READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Isaiah 60:1-6
Ephesians 3:1-12
- St. Matthew 2:1-12
Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
Who speaks to you today saying:
“behold, wise men
from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is he who has been born king of
the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.’”
Epiphany is here, recorded in God’s Word, in order to show
the completion and fulfillment of His First Commandment. That God has made for
himself a graven image and likeness to be worshipped by us. In order that, not
only do we point to Jesus against all other false gods, but invite our
neighbors to the God Who Shows Himself.
There were, maybe 42 kings total, for Israel and Judah up to
the Babylonian exile. Post-exile, there was never a real return to kingship,
until the Maccabees and their descendants seemed to be forced into the role
following Alexander the great, then the coming Romans.
In other words, Herod was no true king of David’s line. Even
the dynasty before him only came from a line of priests, allegedly. Herod was a
puppet of the Roman state, promising allegiance if they would give him the
title “king of the jews”. His family came from Edom, the sons of Esau, which
gave up the faith way back in Isaac’s time.
“Moab is my washpot; over Edom will I cast out my shoe:”,
the Lord says in Psalm 60:8.
In other words, when the wise guys from the east, announced
they were looking for a king, we can be quite confident that they were not
searching for a regular king. Not only was there corruption in the current
kingship, but there would have been enough kings of the past to be excited
over. Nostalgia, if you will. Why this “king”? Why now?
The entire world seeks after “god”, though they don’t admit
it. Either they want the highest power to approve them and their choices, over
and against you, or they want to have the power themselves and claim some sort
of transcendence which qualifies them as the authority, not you.
“they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and
worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator”, says the Lord
in Romans 1:25. We’ll get to what that truth is in a moment, but first, false
gods are a lie. We must lie to ourselves and choose objects of wood, stone, or
flesh to pretend to be gods for us.
There is nothing else.
All lifestyles are religious
lifestyles.
When we think about “having other gods”, as our 1st Command
speaks to, we usually think of the “golden calf” incident. If that’s the only
idols we have to be worried about then that’s easy. Those stupid Hebrews. How
silly of them to think that a gold statue was god. Ha-ha.
Not so fast. The idea was from God. Before Aaron made the
golden calf, it had already been prescribed that bulls would be used to offer
atonement before God for all sins. So what better to remind and teach of that
than a golden calf, a pure, eternal symbol of that atonement? Very logical.
But Aaron says, “These are your gods, O Israel, who
brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”, in Exodus 32:4. The mighty God
Who performed all those wonders in the face of everyone. And He’s a calf and
not a mature, strong bull?? Who’s idea was that?
If we’re going to make gods for ourselves, they better be
the epitome of strength. Like the Hindu’s Shiva, with four arms, or Vishnu with
four or possibly more! Who knows? Or better yet, the Egyptians with their
half-animals, because animals are fiercer and stronger than humans. Or maybe we
make the humanoid gods, like the Olympians, and just make them
super-strong.
Or best of all, and this is where we are today, we just say
that our gods are beyond all description and beyond all perception. We can’t
even comprehend them, so don’t even try to ask questions about them or think
too hard. We can’t even depict them in art or statues in order to relate to
them, so don’t even try or we’ll cut your hand off.
In fact, best to worship either in silence or an empty room.
Emptiness is best, because then you really feel your insignificance and the
feebleness of your senses. And that’s the lesson you pay for. As long as you
don’t disagree with the one preaching, you will be fine. I mean, really. How
can you question the unquestionable?
Repent. So what do Christians do? We adopt this very same
program. We kidnap God out of His heaven and demand Him to be ponderable as we
stare at blank walls, infinite geometric patterns, or our own mirrors. We
violently bring God down and declare “He is unlike”, but accessible for the
right fee.
In a room with nothing but white walls, what do you think
about? How do you worship? Just because there is nothing around, does not mean
you are fulfilling the first commandment on your own. Your “nothing” becomes
your god and the nothing is filled with you and your self-worship.
How the Lord Jesus puts an end to this sinful nonsense is,
He shows up. He shows up, not as the full-grown, powerful bull, but the son of
the bull, the calf. The Son, The Holy One. It is this Messenger from God Who
will fulfill God’s own righteousness.
At the official installation of Aaron as High Priest, he was
ordered to prepare a calf for his sin offering, to make atonement for himself
and for the people he was to preach to and teach. Every other sin offering
commanded was of adult bulls, except this first one for Aaron. Why?
Because, it was no adult appearing suddenly from heaven who
would save the people from their sins and rule over their atonement. It was to
be a child, The Son of the Most High, as Gabriel put it (Luke 1:32). And even
the Hebrews, fresh from Egypt knew it. The Father was not going to come down,
bringing His death-inducing lightning and fire, from atop the mountain. He
would send a man, first foreshadowed by Moses, then in the flesh in Jesus.
It would be no golden scepter, golden idol, or golden boy
that would appear for the magi to worship, but the Father’s Son Himself, God
and man, Jesus Christ. The Hebrews almost got it right. Herod wanted himself to
be right no matter what, and we want to be right of ourselves. Yet, that
sinfulness only gets us part of the way to understanding.
We seek power, God seeks service. We seek infinity, God
hides in finitude. We want the unexplainable, God draws near to speak His own
truth. “Come now”, says the Almighty in Isaiah 1:18, “and let us
reason together”. How do you reason with God, if not face to face with
mouths and voices?
And what does the almighty wish to discuss with His sinful
creatures? Wrath? Judgement? Who is greatest among you? He continues in Isaiah,
“though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they
be red like crimson, they shall be as wool, thus saith the Lord”.
The Lord wants to speak of atonement and He wants your
attention focused on the Atonement Himself: Jesus. In order to accomplish that,
He has given you such a brain that you can imagine scenes in your head that you
have never witnessed. Someone can tell you about an event you were never at,
and you can see it in your head.
And seeing it in your head you can believe what is said to
you, because you can relate to the witness. Jesus comes in the flesh, your own
flesh that you recognize on Him: 2 eyes, ten fingers, eleven toes…
And seeing God in the flesh, then gives strength to your
belief. That because He is man, he is trustworthy and believable. If He were a
triangle, He’d be suspicious. If He had ten arms, He’d be feared, but not
loved. If He was invisible, of what use He to the visible?
God gives your mind focus. When you hear of the Golden Calf,
you scoff, because you know that a golden calf doesn’t look like Jesus. When
you hear of the “king of the jews”, you know Herod isn’t Jesus. When you come
to Church and hear of light, scenes you’ve never seen, and a statue of the man
Jesus, you know you don’t worship all this, but you also know that this is
probably what it looks like right now.
Instead of having to fabricate a graven image for yourself,
or pretend you don’t have any, God gives you His image and likeness. When you
stare at a blank wall, or blank canvas, or blank cross your mind goes blank and
tries to fill in the blank, all with disastrous, sinful results.
God puts His Body in front of you so that there is no
question Who we are seeking and Who we are worshipping. It is Jesus, the
Crucified. Born of the Virgin, pierced by nail and spear, and buried only to
rise again with those holy wounds intact.
God describes Himself in such detail, that you can imagine
Him, draw Him, and picture Him. God allows Himself to be investigated in such a
way. He is not lessened because He is pictured, like Allah or Mohammed.
Instead, He is glorified because of what He has done.
For our images of our Lord are not arbitrary. In fact, we
would have no idea who it is that is front and center on our Altar were it not
for His wounds. The image tells a heavenly story. We would not know the who or
what of any other depiction we have in Church, were it not for the Word of God
describing it in such detail that there is no doubt.
It is a sin to say that God is indescribable, if it means
that Jesus must be thrown out. And if you are involved with people who are
trying to get you to believe that that is God’s main feature, that is a false
religion of the devil. “Who’s to say what god really says”, they teach, “he’s
indescribable. Just believe me, bro.”
It is good, right, and true to seek the Crucified Who
retained the description of His wounds even in His resurrection. His Body is
proof and He puts it in front of you. And this is the Truth about God: that He
can be found in His earthly Sacraments, just as He was found in earthly
trappings by the Magi.
They sought Him on earth and brought Him earthly gifts, and
they were accepted by Jesus Himself! God made man. The Word Made Flesh.
Discoverable, knowable, describable and able to be handled by His people
through faith, by Grace, for Christ’s sake alone.
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