Advent Midweek 3 Sermon

Sermon, Advent Midweek 3

December 15, 2010

Jesus, Born in Weakness for Us

“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Now there is a pivotal question. Why does the heavenly Father send Jesus to such a humiliating home? He suffers this degrading existence for our sakes: He is Jesus, born in weakness for us.

The Gospel narrative imposes an embarrassing historical specificity on the story of the incarnation. Our King is born while another king reigned in Jerusalem. Our King flees the troops sent slaughtering by Herod. Our King is sheltered from death by Joseph. Our King must retreat across the Red Sea, returning to the land of slavery. Our King is called back to Israel, only to find Herod’s son firmly in control. Our King abandons Israel for a base of operations in Galilee. And finally, our King settles in Nazareth. This is hardly an auspicious beginning to a glorious reign, is it? All of this is bad enough, but the culminating humiliation is settlement in Nazareth.

Christ’s humiliation is a spiral of descent in which He must suffer dislocation, retreat, and finally settlement in a risible rural backwater. His heavenly Father places Him in a specific historical context where He must flee wicked kings. When coming to live with His people, He must migrate to second-rate Galilee and finally live in greatly disrespected Nazareth. He receives His humiliation with purpose, looking forward to the ultimate humbling of death, even the death of the cross. Down He goes: to Israel, a Roman protectorate. But now, on to “contemptible Galilee of the nations” (Isaiah 9:1), and most specifically, Nazareth, the center of nothing. O Nazareth, what good can come from you? It is bad enough that God places His Son in time in Roman Palestine, but worse yet that He chooses to give Him a home in humble obscurity, in a town known only for its lack of notoriety and infamous only for its lack of fame. The twentieth century’s Madonna would never have considered living where God sent the Madonna of the first century. The material girl would disdain the spiritual girl. The world’s Madonna was very different from God’s Madonna.

That happens when the King is preached in such places, when the Josephs who carry the Christ Child deliver Him in Word and Sacraments to the slums in Saint Louis, vodka-poisoned villages of Chicago, the snow driven towns of Northern Illinois, and homes of despair in Springfield.

Perhaps Nazareth is closer than we would like to admit. Nothing good might come from it, but when Joseph bears the Christ into it, all good comes to it. Our pastors are Joseph among us. They are nothing but appendages to the incarnation of the Word. They are married to the Word’s vessel. But they are not the Word. They only carry to others what they themselves can never be. They share the life of Nazareth with others from whom nothing good can come. Our pastors are not the possessors of the Word made flesh, but they are the guardians of the Word. Just as Joseph was.

In Thessaloniki, Greece, there is a thirteenth-century church called St. Nicolas the Orphan, in which the life of our Lord is painted. There in the birth scene is an aged and reluctant Joseph seeing to the Messiah’s needs. He even appears a bit envious that he is not in the center of the action. Like Nazareth, nothing good comes from Joseph. All good comes to Joseph in this Child. Nothing good comes from us, but all good comes to us in the birth of the Messiah.

Our pastors become the Josephs we need that bear the Christ to us. When a Joseph grants Holy Absolution, there is now a heart created clean by God. When the Josephs preach that the Son of God was made man for us men and for our salvation, then the weakness of God exalts the souls of the faithful. When the Josephs set in the mouths of the hungry the tokens of divine life in the body and blood of Christ, then life with God is given, a life unseen and despised by the world. When the Josephs bring Christ to Nazareth, Nazareth becomes the throne room of God and a royal capital, in which God is pleased to dwell. Nazareth may be nothing, but God’s presence changes all that.

All of us know that feeling of isolation when we wonder who knows of us. We don’t want to be famous, we just want to be known. Our homes become lovely prisons of isolation; especially at this time when there ought to be the most intimate fellowship among family and friends.

There, the Christ Child is brought by a child who learns the Christmas story and recites it in childish cadences before a tawdry audience of those who are too surfeited to hunger and thirst for the righteousness the child brings. A humble child offers us the humble Child.

Christ will not leave us alone to suffer. He comes into the Nazareth of our unknown despair and speaks. He says that He knows us. That is the only knowing that matters, as Isaiah says, “By His knowledge shall the righteous one, My servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and He shall bear their iniquities” (Isaiah 53:11). His knowing of you is what matters. His accounting you righteous is what matters. His bearing of your iniquities is what matters.

The Christ Child reaches out His tender child’s hand and with it embraces the weakness of Nazareth and its humiliation in the world. He becomes a shoot out of dry ground. He becomes the barren and uncharted deserts of our own Nazareth. There He puts down roots in the wrong place, at least wrong in the eyes of the world. His tender shoot struggles quietly to crack the parched land and, instead of drawing water for His life from this desert, He Himself waters the land, giving back to it its much-needed nourishment.

From the life that is within Him wherever He is planted, there is life. He is the only shoot out of dry ground that makes the ground fertile. His life gives life, it does not take it. He makes Nazareth the new Eden. He Himself is the lily that springs up; the rose of Sharon that unmakes our weedy lives and makes us a well-watered garden. King Solomon, His forerunner, speaks in His voice: “I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys. As a lily among brambles” (Song of Solomon 2:1–2). Only the brambles will never overtake His tender shoot. Weak though He is and tender as a child, His God will protect Him.

His remaking of Eden in Nazareth changes everything in little, dishonored, infamous, and notorious places. Isaiah the mighty seer saw this: “In the former time He brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time He has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations” (9:1). In these latter times, His presence makes the Nazareth of your hearts, your homes, your church, your altar, and your font glorious places.

What good can come from Nazareth? None. It is the good that comes to Nazareth that makes the difference; all the difference in the world. He is Jesus, born in weakness for us.

Daily Readings for December 12 - 18, 2010

Readings for the Week of the Third Sunday in Advent

Sunday “Go and Tell John What You See and Hear”—Matt. 11:2-15; Isaiah 32:1-20
Monday The Nativity of St. John the Baptist—Luke 1:57-80; Isaiah 33:1-24
Tuesday The Nativity of Our Lord—Luke 2:1-7; Is. 34:1-2, 8-35:10
Wednesday Waiting in Patience—James 5:7-11; Isaiah 40:1-17
Thursday The Birth of Christ Is Announced to Shepherds- Luke 2:8-14; Isaiah 40:18-41:10
Friday The Shepherds Visit Bethlehem—Luke 2:15-20; Isaiah 42:1-25
Saturday Look ahead to Sunday’s readings Isaiah 7:10-17; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25

NEXT WEEKS LESSONS: FOURTH SUNDAY IN ADVENT

Isaiah 7:10-17: Ahaz, the King of Judah, was not a very pious king. Though the Lord told him to ask for a sign that the Lord might show His faithfulness to the house of Judah, Ahaz refused. In the face of his stubbornness, the Lord Himself gave Ahaz and the people of Judah a sign: “Behold, a virgin will conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.” Apart from any help or contribution from a sinful human being, this “sign” was fulfilled in the virgin conception and birth of Jesus. By this “sign” we know that God is not only with us, but that salvation is a free gift of His faithfulness and mercy in Jesus.

Romans 1:1-7: The Apostle Paul begins his great epistle to the Romans by highlighting the great truth that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the message of salvation that was “promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures.” This Gospel, recorded on all the pages of the Old Testament is truly about God’s “Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.” Through Christ, we have “grace and peace” from God our Father. This Gospel is the heart of the Apostolic Word which Paul and his fellow apostles preach for the creation and preservation of the Church of Christ.

Matthew 1:18-25: Joseph, the Guardian of Jesus as he is often called, had a difficult vocation. He was called to be Mary’s husband and Jesus’ earthly father. This calling meant a life of suffering and self-denial. This is always what true faith calls us to: a life of sacrificial love in which we deny ourselves. This is the shape of our lives as Christians because our life is lived by faith in the God and Savior who lived in selfless love for us. The Child conceived in Mary’s womb was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. Mary was not an adulteress. His name would be called “Jesus” because He is the Lord who would save His people from their sins by becoming one with them in their flesh and blood. All this was done to fulfill the Scriptures, “Behold, a virgin shall be with child and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which means that God is with us in the poverty and humiliation of our human condition to redeem us by the sacrifice of Himself. Joseph had no strength to fulfill His vocation within himself, but He was strengthened by the Holy Scriptures and the message of God’s selfless love for him and for all his people. This is our strength too in our vocation. The Gospel not only saves us from our sins, but it also strengthens and keeps us in the love of Christ in the earthly vocations to which our Lord has called us.

Advent 3 December 11-12, 2010 Sermon

Advent 3

Matthew 11:2-11

December 11-12, 2010

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

John had stood in the wilderness with his unbending ethic and boldly proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah. He had pointed at Him and said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” The only way lambs take away sins is by being sacrificed. He did not point and say, “Look, it is Santa Claus and he doesn’t care if we’ve been naughty or nice. He never gives coal. He is magic and wants fat, little children to have lots of toys.” Instead John says, “Look: the Lamb of God! He will be roasted on a spit, consumed in His Father’s wrath, the key of Hell’s evil desires, for sins He did not commit, for you sins. In this way He will take away your sins and open heaven to all believers.”

Then John infected Our Lord with our sins. He poured the filthy baptismal water into his ears, nose, and eyes. He made Him swallow it. John anointed Jesus for death. He marked Him with our filth. For this Lamb, upon whom the Holy Spirit descended in visible form and with whom the Father proclaimed Himself well-pleased, is also the scapegoat who will be exiled and forsaken. He is the incense. The aroma of His burning blood will please the Father. He is the priest who performs these duties for the people and for the Gentiles. He is the mercy-seat who shields us from the Law. He is the Redeemer. He sells Himself into slavery as a ransom. He is the Lamb of God. He takes away the sins of the world.

Then John finds himself in Herod’s dungeon. He has stepped on the wrong toes. His fierce law preaching needed an exception for powerful people, but there was none. The Law always accuses, always kills, is always hostile to sinners. John could have lied. He could have spun it. He could have pretended there was a royal loophole, but he didn’t. He told the truth. John then becomes a lamb, about to feel the consequences of wounding Herod’s pride. He is more than a prophet, and straddles two worlds, but he will not live to see that which the prophets longed to see, which he himself foretold: the Lamb of God lifted up from the earth, the redemption of the world.

Does this fill him with fear and doubt? Some are quick to say that it could not be. John is not a reed swayed by the wind. He is the greatest of those born of women. But we can only say such things of John if we are speaking of his new Adam apart from his old Adam. The new man, the one who arose clean and justified from the waters of Holy Baptism, does not sin or doubt. But John had not yet been transferred to glory. He was both old and new Adam, struggling against his fallen flesh, even as he preached for all people to struggle. For that is what it means to repent and John is the epitome of a repentance preacher.

Faith is not the absence of doubt. Such absence belongs only to the dead, in either kingdom. Here on earth, whether we are old man and new man, redeemed by Christ, or unbelievers with only the old man in us, doubt is always part of us. Faith is not the absence of doubt but the mastery of doubt. The new Adam in the baptized says, “I believe” even as the old Adam whispers, “maybe not.” Faith then speaks: “I believe, help my unbelief.” Faith subdues doubt. Faith acts and confesses despite it. In this, faith is not much different than its kin-virtue courage which acts despite the presence of fear.

It is not doubt, in any case, that sends John’s question to Our Lord. It is faith. Faith desires to hear the Word of the Lord. Faith seeks comfort in the only place comfort exists: in the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. To think that this comfort was only for John’s disciples thinks too little of John’s faith and of the comfort Our Lord provides to those who suffer on His behalf.

Like a child asking his mother if she loves him, John asks, “Are you the Coming One or do we look for another?” He knows the answer but wants reassurance, wants comfort.

So Our Lord says, “The blind see. The lame walk. The lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear. But all flesh is grass cousin. It withers and fades. It dies. I am the Coming One. But I am not coming to you. You are more than a prophet and I am leaving you in prison. Your illnesses will not be healed. You will not behold miracles. I am the Coming One, the Messiah, the long-expected Hope and Consolation of Israel, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, for you. But I am not coming there, to the dungeon, to rescue you from your martyr’s fate. For you are a stiff reed, John. You will not bend and your faith has consequences. The winds of Edomite impenitence and greed will snap you in two. But your faith will see you through. Your iniquity is already pardoned. You are more than a prophet. By violence, your warfare will end. You will come to your reward. I will gather you to Myself. You will find soft, radiant clothing in a King’s house called by your own name. You will sit at the banquet table with your fathers. Washed in My Blood, Herod cannot kill you. Do not be afraid. The blind see. The lame walk. The lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear. The poor have the Gospel preached to them. And the miracle you get is the most significant of all: the dead are raised. The old Adam will be left in the grave. The final victory bestowed upon you and all who believe in Me.”

In + Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Advent midweek 2 sermon

Advent Midweek 2

Jesus, Born to Be God’s True Son, Israel, for Us

Matthew 2:7–18

Jesus is fleeing. He flees not for Himself, but for us. Christ fled the slaughter of Herod to keep His holy life until the fullness of time, when He would take the punishment for our sins. Christ fled to bring forgiveness to the land of Egypt, which once enslaved Israel. He fled that He might give us faith who often flee. He flees not through weakness but that weakness might become strength.

Yet this weakness must have brought sorrow to Mary and Joseph. The visit of the Magi of Persia gave them joy, a joy reflected by the richness of the gifts of the Magi to the child. But their joy dissolved into fear when they learned that the Magi had attracted the attention of murderous Herod. The angel says, “Flee! Flee this very night. Take the child and His mother out into the dark and make for Egypt. Save the child from Herod. Don’t turn back to gather your cloak. Go now!”

Joseph could have questioned the angelic messenger, “What do you mean, ‘flee’? I thought you said that this child was to save His people. Why should we be afraid of Herod then? Why should we flee from his wrath? If this child cannot save His mother and me, why should we think that He could fulfill the promise that He would save His people? If He cannot save Himself, how can He save others?” Yet Joseph said none of this. He, accepting the Word of the Lord, left that night, without being certain when he might be able to return to Judea with his little family. What sorrow this must have brought the Holy Family.

The Holy Family is not unlike our own. Our lives, too, are punctuated by joy and sorrow. No life is always joyful and happy. No life is always sorrowful and bad. The Christian is seeking to make sense of both the joy and the sorrow. Often the sorrow sent by God in bearing the cross leads to greater joy through growth in faith and confidence in His mercy (Psalm 126:5).

So it was for the Holy Family. Yes, Mary and Joseph sorrowed over an “unplanned” pregnancy. Yet, when the Lord told them what this meant, Mary with faithful acceptance whispered, “Let it be to me according to Your word” (Luke 1:38). When directed to take his family to Egypt that very night, Joseph did it. What they didn’t see was the bigger picture. They had only a slight idea of why God was doing all this. They had the messianic hope of course, but, like all of us, Mary and Joseph only made sense of their sufferings in retrospect; Mary “treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).

The bigger picture is what matters. If the Holy Family had not fled, Jesus would not have gone into Egypt to reclaim the nation that expelled holy Israel at the time of the exodus. The land of the pharaohs, the land of slavery, would have been left to languish in the shadow of death. Instead, the Messiah returns where God was rejected and comes to a people that shut its heart to His servant Moses. The land where the water ran blood red was now to be cleansed by the Son of God, who would shed His blood for that cleansing. The land was purified when the foot of the Son of God walked its fertile valley and its burning desert sands. The horror of the night flight from Herod’s slaughter dawns into a glorious day of salvation for a land mired in darkness and the shadow of death. The Wisdom of God, who became incarnate of Mary, trumped the wisdom of Egypt. The Christ Child had visited the land of the Gentiles. Often, our sorrows lead to the dawning of the light of Christ among us.

In sorrow, Jacob had long ago gone into Egypt for salvation from famine (Genesis 46). He would settle there for “only the Lord knows how long.” He was no more certain of the time of his return than Joseph. Yet, he was certain that God would fulfill His promise to him that he would inherit the land promised to Abraham and to his seed forever. So certain was he of his inheritance from the Lord that he gave instructions that his earthly remains were to be laid to rest with his fathers, Abraham and Isaac. He would go up out of Egypt even if in a funeral procession. Jacob, like Joseph, walked by faith.

The Lord built Jacob into a great nation in Egypt, and that nation took his God-given name. His sons became Israel. Moses led the sons of Israel out of Egypt by passing through the Red Sea on dry ground. And four hundred years after going down into Egypt, the nation of slaves went up out of Egypt to take possession of their inheritance from the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The people left behind ruthless enemies and hardened opponents of the Lord, whose bodies washed up on the shore of the Red Sea, drowned by the Lord. They were left to their frog-faced gods of wood for salvation.

But God’s heart still yearned for fellowship with those who hated Him and sought to thwart His ways and destroy His people. He still loved those who served the frog-faced gods of the Nile Valley. The Lord was not done with these depraved worshipers of other gods. He would not abandon them to death and darkness. The Lord was going to do all He could to bring new life into the valley of the shadow of death and light to the land of darkness. He sent His own Son to Egypt.

Jacob went into Egypt a free man and Jesus returned as the servant of all. Jacob went because he had no choice. Jesus went though He could have chosen not to go. He had come to do the Fathers will. Israel, who was subject to none, became subject to Pharaoh. Jesus, who was master of all, fled before Herod. He who would save all people refused to save Himself. He trusted Himself to His heavenly Father, who used the humble means of His earthly family to rescue His Son. He became the new Israel, the perfect case of “déjà vu all over again.” He has done all things well.

Just as Jacob went down into Egypt to become Israel, the Son of God went down into Egypt for the same reason. But when Israel was called out of Egypt, Israel was reluctant, a skeptical, a rebellious subject. It failed to be what it was called by God to be, but wandered in the wilderness following its own blinded dictates. God had rescued it. Now it was going to find its own way. The people rebelled against Moses and, having been rescued from the tyranny of the frog-faced gods of Egypt, created their own tyranny in a calf-faced god. The Egyptians were certainly not going to have anything over the Israelites! They salivated for the flesh-pots of Egypt and choked on manna sent by God.

Jesus, who went down into Egypt, was called out of Egypt as the true Son of God. He returned as the truly faithful Son where Israel once rebelled, wandered, worshiped false gods, and starved. He had come to do the will of God. He had come to walk in the ways of the Law. He had come to be the very bread from heaven. He Himself was manna made flesh. He was the thirst-quenching water from the rock, so that whoever drinks of Him will never thirst.

He takes Israel’s desecrated mantle and becomes the Son whom God loved. In this way, He becomes the remaking of Israel in His own person. He is the substitute for all Israel. He incorporates into Him all who believe in Him. We who believe have become beloved sons of God, the true Israel. We, who pass through the Red Sea on dry ground by Baptism, become incorporated into Him who is the true Israel and, sharing in His exodus, enter the Promised Land with Him. We cross the Red Sea of death in His path from Egypt, where once the hard-hearted pharaoh and all his soldiers were drowned. Now, however, He leads all of Egypt in triumphal procession through the water, leading them on from death to life. He is leading captivity captive, that we Gentiles who died with Pharaoh’s chariots and horsemen might be led through dry ground unto life in Him. Egypt, who once expelled Israel, now follows the new Israel through the water that makes all, both Jews and Gentiles, Israel in the beloved Son whom God called out of Egypt.

Jesus flees into Egypt that He might lead many sons out of Egypt through the Red Sea on dry ground. He flees that we might not. Jesus is born to be God’s true Son, Israel, for us.

Advent 2 Sermon December 4-5, 2010

December 4-5, 2010

Advent 2

Luke 21:25-36

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The sun, the moon, and the stars were placed into the heavens on the fourth day of creation. God gave them to men. He gave them to be lights upon the earth for all living creatures, but for men they were appointed also for signs and for seasons, for days and years. They mark time. They found their grandest fulfillment, their greatest sign and time marking, in drawing the magi from Babylon to Bethlehem to worship the Virgin's Son.

The Virgin's Son is Lord of the stars. He again invokes them as markers measuring the time of His delay. Every sunset is a reminder of our impending death. But every sunrise is a promise of the resurrection to come. The rotation of the heavens, the waxing and waning of the earth's most significant satellite, are predictable. So also is the return of the King to the place of His anointing. Not that we know the exact day and time of His return. But what we can predict with absolute certainty is that as sure as there are stars in the sky Jesus is coming back. Every moment He is postponed the tension grows greater.

Look and see if the sun still shines. Look and see if nations are distressed with perplexity, the sea and the waves are still roaring, men's hearts failing them from fear. Know then that Day draws ever near. Time is not without an end. It will not continue forever. The Son of Man will come in a cloud with power and great glory. Watch therefore, and pray.

We pray: “Stir up our hearts, O Lord.” But that is a dangerous prayer. For hearts are stirred up not with comfort foods and soft music. We do not pray: “Lord give us a warm, fuzzy feeling in our bellies, make our lives comfortable and leisurely, make us popular with the boys and girls.” We pray that God would stir up our hearts, that He would disturb us, prod us into action. Hearts are stirred up by an earnest call again to repentance, with a hearty dose of reality. “Stir up our hearts” is a plea for God to end our complacency, defeat our laziness, and stop our melancholy depression. We ask Him to intervene for us against our wiliest foe, ourselves, and on the most dangerous battlefield of all, our hearts.

For while the Bridegroom delays our danger increases. We must continue to endure temptation. Salvation is closer now then when we first believed. But do we have the same zeal we had then? It is easy to grow weary and to be seduced by the devil's promise of rest. “Why fight it? Why work so hard? Why care about what God says when it seems as though He doesn't care for you?” The devils advises: “Take care of yourself. Don't offend anyone but lay up for yourself treasures where you can see and enjoy them.”

But that is most certainly the way of death. Stir up, O Lord, our hearts against our flesh! Man does not live by statistics and financial reports. He does not find favor in the eyes of God by finding favor in the eyes of men. The Baptized live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And there, O Baptized and alive in Christ, is your safe harbor. All other things will wash away. Nothing else will endure. But the Word of God will. It never lies, never changes, never stops, never fails.

And thus we pray: “Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to make ready the way of Your only-begotten Son.” On the great and dreadful day of the Lord the Son of Man will indeed come in a cloud with power and great glory. The Mohammedans, the Buddhists, those trapped in the cults of the Jehovah's witnesses and Mormonism, and all those who thought they could come to God apart from the Son, will no longer be able to deny His power and authority. Kiss the Son lest He be angry. Satan's many masks and false names will finally be stripped away. Then the pagans and heathen will know whom they've been worshiping all these years, and they shall be burned up. But to you who fear the Name of the Lord, who trust in the mercy of the God of Abraham born of Mary, He, the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings. Look up. Lift up your heads. Your redemption draws near. Your suffering, your trials, your troubles end.

The decisive battle for your soul was fought outside Jerusalem. The Father has pardoned you for the death of His innocent Son. The Spirit of the resurrection abides in you. The war rages on. Casualties pile up. It is dangerous, deadly. But the end is certain. Fear not. The Christ has not died in vain. The devil is a liar, already defeated. Jesus died and rose again for us men and for our salvation. He reconciled all mankind to His Father and the kingdom of heaven is open to all believers. Blessed are all those who trust in Him, who rest in Him, who confess Him. They shall not be disappointed.

Stir up our hearts, O Lord! Prepare us by Your grace. Receive us now and when we die through forgiveness and mercy. Secure us in this free salvation unto the end. Feed us with your Body and Blood. Make us your own!

In + Jesus' Name. Amen.

Advent midweek 1 2010

Advent 1 2010:

Jesus, Born to Be the True King for Us

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Matthew 2:1–6.

What does it mean to have a God who is “for us”? Usually we think God is “over against us.” He is a threatening presence. His majestic holiness is set against our inborn wickedness. What else could the psalmist mean: “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth!” (Psalm 8:1)? The majestic God over against us exposes our filthy sinful state.

In post-modernist style, we say that God is welcome to His opinion, but we don’t look at it that way. We imagine that if we are better than our neighbor (and in our own minds we always are!) we are okay with God. We have “all done the best we can.”

We will sing with gusto of our sin, just as long as we can compare ourselves favorably to our neighbor: “Chief of sinners though I be, I’m just glad you’re worse than me.” However, sin is not measured by nearer and farther, more holy and less holy, better and worse.

The problem here is that the Law is not a relative standard. When we look into the mirror of the Law, we see that we do not meet the perfect standard that was established by God and of which He is the perfect case. We stand condemned, because we cannot gaze into the face of Moses, which reflects only a glimpse of God’s radiant glory. Holy Law sets guilt very firmly over against us. His holiness over against us is shown by the glory of the Law.

But the Christian God is not merely “over against us.” The god who is only over against us would be the god of the Koran. He is that nebulous accusing presence. He is not like the God of the Bible. He would not be the God who is Jesus, born to be the true King for us. The God who is born for us is born to rescue—not condemn; to be merciful—not causing hurt nor harm; to be gracious—not guilt giving.

The Magi are searching for the newborn king. But what king? They seek Him in the palace of Herod, whom Matthew decisively calls “the king.” Where would you look for a king? Of course, in the palace of the king. The Magi knew kings, or at least they thought they did. They were advisors and seers in the royal courts of the east.

Perhaps they expected to get in with with the new king as well as the old one. However, they ought to have known better. They were poor seers and incompetent advisors, because they had not foreseen the reception they would get from old Herod, the king. For Herod, there could be no other king. His grasp on royal power was so iron-fisted that he slaughtered his own flesh and blood whenever he suspected his children of coveting his royal throne. Herod literally had no succession plan.

The Magi were hardly the “wise men” of myth, because they failed to understand the political situation into which they were waltzing. It’s not very wise to speak of another king to one who does not accept any other royal authority, not even in his own family. Foolishly, these Magi were even going to return to Herod as requested. This mistake would’ve cost them their lives. By preceding Herod, they were attracting death to Bethlehem like a corpse attracts flies. They were going to be Herod’s men. They were for the king in Jerusalem. But the true King in Bethlehem was ever for them, as He is for us.

These Magi were hardly “wise men.” They sound more like the old joke about the Supreme Court forbidding nativity scenes in the District of Columbia, because they could find neither a virgin nor three wise men in Washington. The biblical Magi were anything but wise. They were more like the Three Stooges.

So why does the Lord send them this star that leads them to the place where the child was? Magi were representatives of pagan religion as far as the Bible is concerned. They were opponents of the Most High God. These Magi were ignorant of the Messianic promises of the Old Testament. The pet priests of King Herod had to inform them that the new king was to be born in Bethlehem of Judea. And despite all our mythology about the three gifts as confessions of divinity, the Magi most likely did not understand that the One to whom they bowed was something more than a potential, and now very much endangered, successor to King Herod.

If they were so incompetent, why does God lead them to be the first Gentiles to look upon the Savior of the world? It is hardly an endorsement for the messianic majesty that such foolish advisers should come to prostrate themselves eastern-style before the newborn King. No earthly king would covet such an honor, not even bloody Herod!

What kind of royal court does this newborn King accept around Him? Poor indeed. He accepts the incompetent, stumbling, pagan Magi. And why? What good could they bring to the situation? What assets could they offer to His royal authority?

The answer is very simple and is tied directly to the kind of King this baby claims to be. He is the God for us. Not we for Him. Like the Magi, we bring nothing to the table. We have no negotiating chips. We offer Him nothing of value.

This is why His name is majestic in all the earth. He humbles Himself to reveal Himself to those who come bringing nothing but their failure. He opens His royal court to those who bring to Him the burden of death. He embraces those who cannot take care of themselves without divine intervention. He seeks and saves those who are lost. A star shall come out of Jacob for those who cannot find their way without the light that He sends. He saves those who were destroyed by the demonic powers by freeing them from their bondage. He saves Gentile Magi like us. He saves us because He is for us.

Our sins are more than just spiritual pitfalls. We are, at heart, Magi, seeking the King in our own way, looking for the King in all the wrong places. Looking in palaces rather than humble shelters. Looking for life where there is only death, and bringing death where there is only the Life. Touting our competence and tooting our own horns.

We are too ignorant even to be embarrassed. We desire to go back and do the bidding of the bloody world, even after the true King has brought us into His majestic presence. Only the warning of the angel will keep us from this: “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?” (James 4:4). There is no “getting in good” with the murderous monarchy of the world and having the life that the true King brings. This King, whose name is majestic in all the earth, does not accept any rivals.

He wishes to win us all and all of us. Nothing keeps us from the embrace of His love and compassion. Nothing can separate us from Him. Not Herod. Not all demons. Not all the principalities and powers in heaven and earth. He is King of kings, as no one else ever could be. He gives up the exercise of His royal majesty that He might gather around Himself a court of followers like us. We are no credit to Him. He is all credit to us. He is the God who is for us, not over against us. He is Jesus, born to be King for us.