… These priests had different languages, different rituals, a different way of seeing the sacred.

And they saw something… maybe they got their first glimmer that something was calling them as they looked at the lines etched in the palms of their loved ones. Maybe it was when they sat with their morning coffee and opened their newspaper to read their horoscope for the day. Maybe they had ancient prophesies of their own… ancient stories told generation after generation that kept their eyes open for a star… maybe when they saw the star they knew exactly what it meant…

Maybe they were just so in tuned to the world around them… to the movement and rhythms and patterns and cycles of the cosmos, that when a new star appeared, they knew that something so big, so important just happened… that the cosmos themselves selves shifted… and they needed to go see what it was…

Maybe they just knew it was time to get up… time to gather their things and make a journey…

Herod (Text)

They spent their nights around the campfire, keeping warm, preparing their meals, talking about what they expected to encounter when they arrived. Would they find parades, and celebrations, and a child tucked away in a castle living a childhood of luxury? Would they find hordes of people surrounding the next King of the Jews? The anticipation grew as they spent their days travelling, towards the light, the light that had broken through, disrupted their lives…

Eventually, they found their way to another Kingdom, the kingdom of Israel… To the city of Jerusalem. They didn’t enter unnoticed! A gathering of people from another land, obviously having travelled from a distance, asking all sorts of questions… Can you see them? Dressed in the clothes of a priestly class, looking all educated…. And wealthy and influential. The already busy streets could barely hold their pack animals, servants, and treasures! They were really impossible to ignore when they started asking people, the priests of that land where their King was… the baby born King of the Jews… where are the parades? The celebrations? Well, how about you listen to their story for yourself?

Here these words from the gospel of Matthew 2:1-12 (NRSV)

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 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 him homage.” 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.

May God bless the reading, hearing, and doing of this word.

Gifts

I wonder if the child’s face was glowing when they found him? If his halo rested over his head, even then? I wonder if that is why they were so overwhelmed with joy when they finally found him. When the star finally led him right to the child’s home, to Bethlehem, to the city where the great King David had been born so many lifetimes before…

They knelt before the child, Jesus. King of the Jews, the long awaited messiah… God with us…