Community Church Sermons

Epiphany – January 6, 2002

"Star Grace-ing!””

Matthew 2:1-12

 

Today is a special day we Christians call the Epiphany. It is the great celebration bringing to a close the Advent/Christmas season, and it is highlighted by the arrival in Bethlehem of the wise men. These magi from the East are Gentiles, mind you! Non-Jews! They are probably located in Persia, which is modern-day Iraq, and they are hardly on the same page religiously as those in Judea. Why, the wise men are not exactly the kind of people you’d expect God to favor enough to include in the official welcoming delegation sent to greet baby Jesus in Bethlehem! But here they come, down the street, following the star!

 

You know, I question exactly how wise these wise men were. When you consider their story, and all that has transpired in the years since they took that journey, it becomes clear that the magi missed a tremendous opportunity. I mean, here are a bunch of male persons on a long journey. They get completely lost, and like any guys worth their salt, simply will not stop to ask for directions. So God – understanding what its like to have testosterone ruin your judgment – provides a way to guide these male magi to Bethlehem. He sends a star. They use the star to plot and calculate and puzzle and plan – so they think they’re in charge of the process – and then they go and follow these celestial readings. And lo and behold, they finally arrive safe and sound in Bethlehem.

 

Now it seems to me that God not only gave these wise men the experience of worshipping Jesus, but also an opportunity to make millions! And this is why I say I don’t think those wise men were all that wise. Because, you see, God not only gave them the gift of meeting Christ, but also the blueprints for a navigational system that even MEN will use!

 

So they missed their chance. Could have gotten a patent. Could have set up a manufacturing company and sales force. Could’ve gotten some venture capital, or even made an IPO on Wall Street. But they didn’t. And you know what happened. Someone else stepped in, saw the opportunity, and made big on it. That was, of course, General Motors!

 

All you GM retirees in this congregation must surely appreciate that the magi’s loss turned out to be your retirement plan’s gain. The wise men called it a star, but the company calls the idea OnStar. Some of you men have it installed in your cars today! Here’s the official company line:

 

OnStar combines a unique blend of cutting edge technology with attentive, personal service to provide you with unparalleled safety, security and convenience. OnStar uses sophisticated Global Positioning System satellites to locate your vehicle along with a special, hands free cellular phone, which provides a communications link and seamless integration into the electrical wiring in your vehicle. Add a professionally staffed OnStar Center that’s available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and driving becomes less hectic and more worry free. (Thanks to Justin Fisher for this idea!)

 

They had the concept handed to them on a silver platter! But the wise men blew it. So the star of Bethlehem never did find its way onto the dashboards of camels and wagons, but simply served as a guide to the most important gift of all. And – come to think of it - maybe that’s how God meant it to be.

 

You see, sometimes all the wonderful technologies of life – and we live in a time when technology is advancing with tremendous speed – sometimes all this progress, convenience, and usefulness gets in the way of our coming to grips with the most important things of all. Do you know what I’m talking about? Email is a wonderful thing, but its not the same as talking with your kids face-to-face. Cell phones are tremendously useful, but they invade those quiet spaces where we used to rest and reflect in silence. Medical technology seems to give us better diagnostic machines, and that’s great, but there seem to be fewer doctors nowadays who will sit down with you and talk with you like a person. And television – what we do without television? And yet it teaches our children to watch rather than read, and to passively consume life rather than actively engage life.

 

So maybe God really did mean the star to be just that – a star! Because left that way, the star is simple to understand. Why, the star is the sign of God’s grace! And there’s nothing more important than grace!

 

So let’s go star grace-ing for a moment or two, and see if we can discover what Epiphany tells us about God’s grace.

 

First, you’ll want to note that this star of grace shines above.

 

One of the most amazing things to me about the 9-11 tragedies is that – in the very midst of the worst moments of that disaster – people found themselves looking upward. Folks who never in their lives thought about God, began to call out to God. Those of us who have a relationship with God already, turned to him with more fervor. And even the halls of government, where we struggle all the time with public prayers and Bible readings and God-talk, echoed with the sounds of prayers and Bible readings and God-talk. We found ourselves looking upward – to the One who is with us, and yet above us. We were assured of God’s love. And what happened? We began to move forward, and to rise up above the tragedy. Love poured forth. Generosity spilled over. Folks helped each other. People became protective of their neighbors of Middle Eastern descent and even sought to gain better understandings of Muslim people. We found new strength, new energy, and new resolve.

 

The President says we became stronger than before, better than before, more caring than before. And I think he’s right! We did rise up to a new height of living! Why? Because we looked higher and we found grace there!

 

And isn’t that what the star causes us to do? To look up, beyond the narrow confines of our family problem, or our illness, or our national difficulty, or our addiction, or our depression? And seeing clearly that we are people who God loves, and with whom God will work, leading us to better pastures, we can begin to move forward, following the star!

 

Yes, there is a star shining above you today. And it tells of God’s amazing grace!

 

A second thing you’ll want to notice is that the star represents a grace unstopped by all divisions. Those of you who are or have been aviators of one kind or another remember that aircraft guidance systems have changed dramatically in the past several years. It used to be that VHF radio signals guided aircraft around the skies. The great limitation, of course, was that VHF is limited by line of sight, and so sooner or later, you’d be outside the effective range of the signal. Now, however, the Global Positioning System is replacing all that, and the great advantage of GPS is that signals from satellites are not blocked by changes of terrain. What one satellite can’t reach, another one can. And so the signal conquers every obstacle.

 

And so does God’s grace.

 

How important it is to know that the light of grace from that star shines on every human being, in every place, of every nationality, ethnicity and religion. God loves everyone, everywhere! And I believe strongly that one of the greatest challenges of living as God’s people is to adopt the practice of universal love. Our job is not to judge people, but to love people. Our job is not to find reasons to exclude people, but to include people. Our job is not to preach that God disdains people, but that God welcomes people to his embrace.

 

Grace is like a star. It shines on everyone alike!

 

And a third and final thing you’ll note about the star is that its ultimate goal is to bring unlikely people together. I mean, what are a bunch of Gentile astrologers doing celebrating a birthday with a bunch of Jews? Isn’t that the most amazing part of the story? People from Babylon – the nation that conquered Israel, and wiped out Jerusalem, and led the people off into exile – people from Babylon falling on their knees to worship a Jewish baby, and to strengthen his parents with rich gifts of love! What a WONDERFUL scene of reconciliation!!!

 

I mean, this is the lion and the lamb here! This is blacks and whites – Israelis and Palestinians – Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants sitting down at table together! This is you – and those in your life – who are at war over the things that people and families and nations fight about.

 

Oh, the goal of the star shining in that evening sky is to bring together Jew and Gentile, East and West, free and slave.

 

That’s what grace does!

 

And so as we gather on this very special occasion – the end of the Christmas season – God gives us an idea about how to begin this new year. Take hold of God’s grace! Put grace to work in your life! Look above, and knowing that God loves you, rise to greater heights of living and loving and serving! And don’t just look above – look around too! Start to practice love toward everyone you meet, because God’s love has no boundaries! And bring people together. You can be a catalyst for forgiveness, and understanding, and reconciliation.

 

You see, the star of Bethlehem still shines! It shines whenever you take up and live the gift of grace!