After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the territory of Judea during the rule of King Herod, magi came from the east to Jerusalem. 2 They asked, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We’ve seen his star in the east, and we’ve come to honor him.” 3 When King Herod heard this, he was troubled, and everyone in Jerusalem was troubled with him. 4 He gathered all the chief priests and the legal experts and asked them where the Christ was to be born. 5 They said, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for this is what the prophet wrote: 6 You, Bethlehem, land of Judah, by no means are you least among the rulers of Judah, because from you will come one who governs, who will shepherd my people Israel.”[a] 7 Then Herod secretly called for the magi and found out from them the time when the star had first appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search carefully for the child. When you’ve found him, report to me so that I too may go and honor him.” 9 When they heard the king, they went; and look, the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stood over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were filled with joy. 11 They entered the house and saw the child with Mary his mother. Falling to their knees, they honored him. Then they opened their treasure chests and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12 Because they were warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they went back to their own country by another route. (Common English Bible)
“All Jerusalem,” Matthew 2:1-12
It
was at a Shari’s. I am convinced that
many—not all, but many—higher-plane spiritual experiences take place at a Shari’s.
This
one happened to be in Pendleton, Oregon, just off of I-84 in eastern
Oregon. I was driving home to Kansas
City from Portland, Oregon, after my junior year of college, and I stopped in
Pendleton for gas and lunch.
While
at Shari’s, this other fellow who arrived just before me and I are both waiting
an interminable time to be seated. When
someone finally came around to seat us (as you can tell, it took a long time
because I have since lost all my hair), even though this guy had beaten me to
the door and presumably was hungry, he let me take the table. And I still remember what he said:
“Dude,
I just got married! We’re actually on
our way to Seaside for our honeymoon. So
it’s all good. Seriously, it’s okay,
just take the table!”
And
he said it with such a wide, clearly giddy grin on his face, that I knew it
would be no use trying to out-courtesy him.
This was a guy so in love with the world, so in love with life, so in
love with everything because he had just married the one whom he loved the most
in the world, in his life, in, well, everything. There was just no talking him out of it. So I took the table.
I
was touched by the encounter so greatly that I ended up blogging about it that
night when I reached my hotel in Tremonton, Utah (look it up in an atlas!). I wrote about how this is what marriage should
look like because, you know, a 21-year-old degenerate knows so, so much about
what it means to be married! But then I
talked about what it was like for me, as a traveler.
And
I wish I could quote that part to you verbatim, but silly Xanga decided to
delete my blog from the internets after I hadn’t updated it in, like, seven
years. But what I can tell you is that I
believed then—and I believe now—that part of the ardor of traveling comes from
having to expect nothing from the people you may be traveling with, that way
they cannot possibly disappoint you. Of
course—and this is especially true with air travel—you still end up being
disappointed anyways by a surly seatmate or a screaming child.
It
could still be worse, though. The magi
were probably disappointed by an entire city.
Let’s set the scene here: King Herod has heard
of Jesus’ birth from the magi, and he has heard that Jesus is meant to have a
title that he thinks belongs to him: the king of the Jews. And that is enough to send the king into a
right tizzy. And in an absolute
monarchy, when the king is unhappy, everybody is unhappy. So all of Jerusalem is frightened along with
King Herod.
But,
as New Testament scholar Rudolf Schnakenburg points out, “Not only the king is
seized with fear, but Jerusalem itself…(but) None of Jerusalem’s inhabitants
bothers to go to nearby Bethlehem; yet Gentiles come from afar...The
astrologers are symbols of a journey now being undertaken by the nations, the
floods of Gentiles entering the church of Christ.”
Put
simply—even though “all Jerusalem” was located very near to Bethlehem and could
have gone to see for themselves this newborn Jesus at a much smaller risk to
themselves and their safety than the magi, nobody actually bothered to. Hence the probable disappointment.
And
I know that when you are traveling far from home, you don’t really expect the
kind of spontaneous hospitality of someone giving up their table to you simply
because they can. None of us would
expect that today. But you can bet your
bottom dollar that the magi probably would have. I’ve made a big deal of it so far in my
Christmastime sermons: hospitality in Biblical Israel was an obligation that
greatly exceeded our understanding of hospitality today.
The
whole Jesus-washing-His-disciples-feet thing?
That was a gesture of hospitality—a homeowner (or their servant) was
expected to do that for a visitor to wash the dirt and dust and grime from
their sandaled feet. But we most
certainly do that. We say, “We do the
barefoot thing here, so if could just leave your shoes by the foyer…”
The
whole Jesus-being-born-in-a-barn thing?
Like I’ve said the past two weeks, that circumstance was necessitated by
a violation of hospitality: Joseph and Mary probably weren’t trying to get a
room at the Holiday Inn (could you imagine how awesome Jesus’ miracles would
have been if he had stayed at a Holiday Inn Express?!), they were probably
trying to score the guest room at the house of one of Joseph’s relatives. As a consolation prize, they got the garage.
And
the whole magi-having-to-leave-Israel-by-a-different-route thing? Yeah, that doesn’t happen unless the bridge
you arrived across was incinerated.
Which it was. By King Herod, and,
by extension, all Jerusalem itself.
So
I have come to believe that just as the magi represent, as Schnakenburg says,
the journeys of people of all nations, coming to worship Christ the King, so
too does Jerusalem represent another journey: the journey of someone in thrall
to an oppressive ruler, of someone under the thumb of an abusive spouse or
parent, of someone precisely for whom Jesus makes His presence known and
available, even if that someone—that is to say, us—does not yet realize it.
Because
while it might be easier or more convenient for us to identify with the magi in
this story—hey, we too would come from the ends of the earth with lavish gifts
to offer baby Jesus!—the truth is, we are probably sometimes closer to being an
inhabitant of Jerusalem than we are to being one of the magi. We still harbor our insecurities and our
frailties, we still pay more heed to the leaders of men than to the counsel of
God. And we likely could just as easily
miss Jesus’ presence in our lives, even if he were as close to us as Bethlehem
was to Jerusalem.
Magi
from across the world, with the help of a star, found the Savior with pinpoint
accuracy. May they be the ideal we
aspire to. May they guide us, and all
Jerusalem, out of the threats and dangers of this world and into the promise of
salvation and security in the next. And
may they represent our willingness to be guided by God, to wherever that may
be, whether halfway around the world in Bethlehem, or simply right here in Longview...may God guide you there.
May it be so. Amen.
Rev.
Eric Atcheson
Longview,
Washington
January
12, 2014
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