By a Different Road - Matthew 2: 2-12

We have spent our last several weeks together talking about a different way to celebrate Christmas. Celebrating a Christmas that Jesus would like us celebrating - one that isn’t necessarily marked by eating the most or having the largest amount of gifts under the tree, but by living a faithful life.

Tonight we conclude this discussion by looking at the Magis. The three kings who traveled to celebrate the birth of the Christ child. Generally the Magi aren’t talked about on Christmas Eve. The sermon focuses on the Angel chorus singing and the Shepherds. And for a good reason as a few weeks later, on Epiphany, we celebrate the Magi. But tonight I want to discuss these wise men who gave up years of their lives to follow a star. 

The Magi, or Wise Men, as we called them, were not followers of the same God of the Israelites. The God of the unexpected who asked a young teenage girl to take a risk and carry the Christ child. Asked a man to do the unthinkable and marry a woman who was pregnant with a child who wasn’t his. The God who had the baby who was God with Us born in the most distressing of places under trying circumstances. No, these men were more then likely worshipers of the Stars from an Eastern Religion. They may not have even known about the God of Israel. And yet, the God of the unexpected worked a miracle through means they would understand, calling them to follow a star and worship what it lead them too.

These seekers took a huge risk. While we often have the Magi in our nativity sets and Christmas Pageants, they more then likely arrived 2 years after the birth of Christ. Can you imagine the physical and emotional cost of a two year journey? The price of this adventure they took without knowing where they would end up or what they would find? 

The magi have much to teach us, not only in their seeking, responding, and risk taking, but in their actions. When they arrived, two years later, what was the first thing scripture tells us they did? Bowed down and worship the child. We too are called to submit ourselves to God. Submit is a word that often gets a bad reputation, mostly by people who have twisted its meaning for their own gain. To submit is to say to God that we, in fact, don’t have the authority and control over our own lives that we pretend to. When we bow down and confess that Jesus is Lord, we have to back it up with our actions. The wise men could have just said, “Oh look a star unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. Let’s let someone else follow it and see where it leads”. But they didn’t. They followed the star for themselves. And when they found the child at the end of the journey, they worshiped him. Adored him. Exalted him. Do we do the same? Do we adore, worship, and exalt the Lord of our life with every aspect of our lives? Our finances? Our values? Our lifestyle? Or do we simply find the Christ child and worship him momentarily before getting back to our lives, as scheduled?

Next we are told the men opened their treasures. They gave their very best to the child. They showered him with costly gifts of gold, frankincense, and mirh. These are gifts from God for the God child. We too have gifts from God. In fact, everything you own is a gift from God. We like to tell ourselves that we worked hard to earn what we have, but really those good things we have are because of God. They would not exist without Him. And we are called to offer our very best. To open up our treasure chests and to give up the things we value most. Listen to me when I say its not about the money, its about the value we place on our things. Its about holding things lightly and asking God to use them for the Glory of the Heavenly Kingdom. When we care more about our things then the Christ child, we have a problem. Everyday miracles can take place when we refocus our priorities and realize that what we have is from God and should be returned to God for the work of the Kingdom.

Lastly, at the conclusion of the narrative’s story about the wise men we are told that they went home by a different road. I don’t know about you, but I get lost very easily. Even with the GPS. It is not uncommon if you are traveling with me to hear “recalculating” rather often. But if I can get to a destination without any wrong turns, I know I can back track and find my way home. But the wise men, at the end of this two year journey, with two more years of travel ahead of them to get home, are told by God that isn’t an option. They need to give up their plans, abandon the way that was familiar to them that they traveled before, and return home by a different road.

How many of you have had the perfect plan in your mind that didn’t turn out perfectly? Or had to change directions mid-course? Change jobs? Change locations? Change attitudes? Change is hard, because it requires us to set aside our wants and desires for something better. In our Bible Studies at the church we often talk about unanswered prayers, and how they are perhaps the best answers, when God doesn’t give us what we want, but something better instead. But this requires trusting God’s ways are best, and traveling down the road He lays before us.

We are almost at the end of the calendar year. In a few days it will be 2014, a time when folks make resolutions about wanting to make themselves be different, be better. What if as we approach that time we let the actions of the wise men set our priorities and goals? What if we commit to worshiping God, giving him our very best, and following whatever path he may head us on? What if we let the lessons of Advent and Christmas shape the way we lives our lives the entire year - focusing our priorities not on ourselves, but on the love of Jesus Christ? 

How will the love of Christ dictate how you spend your time with your family? Serving God? And spending time with God after you leave this place? How will the message of Christ’s birth transform how you spend your money in the coming year and how tightly you cling to your resources? When people meet you do they know by the way you live your life what your values are, and is Christ chief among those values?

Friends, we are called to worship Christ, follow God, and give Christ our best year round, not just during the holiday season. As you leave this evening, let the love and light of Christ sink into you and transform you in a way that can be seen through the light we shine forth and the love we show others. Take a risk like the wise men. Seek out the Lord. And follow God. Amen.