Matthew 2:1-12 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
The Epiphany of Our Lord Sunday, January 5, 2019 “We Have Come to Worship Him”
“As with gladness men of old Did the guiding star behold, As with joy they hailed its light, Leading onward, beaming bright, So, most gracious Lord, may we Evermore your followers be” (CW 83:1). We will sing that hymn stanza, along with the rest of the hymn, at the end of our worship service this morning. The “men of old” about whom we will sing are the Wise Men mentioned in our lesson from Matthew 2 today. And the whole point of our Festival of Epiphany celebration today matches the theme of that hymn. We want to be like those Wise Men. We want to not only see the young Jesus, but also to understand what he means for us and in our lives. We want to offer him our worship and praise, just as the Wise Men of so long ago did. We want to say with those Wise Men, “We have come to worship him.” We have come to worship the Christ-child in spite of obstacles. Not much is said about the Wise Men in Scripture. Other translations have referred to them as Magi, a word that sounds very much like the Greek word used for them. Some have surmised that they came from Babylon or from Arabia. Matthew in writing the Gospel only says that they came from the East. The term “Wise Men” captures that they are a part of a class of royal advisers and researchers, men known for their wisdom. What is very clear is that they were not next-door neighbors of the young child. They did not make a weekend trip to visit him. They traveled from far away. They may have traveled for as much as two years according to what we learn about them and their visit. Presumably they packed their camels, they loaded up all the necessary provisions, and they set off. They didn’t even know exactly where they would be going. This was a major undertaking. It was a major effort. No doubt there were even more obstacles that had to be overcome along the way. Yet these men made the journey. They arrived first in Jerusalem and then in Bethlehem in spite of all such obstacles. They came to worship the child Jesus in spite of all obstacles. And perhaps the greatest obstacle of all was the one that so often prevents us from worshipping Jesus the way that we would want to and the way that he deserves. That obstacle is our own sin. We make an error if we think that in order to worship Jesus, we must be wise like the wise men. That is a mistake because theirs was not a calculated decision that they would go find a king. Their decision to go was not motivated by their intellect or intelligence. Their travel and their worship were motivated by faith. They had heard the promise of God to send a Savior, and they saw the sign that God used to announce to them the coming of that Savior. God had overcome their sinful hearts. He had overcome whatever sinful laziness or indifference remained in them. Their own sin was the greatest obstacle. Today, we have come to worship him because God has overcome the greatest obstacle in our lives. God has overcome the sinful hearts that were within us from the time of our conceptions and births. God has overcome the laziness and indifference that remains in our hearts. And yet, haven’t you still felt the power of sin in your life even as you were here to worship? Have you allowed your mind to wander away from the Christ child and toward other matters? Have you been frustrated by the actions of others or the distractions that you have felt? There is plenty of evidence even in our best moments of the sinful obstacles that stand in the way of worshipping our Savior. There is plenty to remind us that while we need a Savior, we don’t deserve him. And yet he came for us; he was born for us. He called us through his Holy Spirit to be his own. He lived and died to remove every sin from us as far as it could be taken away. He rose to life again to give us the promise of eternal life. And that is why we worship as the Wise Men from so long ago. Those same Wise Men have even more lessons to teach us from their journey. Like them, we worship Jesus as he is revealed to us. When the Wise Men were on their journey, they did not go straight to Bethlehem. They stopped in a very sensible place to look for a king, in the capital city of Jerusalem. They spoke to Herod the king and asked him about the one whose star they had seen, about the newborn King