“When we don’t like what we wished for” or “Searching for God in all the Wrong Places”
First Sunday of Advent 11/29/09
The message and meaning of “Advent” is associated with the most important values of Christian faith; Peace, Hope, Joy, Salvation, and Charity - Advent is a time of reflection. It is a contemplative waiting for the coming and eventual arrival of something good, but the unfolding of this new thing is hidden in the details. As the story goes - that thing we so greatly anticipate is something different than our expectations, but far more than anything we could have we imagined. It is the story of Immanuel – “God with us.”
The story of Jesus’ birth is told in a simple, but dramatic and captivating way. It unfolds in mystery, amid spectacular claims about the significance of this coming birth. The advent story is, in my opinion, a text for all times, a story that is at once beautiful and strange – and most of all honest.
The story of Jesus’ birth is in two of the four Gospels, Matthew and Luke. They both tell a story that is partially about anticipation, mystery, hope, joy, peace and life - but it is also a story of rejection, disappointment, tragedy, and loss. It is in the details of these two Gospel stories where we find profound and powerful Advent lessons for today.
TWO STORIES – TWO TESTIMONIES
There are two different birth stories of Jesus, found in Luke and Matthew. There are few stories unique to Matthew or Luke, but the birth stories as told by each of them stand as unique narratives not found in any of the other gospels. In Matthew Chapter 2 one of the first things we learn in the Advent story is that the approaching appearance of God, the coming of the hope from heaven – was not without its costs. The unexpected element of the story we often overlook is not just that the King is an infant. No the “unexpected” element is far more than the birth itself. The Advent story is filled with anticipations but is also filled with details we wish didn’t have to be there.
It was an unlikely path from the beginning – according to the Gospel of Matthew: How would such an outrageous proclamation be validated? God is coming? Really? Who believes such a claim, and more importantly who can be believed about such a claim? Who among us, has the reputation that can confirm this miraculous story of God’s appearance with credibility? One would think it must come from someone we trust, someone or some place I am used to getting reliable information, because this story is hard to believe.
But Matthew sends the Magi from the east! Who are these “Magi” from the east, these three men who followed a star according to Matthew. Non-biblical sources lead most historians to conclude that Matthew’s reference to the Magi form the East was likely a reference to Persian astrologers or philosophers, or perhaps persons espousing Persian religious views, such as the Zoroastrians, one of the oldest surviving religions in the world.
In other words Matthew claims that the announcement of God’s coming into the world was made not by whom we might expect at the time. He does not day it is Jewish Priests, it is not Greeks relying upon Oracles, nor is wise Philosophers. It is people outside the Jewish tradition, from the Persian East who recognize the coming of God’s mystery. It was people from another land, another tradition, from another ethnic heritage.
Meanwhile, near Jerusalem, Herod, the Greek ruler over Judea, a Governor of sorts serving under the Roman Government, or Caesar, sought to protect his power. According to Matthew, no sooner is Jesus born than Herod, fearful of his future influence, seeks to kill him as an infant.
The result, told to us only by Matthew, is that Jesus was whisked off to Egypt where he would be raised for his first years. Matthew says, “When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.
17 Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
18"A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more."[g]
This is the immediate result of the coming of Jesus? The death of countless infants?! Where is God in this? Where is redemption, hope and peace is this? Is the coming of God what we expected, or something that we really want? And couldn’t this have been prevented? Did this have to occur? Why couldn’t Jesus have been born in Egypt in the first place? Or why did anyone even have t know about Jesus until his adult years? The Gospel of Mark says nothing about Jesus’ birth. Why was it so important? There are so many more questions when tragedy abounds.
Is there a lesson here for our personal, contemporary lives....? Many already know, unfortunately by experience, that there are things, horrific tragedies that discourage us and prevent us from recognizing God’s existence or presence. Sometimes the most rewarding and illuminating paths are at first fraught with the most risk, the most uncertainty, the most danger, and the most mystery. As a result, sometimes, sometimes, the decisions and choices we make may not be the most obvious, but our intuition may tell us to go down the path that appears least inviting to others. It makes the least sense. But sometimes we are compelled to go, or prompted to explore. But we can’t predict the outcome and the outcome may not be as we expected. Am I suggesting that God teaches through tragedy and suffering? No, but strangely, we learn from it at the same time we may try to forget get for personal survival purposes. Regardless, we learn and we are different after tragedies.
When it come to getting to God we cannot makes claims to having special insight or knowledge just because we read or study the Bible, just because we call ourselves Christians, or just because we go to any particular church – no this will not automate wisdom and insight for anyone.
No, the Persian Magi from the East have a message for us in this. It is not just a message that God has arrived in the life of an infant, but that Good news and the spirit of God moves through Persian seekers of God just as willingly as the spirit moves through the faith we are most familiar with. God is truly found in unexpected places, unexpected events, and most of all in unexpected people. But we will find God if we are willing to let God be truly appear where God and how God wants to appear. Are we ready? Are we open? Are we true seekers or are we hangers on to narrow and comfortable expectations of who God is supposed to be?
This is the time to reconsider- reconsider the manner in which we entrap God to be one kind of God and one kind of God only. Matthew chapter 3 tells those who think they have God’s favor just because they are descendants of Abraham, to think again. Matthew says that means little. Religion is more than heritage and right belief. Religion is right human action no matter Jew, Christian, Muslim, or Magi from the Persian East – the path less ventured down may have outcomes of insight and enlightenment that surpass our expectations, if we are willing to explore where most people would not – if we are willing to contemplate unsuspecting possibilities, or even an unfamiliar God – at first.
