Dear world, here He is!

Recently, I have been pondering precisely how diverse our human nature is, particularly in terms of its cultural, linguistic and ethnic diversity.  As homo sapiens, we are heterogeneous in many ways, and we represent a broad spectrum of languages and cultures, religions and traditions.  Perhaps what brought this home to me with great acuity is those tracing their DNA, their genetic backgrounds. This DNA research is revealing to many people that their ancestry is far more diverse than they had ever thought.  People who thought that they were a homogeneous group and had come from one or maybe ever two cultures find that they represent much greater diversity in their background than they ever imagined, and that we are not as homogeneous as we once thought.
 
Many people are surprised when they trace their genealogy to find precisely how divergent their backgrounds might be.  James Merritt, in his wonderful little book, 52 With Jesus, tells the story of the actress Brook Shields.  She investigated her background and found that she was distantly related to Charlemagne, El Cid, and to one of the earliest Popes. She was shocked and surprised at how divergent her background was!  Merritt found that the vast majority of people are distantly connected to royalty, in some culture or another.
 
Merritt argues that, in many ways, Jesus of Nazareth was like that too. He represents a divergence and disparate background; so-much-so that he even refers to his lineage as the “messy Messiah.”  He is referring, of course, to the Gospel of Matthew’s coverage of the lineage of Jesus at the beginning of the Gospel, and how it is traced linked to the wisest thinkers, prostitutes, murderers, and kings of Israel. Jesus’ background represents a messy history leading up to his own birth and to the incarnation.  Merritt concludes that if this is accurate, then the humanity of Jesus represents the divergent nature of the human being, and the very pluralistic backgrounds from which we come.  None of us are born into one culture in an unbroken line of ascendancy and change. We represent a much broader sphere than we realize.  He suggests that Christianity is like that as well, and that the Lord and Master whom we follow is the Lord and Master of all peoples.
 
It has been argued in some circles recently that living in a pluralistic world is an impediment to the spreading of the Gospel, and the ministry of the Church. Because we live in such a divergent culture representing many different traditions, it is sometimes hard to see precisely what the Christian Gospel is, and how it relates to the traditions that we experience here in the west.  I have never subscribed to that belief.  In fact, I would subscribe to the opposite belief.  I would subscribe to the belief that at its very heart, Christianity and the person of Jesus has an appeal well beyond cultural, ethnic and linguistic barriers.  One of the great reasons why the person of Jesus and the nature of the ministry of the Church is found in almost every country in the world, while it has an appeal across cultural and ethnic barriers and borders, is precisely because that is the very nature of the Kingdom of God.  The Kingdom of Christ and the Kingdom of God is not limited to one culture or even a few cultures.  While clearly for us, it has been transmitted for centuries through our western culture and ideals, it is not those western cultures and ideals that constitute the foundation of our faith.  They are the medium through which we have received the Gospel.

The Gospel transcends all of that, as does the ministry of Jesus. There is no constraint upon his Lordship.  Nowhere do we see that more clearly than in his birth.  In this incredible narrative from the Gospel of Matthew, we find that very diversity at its origins.  At the birth of Jesus, we find that diversity of cultures coming to worship him. We see it in the form of the Magi revealing the power and the heterogeneity of The Gospel of Jesus Christ and of his kingdom.
 
The Jewish roots of Jesus life and ministry are very clearly demonstrated.  He was born into a Jewish culture, lived in Judea, and he is from Jewish parentage and lineage.  It is all there for us to see.  The fact that he was born in Bethlehem and why so much was made of that, speaks to the fact that Jesus was seen to be the fulfillment of the messianic hopes of the people of Israel. He was to fulfill what David, his ancestor, had been promised, namely the reign of God within the Kingdom of Israel and of Judah.  Now, you see this by Bethlehem taking on its importance.  Bethlehem, where Jacob buried Rachel; where Ruth lived with Boaz; where David’s monarchy was founded.  This was one of the great symbols of the people of Israel.  This was the great place from which the Messiah would come.  Jesus, as we are told over and over again in all the Gospels, was born there.  But Matthew, who was writing ostensibly to a Jewish audience, goes out of his way to talk about the arrival of the Magi. The Magi are not Jewish, but Gentile.  

The Magi are probably from Persia and India or Midian. As a great Roman historian once put it:  It is the Midianites, the people from the east, who have come to visit Jesus.  They come representing the whole of the Gentile world, the eastern world.  We don’t know how many Magi there were, we only know there were three for sure, because three brought gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh.  The Magi were prophets, philosophers, star gazers, astronomers, and mystics.  They were people of deep and rich learning.  It has even been speculated that they might have been followers of Zoroastrianism, a Persian religion, and that maybe from that religious tradition they had gazed at the stars for the purpose of understanding – and this is deep – the order of the universe.  For them, gazing at the stars wasn’t so that you could have a horoscope to tell you to should get up in the morning and feel happy or sad, to drink coffee, make investments or love somebody.   Rather, they looked at the stars to find order and structure within the cosmos.  These were not frivolous, silly people!  These were the Magi, the wise men, and they had come from the east.  They also knew, and it is part of the tradition of the eastern thinking, that Judea would be a special place in the revelation of God. It would be no surprise to them that the stars would have led them to Judea, because Judea was always considered a special place where God did unique things.

The point that I want to make, is that the very first people who come and visit Jesus outside of his own culture, are Persians.  They came from Iran to recognize who Jesus of Nazareth is.  They are Gentiles, and they have bowed down before him, but there is far more to this than just that. Namely, the arrival of the Magi was a sign of God revealing himself.  In a conversation with my doctoral student this week, she made the point that all of this was an act of God, the whole of the visit of the Magi was an act of God. The fact that the stars stood still, when we know stars and the earth do not stand still, must be an act of God.  God must be doing something supernatural in all of this to lead them there.  Why?  This is because it was a moment of Epiphany.  An “epiphany” simply means a manifestation, an appearance of that which previously had been hidden.  In other words, the Magi come, and in so doing, reveal that God is manifesting himself in something special.  They didn’t arrive by accident on the scene; they were brought there.  And when they got there, it was as if God was revealing himself to them.

I don’t know how many of you might have watched just before Christmas the special on the singer Adele, but I am a great lover of Adele’s music.  I have all of her CDs in my car.  My friends in rock make fun of me – but I like her!  I think she is great!  I watched the hour long special, and Adele did something unusual.  Part of the special was actually to get Adele impersonators to audition for the show.  There were hundreds of applicants, narrowed down to about seven.  One of whom was Adele herself!  She was made-up so she wouldn’t be recognized.  When it’s her turn to sing, she pretended to be very nervous, and the others felt sorry for her but were kind and embraced her saying, “Look dear, don’t worry how bad you are, just get up there and sing.”  So, she gets up and she sings.  The look on their faces was overwhelming!  Bit by bit, they came to the realization that this was Adele!  They were overcome with emotion. At the end, they ran on to the stage as Adele reveals herself, takes off her make-up, her fake nose and hair, and they embrace her loving being in her presence.  They realized who she was by virtue of her singing, and were in awe of her.

The glory of God is like that.  It is often hidden and mysterious to us who sit on this side of history.  But in the midst of it, God is manifesting and revealing himself to the world.  When the Magi knelt before Mary and Joseph and saw Jesus, they knew that they were in the presence of greatness.  They knew that they were in the presence of God.  That which was hidden had been revealed, and the Magi from Persia were the ones who saw it. The most profound part of the visit of the Magi is precisely how they acknowledged it.  Okay, they brought their gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh, and we make a lot of that, but it is the other things that are more important.  They prostrate themselves.  They got on their knees before him.

Years ago, when I visited the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, I was overwhelmed by its simplicity, its honesty and its rather basic-ness.  I remember going into the Church of the Nativity, which is supposedly the place where Jesus had been born, but we don’t really know.  It is built into a cave and a cave, as I mentioned before Christmas, could have been one of the areas where Jesus was born, adjacent to a house with a very tiny door.  Over the centuries, since Constantine put it there, it has never been expanded.  You go down rickety stone steps and you have to bow down under the door, and then there is this beautiful, ornate, gorgeous little church.  It is the fact that you go in kneeling almost, bowing down, that is so significant because that is how the Magi came to Jesus.  The wise men, the intellectuals, the thinkers, the cosmologists, the astronomers, the people of learning had come and bowed down before Jesus.  It is as if the whole world was acknowledging him as the presence of God.

It took Gentiles from the east, people from Iran to reveal it, and there they were on their knees.  It is still part of the Arabian and the Persian tradition, regardless of the religion that you are from, to kneel when you pray.  Historically, people have knelt when they prayed.  In our pews, there are kneelers if you wish to pray that way.  Why? It is because you are coming in reverence and in awe.  These men from Persia came in awe and reverence to Jesus.  They came on behalf of the world in all its diversity; and they found God in all his simplicity.  When they knelt, they also listened.  They did not only worship, they obeyed.  God had come to them and warned them about Herod.  God wanted to protect the Magi and his Son.  He wanted to protect the world from someone who was setting out to do evil.

God still does that, and still wants to reach out to the broken places of the world.  God wants the diversity of our humanity to bow before his Son and recognize his princely and his peaceful reign.  God wants the Magi of the world to acknowledge the Prince of Peace.  He calls us to be like the Magi.  Whatever our backgrounds and traditions, whatever things we are carrying in our lives, on our minds or in our hearts, whatever failings, whatever miseries have upset us, whatever joys have thrilled us, it matters not!  Like the Magi, come on your knees!  Like the Magi, come and listen!  Like the Magi, come and worship, for this is none other than God himself! Amen.