A, The First Sunday after Christmas - Matthew 2:14-16 "The New Israel"

Matthew 2:14–16 (ESV)  And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt  and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”  Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. 

The Christmastide infanticide at Bethlehem is a gruesome and horrible picture against the blessed nativity of Jesus.  Herod the Great, the illegal king of Israel, ruthlessly but unsuccessfully seeks to weed out the infant King of Israel threat. 

As Mary and Joseph escape to Egypt, in their wake Herod’s anger and rage brings death to all baby boys born in Bethlehem up to the age of two.  On the twenty-eighth of December, the church commemorates “Holy Innocents”, the children who died at the hand of Herod.  They are martyrs, not because they confessed the name of Jesus and died, but they are the most holy of martyrs because they were murdered in innocence and weakness, suspected as being Jesus the Christ Child, the true King of Israel.

Jesus was born into the danger of weakness and death.  But God protects the Christ-child through Joseph, and they escape to Egypt.  Years later Jesus’ Heavenly Father would allow his innocent Son to be handed over to death on the cross outside Jerusalem at the Passover, Easter.

There is a sense of irony in Jesus’ escape to Egypt, as sixteen hundred years beforehand Egypt is the oppressive place Pharoah had ordered midwives to murder Hebrew children by throwing them into the Nile River.  In that very river baby Moses survives.  The Moses story then comes to a climax sometime later in the tenth plague.  This is when God destroys all first born whose houses do not display Lamb’s blood on the doorposts. 

This would be the first Passover and Pharoah would grant the nation of Israel release from slavery.  Now the King of Israel was being carried by Mary and Joseph back to the land of slavery to escape from Herod’s murderous anger.  It was only after the death of Herod that Jesus and his parents made an exodus out of Egypt.  It was only after the death of Egypt’s firstborn that Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and the twelve tribes of Israel were freed to make that first exodus, sixteen hundred years earlier.

One might think Jesus is a new type of Moses coming out of Egypt.  But Jesus is not just a prophetic leader like Moses, he is not just a priest like Aaron, nor does he just bear the Greek name of the Hebrew, Joshua, which means “Yahweh frees, makes safe, saves”, in that he will save his people as a fighting saviour!

Jesus comes out of Egypt as the New Israel to save Israel.  Not as Moses as prophet, Aaron as priest, or Joshua as a strong and courageous warrior.  Death threatened this fragile human, and death continued to destroy innocence around him. 

Why did Jesus have to be the new Israel?  Why did God allow the death of the innocent?  And for that matter, why does he allow dreadful death to continue today?

This all has to do with anger and time.  The anger of God as a result of humanity’s, and Israel’s inability to follow God.  Secondly, the anger of humanity, collectively and individually, as a result of their refusal to follow God, then its subsequent fear because failure continues through the pursuit of pleasure.  Thirdly, God had to allow for the right time to fulfil his faithful plan of salvation.  We need to wait and trust him for the completion of his plans, the fullness of time!

So, Jesus in the fullness of time, is the completion of Israel.  In Jesus’ exodus out of Egypt he fulfils a faithful exodus, not into freedom but into death and suffering as the Son of Man.  The Son of Salvation, the Servant of Man, the Servant of Salvation, your salvation, Israel’s salvation, and humanity’s salvation!

Why is Jesus the New Israel?  To understand we need to know what the old Israel is to God and to us humans, and how Jesus fulfills his role as the Suffering Servant, the Son of Man.

We now look at God’s anger, humanity’s anger, and time.

Humanity proved they were unable to follow God.  After Adam and eve turned away, Cain, through his parents’ favouritism, also turned away from God, and in jealous anger killed Abel. 

Humanity became completely corrupt in the days of Noah, resulting in God rebirthing the world through the flood.  But even after the flood, humanity continued to challenge God at Babel, from where he dispersed them with the confusion of language.

God then chose to work through one man, Abraham, the father of Israel.  Israel went into slavery in Egypt.  After four hundred years God redeemed them through Moses.  In the wilderness and then in the promised land of Canaan, Israel continued to turn away from God.  God forgave, but the kings, priests, and Israelite people could not keep the Law to the glory of God.  Not even King David, God’s chosen one, was without sin.

Through this period God poured out his anger on Israel when they turned from him.  There was no one righteous, not one.  Only by God’s grace did Israel survive.  The Israelites continued to anger God using the Law to justify and glorify themselves.

The prophet Hosea, after years of corruption in a split kingdom, prophecies a faithful son, a faithful Israel, saying, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” (Hosea 11:1 ESV) We hear, today in Matthew’s Gospel, this was fulfilled when Jesus came out of Egypt. 

But Hosea also laments, “The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols.  My people are bent on turning away from me, and though they call out to the Most High, he shall not raise them up at all.” (Hosea 11:2, 7 ESV)

God exiles the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel and Judah and then falls silent for another period of four hundred years.  The anger of the Israelite people festers within.  Its people become more influenced by pagan doctrines.  God’s people had become so turned in on themselves that murder and deception became a regular occurrence within the temple and kingdom authorities.

The people of God became so diabolical, no king was able to be led by God, no priest sought to glorify God, and no prophet spoke on behalf of God.  It was here that the time was right for the New Israel to come out of Egypt.  Israel, embodied in one person, in God the Son, Jesus Christ, the Son and Servant of Man!

We hear, “after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, 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.”  When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him;  and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.”  (Matthew 2:1–4 ESV)

It sounds as though they were caught off guard!  Such is always the case when we are turned in on ourselves.  We fail to realise the reality around us.  Nevertheless, Herod the Great, loathed by the people of Judah because he was not a Jew, was angered and sought to use the Wise Men to find and kill his competition.

This is the world Jesus was born into, and this is the world in which we live today.  In the fulness of time the Son of God became a human,  so that humanity could come to God.  There was no way a king, a prophet, or a priest could raise up Israel or humanity to participate with God to glorify him. 

Jesus became the New Israel to please God but also to bear the brunt of God’s anger against you, me, and humanity.  The anger that we hear so much about in the Old Testament, has now been poured out on the Christ child, in Jesus’ servanthood suffering on the cross.

The anger of humanity that fell, as deathly sin, on those baby boys at Bethlehem suspected as being the New King of Israel, is also carried and set free by Jesus Christ.

We are told of Jesus Christ, the New Israel, that, “For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.  For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers”.  (Hebrews 2:10–11 ESV)

And the author of the letter to the Hebrews continues, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,  and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.  For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham.  Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.  For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.”   (Hebrews 2:14–18 ESV)

Jesus is your brother, he bears the wrath of God for you, and frees you into innocence and holiness, by his life, death, and resurrection. 

In 2023, life and death will continue, but for those who continue remaining and abiding in Jesus Christ, there is no anger from God, just opportunity for repentance and forgiveness.  And despite the anger of humanity, death, and the devil, God is continuing and will continue to make those holy who suffer and endure by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

C, Palm Sunday - Luke 19:37–40, "Within One Short Week"

Luke 19:37–40 (ESV) As Jesus was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen,  saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!  Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.”  He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

The crowd on Palm Sunday welcomed Jesus with great gusto, as he rode that donkey towards Jerusalem.  This was the new King David, whom they hoped would ride into the capital, overpower the Romans, and route the fake King of the Jews, King Herod.

But as Jesus nears Jerusalem, he weeps for it, the City of David, named “Yara Shalom”.  A city named, as a place flowing with peace.  Jesus knew that as in the past, in coming days there would be no peace, he would be tossed out of the city as rubbish, like unwanted excrement the Son of God would be thrown out as useless.  No!  There was to be no peace, safety, or friendship to be found in this place named “flowing peace” – Jerusalem!

Ever since the kingdom of Israel split into Judah and Israel, prophets had been killed for calling Jerusalem and Samaria back to God and his peace.  Time after time messengers had come, calling kings, priests, and the Levites back to God.  What reward did they receive but hatred, stoning, and death!

Things had not changed much.  Herod the Great wanted to kill the baby Jesus, and now his son Herod Antipas, was seeking to do the same. 

Earlier in Jesus’ ministry some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”  And he said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course.  Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.’  O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!  Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ”  (Luke 13:31–35 ESV)

Now the Father was sending his very own Son, who knew Jerusalem and all Israel wanted a king unlike him.  They did not want a king of flowing peace, instead they wanted a piece of a king who would do what they wanted.  They wanted a politician, a zealot, a popular man making magical moves to heal, restore and protect their gods of greed and want.

And so, we see this man of Galilee enter the city with great expectation, that he was going to confront the Romans and challenge their authority.

But surprisingly, he doesn’t!  Instead, he enters the house of God, the temple in Jerusalem, and challenges the worship practises of those who also secretly saw him as a threat to their security and authority.  And so, with great suspicion they interrogate him, saying, “Tell us by what authority you do these things, or who it is that gave you this authority.” (Luke 20:2 ESV)

This looks little like a king coming to assume his kingship in a city flowing with peace.  Jesus knew and we now know by the end of this week the only thing to flow would be Jesus’ blood as it flowed from his head, his hands, his feet, his back, and from the spear wound in his side.

Within one week all would seemingly fall to pieces.  Peace would not flow; things would change.  Support would be withdrawn.  The crowd would turn on him.  His disciples would scatter!   The Son of Abba, our Father, would be swapped with a different son of a father, Barabbas the criminal!  Discipleship at the cross broke down and was shown to be pathetic and useless!  In the face of death denial reigned.  Jesus was abandoned, all love ran away and evil surged in.  The tide was out, and Jesus was left high and dry.  Dead on the cross.

Within one short week, what had happened?  On Palm Sunday, the stones would have cried out if the disciples kept quiet!  On Good Friday Peter did not dare associate himself with Jesus, lest he be numbered as one of the Galileans with him, and be stoned like many prophets had before.  And then sealed behind a large stone in death, the Lord lays buried in a tomb.

But it was Steadfast Love laying in that tomb.  The King of Kings lay in the vault of death.  Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, the Son of Man, took humanity through a tide change.  It was the lowest of low tides, but the tide of love had changed forever.

You see, at the beginning of the week, the love of the people was a veiled love.  The crowd was there, the emotion was there, the hype was there, the support seemed to be there, but the love that was there was self-love.   The love that was there, was a love that veiled everyone’s evil within.

Within one short week, from Sunday to Friday the tide of love, ebbed and was found wanting.   What was exposed at that low was the loveless evil of humanity.  The emotion and hype of the mob ebbed and exposed fear and hatred.  Politicians and priests were exposed as people pleasers.  And the closest supports sought self-preservation over steadfast sentry duty supporting the Saviour.

Nevertheless, steadfast love lay hidden behind stone.  From there he would descend into hell and shine the steadfast love of God in the darkness of death.  There, the dead will always know what they refused.   There, Jesus exposed their rejection of steadfast love from God, and salvation from the evil of sin within, so God would count them without sin.

Within one short week the tide would turn, God silenced the love of man, and from the grave the love of God was raised.  The stones that would have cried out if the disciples could not have praised God on Palm Sunday, saw the stone rolled away and the steadfast love of God raised and revealed in all glory.

What kind of a King are you seeking this Easter? 

What type of people is this King of Kings looking for?

Our Father is looking for sinners?  Those who believe, their love is a cover for evil, their love is sin!  The Risen King is resolutely looking for those who seek steadfast love, to cover their evil, with the robes of his righteousness.  Jesus Christ is looking for those who need his steadfast love – this week, next week, and every week of their lives, so they might live in the hope of their resurrection to eternal life. 

Jesus Christ is seeking those who need forgiveness, who need change, who know they are nailed to a cross of eternal death and need him and his holiness to be exchanged with their weakness.  These are our deadly, hopeless, and evil ways, which were brought to light, forgiven, and covered within one holy week.  Amen.

Blessed are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.  Let us not cover up our sin; but confess it, receive forgiveness, and believe what God has covered.  Let us be surrounded by shouts of deliverance and pray (Palm 32), “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!  Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” (Luke 19:38)  Amen.

C, Lent 2 - Genesis 15:1-15,17-18, Psalm 27, Phillippians 3:17-4:1, Luke 13:31-35, "Forsaken House - Forgiven House"

Luke 13:31–35 (ESV) At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”  And he said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course.  Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.’  O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!  Behold, your house is forsaken.  And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ”

Two of the readings today speak about a house. 

First there is Abram.  He saw his house would be inherited by a servant of his household and not a born heir.  Then, in the Gospel reading, Jesus speaks about Jerusalem and its house being forsaken.

Saint Paul’s epistle to the Philippians, speaks of the body of a person being transformed into a glorious body by Jesus, to be like Jesus.  He teaches the listener to imitate him and others who set an example, as those who have been made Christ’s own (Phil 3:12) through the righteousness of faith (Phil 3:9).

There is no mention of a house in this text per se,  but the body of a person houses one’s understanding, feelings, and desires.  Paul laments over those who have let their bodies become houses of unrighteousness, just as Jesus laments over Jerusalem becoming a forsaken house, that no longer was willing to allow God to gather its people from danger.

These two examples of unwillingness and rejection to follow God’s will, are warnings for us as individuals and church who wish to be of the house of God.  Do we above all else seek God, and want to be with God?

In Psalm twenty-seven it reads, “One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple.” (Psalm 27:4 ESV)

Is your ultimate goal to do as the Psalmist does?  To dwell in the house of the Lord, ALL the days of your life!  Is God the most beautiful of all beauty to you?  Do you wait for the Lord?  Or rather, do you trust in your own efforts? 

Those Paul speaks of as putting their understanding, minds, or feelings in earthly things, will be misguided, and will not be transformed from our lowliness into the glory God wants for us.  He says their end is destruction.  They’re unwilling to stand firm in the Lord, and therefore, are enemies of Christ.

Jerusalem is the centre of Jesus’ attention, and he says of those who should be the children of God, but have rejected the prophets, “your house is forsaken”.  If God’s house in Jerusalem can be forsaken, then so too can the house of your body, if you or I push away God’s protection and the transformation, he seeks to perform in all of us. 

This makes us more like King Herod than King David.  Have we become sly cunning foxes, parading  as people of God, justifying ourselves in a princely lifestyle and seeking Jesus for our entertainment only as Herod did? 

Should we be more like King David who trusted in the Lord, even though he was the highest in the land?  Who allowed God to confront his sin as an adulterer, and murderer, and confessed his sin to the Lord?  Who despite being king of Israel, allowed God to make him increasingly aware that his greatest enemy, was not the foreign countries around him, but rather the very core of his own sinful being?

If all this makes you feel uncomfortable and uneasy, good, it should!  If you feel like a fox that has been caught in the spotlight of God’s glory, and your life has been one of secret doubling back on yourself to hide your tracks in the darkness, this too is good.  If you feel, understand, and realise your situation as caught out, with impending doom as a result of your activities, it’s not a bad thing.  And if this hasn’t happened in your life as of  yet, it will.

When your death is put on your agenda, when the end of your life is imminent, if you haven’t beforehand realised what the consequence of sin is, death will show you.  How does the thought of death make you feel?

Abram saw his house was dead, because he had no heir onto which he could pass on his inheritance.  In his old age he was as good as dead, and an heir seemed impossible.  But it’s when we are as good as dead, that the power of God can be realised, and we’re called to put all our understanding, feelings (good and bad), and trust in him.

With Abram God first takes him outside and shows him the stars, then after this he makes a covenant with him.  But this is a covenant like no other in the Old Testament.  Covenants require both sides to make a promise.  Here though there is only a promise made by God.  Abram was in the state of deep sleep, a stunned, or deathly state, and is solely the recipient of God’s covenant.

When the severity of God’s law comes upon us, it causes death within us, and although it makes us feel woeful and as though we are dead, it’s a good thing.   We need to see what the house looks like if God vacates and leaves the house empty.  Here I am speaking specifically of the house of your body.

Jesus declares Jerusalem forsaken, dead, rotten, and off.  Like a piece of rancid meat, he rejects its house.  Yet Jesus returns to Jerusalem to die and be cast out, as if he was the cunning and sly fox that we have become in our sinfulness.  He becomes our rottenness and is cast out!  He dies because of the deadliness we bear.  That which he wishes to expose in us, he covers with forgiveness.  He also casts out feelings of guilt and gives us his blessing.  We are blest because he comes to us in the name of the Lord!

When we allow the Holy Spirit to expose our sin, so we can confess it, it gets covered by Jesus’ death.  When we allow the Spirit to invoke the death of our sin, we allow him to raise us with Jesus Christ to life eternal. 

When God does this, he out foxes the fox within us, he out cunnings the cunning within us, he shrewdly uses fear of eternal death to save us from our second death.  We are reminded in baptism eternal death is now deceased in those who hold onto faith in God and reject faith in oneself.

We also know of the deadliness of our house and the life Christ brings to it, and in this we continue in hope for those who have become dead to God’s church, and to be restored in love.  So we pray, doing the work of God, asking they be once again given the desire to be in God’s presence, and receiving his gifts of life, that will take all who seek God to death and through it into God’s eternal presence.

Saint Paul holds out hope for the Jewish people, despite their unbelief.  He knows, he was made dead by Christ but was graciously grafted into him through his death on the cross.

We too, stand before God with the same hope as Paul, having been grafted into Christ, despite being as good as dead…

Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness.  Otherwise you too will be cut off.  And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again.  For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.  (Romans 11:22–24 ESV)

If God can sever his chosen people, the Jews, and graft them back in, he can also revive the faith of those who have become dead in the faith.

Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ,  despite the deadliness within.  In fact, we can thank God for showing us our deadliness, in just the same way Jesus knew Jerusalem was the place where others died and he would die, yet declared, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

Let us pray.  Heavenly Father let us die to self, pick up our cross and resolutely walk with Jesus.  Protect us from all that can sever us from eternal life, and hear our prayers for those whose faith has died, so they might be grafted back into the life-giving blood of Jesus Christ. Amen.

C, The Epiphany of our Lord - Matthew 2:1-12 "Worship God in a Trough?"

Matthew 2:1–12 (ESV) Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, 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.”  When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him;  and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.  They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet:  “ ‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’ ”  Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared.  And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.”  After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was.  When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.  And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.  And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.

Watching kids play when they are little, they so easily roll around on the ground, get up, run around, and in an instant drop back down on the ground with little to no effect. 

As one gets older, the prospect of getting down on the ground is somewhat more troubling.  Getting down is usually okay, but it takes more effort to rise up again, and stand on one’s own feet.  Grandparents trying to keep up with toddler grandchildren, know all too well, it takes them more time to regain vertical stability than it does for their energetic grandchildren.

There is also the very real danger of falling when one gets older.  Both the fall and the inability to get up, can cause physical injury as well as mental trauma if there is no one around to help.  As one gets older, one tries not to overdo things, too much, to lessen the chance of a fall.

However, falling down is exactly the language of paying homage or worshipping.  A number of different words are used to describe what we in English would say is “to worship”.  Here at the start of Matthew’s Gospel, to worship, is a word of submission.  Literally, it paints a picture, of making oneself lower than the person you are worshipping.

Another good picture is that of a dog being submissive to its owner, or the leader of the pack.  In fact, the word for worship here uses the Greek word for dog, kuon (pronounced Koo -ohn).  One who has the picture in their mind of a dog crouching and licking the hand of the person it is trying to please has a good picture of what it is to worship.

Another good picture of worship is that of one who falls down and kisses the feet of those to whom they submit.  When the wise men came to worship the new king to which the star had led them, on seeing Jesus with Mary with the Christ child they fell down and worshipped him.

Herod, on the other hand, said he wished to worship Jesus in the same way.  But proved otherwise, when he sought to kill Jesus, by murdering the baby boys of Bethlehem.  He slaughtered them and cast them down in the dirt, so he would remain top dog, so to speak!

Incidentally, the slaughter of the male infants of Bethlehem is commemorated on December 28 as Holy Innocents Day on the church calendar.  Although it is not a pleasant story, it ties death to the birth of Jesus Christ.  It shows the fallenness and corruption into which the innocent child Jesus was born and struggled.  We are reminded of the innocence by which he was led to the slaughter on the cross because our fallenness, corruption, and experience of sin put him there.

Today we focus on the celebration of the Epiphany.  Epiphany rounds out the twelve days of Christmas and is traditionally celebrated on January 6.  It’s a continuation of the Christmas season but holds at its centre, Jesus being revealed as the Son of God, the King of Kings.  The wise men, traditionally kings and astrologers from the east, seek to fall down before this child as the king of the Jews.

Now that Jesus has been revealed as the baby boy born in Bethlehem, the first and last Sunday after Epiphany are revelations of Jesus being the Son of God.  Literally Epiphany means “to reveal”. And the first Sunday after the Epiphany is Jesus’ baptism where God declares that Jesus is his Son with whom he is well please (Luke 3:22).  

And similarly on the last Sunday of Epiphany, just before Ash Wednesday and Lent, is Transfiguration Sunday, where on the mountain of transfiguration the curtain of invisibility is drawn back.  The three disciples see Jesus in all his heavenly radiant glory, together with Moses and Elijah.  God again says, “This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!” (Luke 9:35)

In between these two revelations of the Epiphany season, Jesus’ divinity is revealed through the accounts of his miracles, his proclamation as the fulfilment of Old Testament Scripture, the Law, and his rejection by the people of Nazareth.

Incidentally, Matthew uses the same worship language, of bowing down and licking the earth like a dog, when the devil tries to tempt Jesus to worship him, on the false promise of receiving the kingdoms of the earth and all their glory.  To which Jesus says to him, “Be gone, Satan!  For it is written,  ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’ ” (Matthew 4:10 ESV)

As you age and lose the ability to fall on the floor and instantly jump back up as children do.  As the fear of falling down grows, not being able to get up, with the very real possibility of being left for dead.  You are called to ponder the mystery of this child laying in the manger as the one revealed to be the King of Creation, weak and unable to get up.  Who needs to be fed, and have his toileting attended to, as you did in infancy and might again need to have done in all humility as you age!

You are called to ponder the calculating ruthlessness of Herod and his unwillingness to fall down before anyone, remembering how we too sin with calculating ruthlessness.  Especially, as you age and God challenges your pride, seeking to remove all the idols from your life.

Ponder the Son of God lying in a food stall, and your embarrassment if you were the wise ones coming to worship this King of the Jews.  Would you fall down in manure of the cattle and sheep yards to submit to a God in a trough?    

You have all had victories in this life!  Regardless of what they were, even having the smallest triumph taken away by the loss of physical ability or reason, reveals not the starry height of our abilities and successes, but the truth of our inability.  This truth and reality is death!  We have no power to stop it!  It’s the highest hurdle and the greatest cross to bear in this life!

But in our aging and decline, and the growing knowledge and reality of lying down and licking the hand of death.  Ponder Jesus!  

Jesus was born for the single purpose to die!  Who despite being the Son of God, willingly set his face towards Jerusalem, knowing full well he would be laid down in death after being lifted up on the cross, and crowned the King of Kings! 

Why does he do this?  Because he came to right the wrong of humanity’s calculating ruthlessness!

He came and submitted to us in death to save us from death! 

He came to be the King of the Jews and the Gentiles, at his coronation on the cross, lifted up on the throne, as an embarrassment to the Jews, and us Gentiles. 

He came to lie down in death, so that when you fall down in death, he, having also licked the dirt like a dog in death, will pick you up in life forevermore. 

Therefore, worship God in the sweetest submission! 

Submit to him in hope, peace, joy, and love! 

Know God wins in death because he won in Jesus’ death and resurrection!

See Jesus’ submission to God the Father, and to you!  He came down and was born as a baby, he lay down in the manger, he lay down in submission to death for your sin, he descended into hell, so you and I have the right to be the children of God. 

You can worship and praise God with all the energy as that of God’s little child, knowing that you now live in the mystery of eternal life without the consequences of sin and knowing Jesus will lift you up from your manger of death.  Amen.