“Arise, Shine!”
Is. 60:1-6, Mt. 2:1-12
January 6, 2008

Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee.

When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. 

Guy from the North is driving through Georgia in December. He sees a Nativity scene set up outside a church, but among the shepherds are three men in yellow slickers and fireman’s helmets. Curiosity gets the best of the Northerner, so he pulls over and goes into a business across from the Nativity scene. He asks the lady at the counter about the three firemen.
”Oh, those are the Wise Men,” she explained.
”So how come they’re dressed like that?” the guy asked.
She gave him a pitying look. “Honey, don’t you Yankees ever read the Bible? It says right there that ‘They came from afar.’”

“I love the story of the boy attending his first ever Christmas pageant who glanced behind him in the darkness and caught sight of the three kings entering the sanctuary from the rear. ‘Don’t look now’ he whispered to his mother, ‘but God just got here…only I’m not sure which one he is.’” --J. Barrie Shepherd

It is one of our favorite Christmas stories, told only in the gospel of Matthew. But tradition has embellished the more simple story of the Bible:

• We Three Kings of Orient Are, bearing gifts, we traverse a far.

• Three?—3 gifts

• Kings?—Magi–astrologers

• The East?—maybe Persia, modern day Iraq

• House instead of stable

• Names? Balthasar, Caspar, and Melchior

• Different races, nationalities?—Matthew’s message that Christ is for all. In Matthew gentiles are first to come and worship

• Star?—Just what it was that those early astronomers saw we don't know. There was a brilliant appearance of Halley's comet in the year 10 B.C., and there were two tremendously bright times, in 7 B.C. and 3 B.C., when Saturn, Jupiter and Venus appeared next to each other as one star. Such an occurrence was always believed to be the sign of a king's birth, and some believe that is what the magi saw.

• Epiphany—from the Greek word that means to reveal or manifest. A time in the church calendar to celebrate the light of Christ shining for all the world.

·        The message—

o       Light of the world given to us. Let your light so shine.

o       Gifts given to Christ

§         Gold as a gift for a king

§         Frankincense, incense fro worshipping and service of enthronement

§         Myrrh for embalming, “an extraordinarily strange gift for an infant. It would be akin to coming to a niece’s or nephew’s first birthday party with a brightly wrapped box containing a cemetery plot deed or a prepaid Purple Cross plan in her or his name.” Anticipation of the cross.

§         Let us give our all to Christ—our wealth, our worship, our life and death

A LIFETIME JOURNEY, - The Legend of Baboushka (White, Telling, p.44)

Russia, very poor, living alone in a small house where two roads crossed, never travelled far. Entourage of kings asking for directions to Bethlehem. Holy man and woman might know. Kings invited B. to accompany. Too afraid. Could not sleep. God was telling her to go look for baby. Carried all belongings with her, two days behind kings. Wrong turn. Kept looking, asking. Heard about birth of Jesus, escape to Jerusalem. Still looking for him to this day. At Christmas time, little children might hear a sound. "That's just Baboushka looking for baby Jesus. She might have peeked in your room and left a small present."  Small piece of candy. B. very poor, but children love her. Still looking for Bethlehem.

Which way is it to Bethlehem?  Perhaps we don't have to work so hard to find the way to Bethlehem. The idea of God coming into our world in the midst of sheep, cows, and donkeys living in a barn or a cave was pretty tough for some folks to believe. Is it any more difficult for us to believe that God can live in our bedroom, kitchen, garage, office, store, or school? Jesus said that "where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in their midst" (Matthew 18:20). Where two or three people are united in prayer, love, justice, hope, friendship, or work, that place can be called Bethlehem. It is where God's presence becomes real in our lives, Emmanuel - God With Us. Stop, look and listen. As we receive the gift of God’s light, and as we give the precious gift of our selves, we will discover that Bethlehem is all around us.

AMEN