Matthew's description of the birth of Christ includes two very different responses. The Wise Ones who see a star and follow it and Herod who reacts in fear with violence. What does this have to tell us about our own responses to the coming of Christ into our lives?
2 Christmas C
Sermon given on January 3, 1998
By the Rev. Valerie Ann Hart
At St. Alban's Episcopal Church, Brentwood CA
Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23
Usually when the Christmas story is
presented, the various traditions are so combined that we may be surprised to
realize that the story in Luke and in Matthew are quite different, or at least
describe different aspects of the story. And Gospels of Mark and John don’t
mention anything about the birth of Jesus. Let’s just quickly review to give a
context to today’s Gospel reading.
In Luke we have the most extensive
description of the birth story. It is in Luke that we hear of Elizabeth and the
birth of John the Baptist. It is in Luke that the angel comes to Mary and tells
her that she will conceive. It is also in Luke where Mary goes to visit
Elizabeth and says that beautiful piece of poetry we call the Magnificat. It is only in Luke that there is reference to
the decree that all should be enrolled and the journey to Bethlehem of Joseph
with Mary who was with child. It is in Luke that we hear of the lack of room in
the inn and the child being laid in a manger. In Luke the birth is announced to
the shepherds, and no one else. Eight days later they have the child
circumcised and then they go up to Jerusalem for the purification rites after
which they return to Galilee, to the city of Nazareth.
In the Gospel according to Matthew we
get a different picture. It begins with the genealogy of Joseph. It then just
says that Mary was betrothed to Joseph and became pregnant (no angels
announcing it to Mary). Joseph plans to divorce her, but an angel appeared to
him in a dream and explained that it was a child of the Holy Spirit, so he
marries her but doesn’t have relations with her. It then says that Jesus was
born in Bethlehem in the days of Herod. There is no mention of traveling from
Nazareth, in fact from Matthew’s description it would sound as if Joseph and
Mary lived in Bethlehem before the birth. The birth is announced not to
shepherds, but to wise men from the east via a star. (Luke doesn’t mention a
star, yet the shepherds are usually shown with a star.) The wise men contact
Herod about the prophesied location of the birth of the savior, and Herod
decides to do away with the child. That’s where we get to the current reading
where Joseph once again gets a message in a dream and goes to Egypt to protect
the child and returns not to Bethlehem but to Nazareth, once again in response
to a dream. It turns out that the only overlap in the two stories is that
Jesus’ parents were Mary and Joseph, that Mary was a virgin, and that Jesus was
born in Bethlehem.
Why should such different stories be
told? Well certainly at the time of the writing of the gospels, 30 to 60 years
after Jesus died, there were many stories passed on about him. Which of many
stories the writers of the Gospels decided to include depended upon the emphasis
that the writer wanted to make. They would also include those stories that were
meaningful to them personally.
So, today we have the story of Joseph,
Mary and Jesus fleeing to Egypt and (although we skipped the description of it)
the killing of all the male children under two years old in Bethlehem. Matthew
presents two very different reactions to the birth of Christ. The wise men, who
see a star, a glimmer of hope, and travel great distances to bring their gifts
to the Christ child, and Herod, who reacts with fear and tries to destroy the
savior of his people. Why would Matthew choose these two stories?
One thing to remember about scripture
is that it is written on multiple levels. On the one level it tells the direct
story of events, on another level it is a parable, a representation of
something deeper. It speaks on the concrete level and on the spiritual level.
Let’s take a look at this stories form a spiritual level.
We see here two responses to the coming
of Christ. The coming of Christ, the birth of Christ, is not something that
only happened 2000 years ago, it is also something that spiritually happens to
us. The Christ, the savior, is born for us today, is potentially born in our
hearts, in our beings. If we are like the wise men, we see a glimmer of light,
a star in the east, a glimmer of hope, a spark of belief, that something
wonderful is taking place. Inside us a spark of light is born, and if we are
like the wise men, we follow that star and we respond with gratitude and gifts.
But, often there is something within us
more like Herod. Something within us that is afraid of the birth of the savior.
Let’s take a deeper look at Herod.
There is no historical evidence of the slaughter of the innocent children of
Bethlehem, but there is agreement that it is the sort of thing that Herod would
have been quite capable of. He was not descendent from the kings of Israel, but
became king because he had helped the Roman’s when they took over the country.
His claim to legitimacy was through his wife who was a descendent of the royal
family. He was constantly afraid of losing his power, probably because he knew
he didn’t legitimately deserve it, so he would brutally eliminate anyone who he
thought would challenge his authority, including several of his children. When
he heard of the birth of the predicted Messiah he was afraid of losing his
power to this newborn “king”. Therefore, he tried to have him eliminated. The
wise men brought gifts, welcoming the birth because of their wisdom; Herod
brought death because of his fear.
So, is there a part of us that is like
Herod, a part of us that thinks it is in charge? A part of us that exerts a
power and authority that is really not legitimate? Is there a part of us that
is in truth a petty administrator but acts like it is a King? Is there a part
of us that has been given some authority on day-to-day matters that has
forgotten the real purpose behind that authority? I would say yes, that part of
ourselves that has come to be called the ego.
Our egos are necessary and important;
they manage our activities and interaction with the world. They make decisions
about what we will do when and how. They are the administrators of our psyches.
They help us to survive. But they are not the king. They are there to serve our
spiritual selves, yet our egos have forgotten that. When the Christ child is
born in our hearts, when God’s love is born in us, the ego gets scared. When we
begin to want to live our lives, not as our ego has learned to do in order to
survive, but as our deeper, spiritual, loving essence wants us to, the ego gets
scared. The Herod in us gets scared, and wants to destroy the potential new
king.
How do our egos respond? In many
different and sometimes subtle ways.
One way to think about it is that
through Christ God is giving us a wonderful gift. The most wonderful of gifts -
full, complete, and unconditional love. God stands there, with arms
outstretched, offering this gift. How do we respond? “Oh, you shouldn’t have.”
“I don’t deserve this.” “I couldn’t accept this from you.” “I am so unworthy.”
“I don’t have anything to give you in return.”
or “What’s the catch?” “What do I have to do in exchange?” “Nobody gives
this kind of gift without a hook.” “This couldn’t be for real.” All God wants
to do is give us Love, but we are afraid to accept it. We are afraid to accept
it because if we truly accepted that we are unconditionally loved by God, our
whole sense of self, our whole way of being in the world, the whole game of our
ego, would have to change. We would have to let go of guilt, of fear, of shame,
of our poor self concepts, of our sense of ourselves as not enough, of not
being lovable. And if we did that, the power of our ego would be eliminated. We
would be free beings. Free and joyous beings. And that is terrifying.
Terrifying to our egos.
And so we ignore the gift, deny the
very existence of the giver. We have doubt, our rational minds struggle against
our personal experience. The Herod in us wants to destroy the gift of love.
The real Herod did not understand that
the kind of king that Jesus was would not interfere with his administrative
duties. Jesus was not a king that would try to overthrow Herod. Jesus’ kingdom
was very different than that. And the birth of God’s love within us does not
want to eliminate the ego, we need our egos, rather it wants to transform it,
have the ego become the instrument of spirit. And if we open to this we
discover that we are more powerful then ever.
If Herod had not been so insecure, if
Herod had faith in his own abilities, if he had not developed a grandiose image
of himself, he would have also been able to welcome the birth of the Christ. If
we can love our egos, acknowledge their place in our lives, they may be more
willing to welcome the birth of our spiritual selves, rather than try to
destroy it.
And if not, we have to take the Christ
child to Egypt, to that country from which the chosen people came after going
there in time of famine. We keep that sense of the spiritual, the divine, that
spark of hope, that star burning within us in a safe place while we work on our
egos. That is what all the spiritual practices are about, quieting our egos,
putting them into place. All the prayers, the fasting, the meditation, the
study, is to lead to the place where our egos as we knew them are dead, so that
the spirit can return from Egypt and take its rightful place as the king of our
lives.
What is there within you that refuses
the gift, that tries to eliminate that birth of the knowledge of just how
deeply we are loved by God. Is it fear, guilt, shame, self-doubt, the need to
know, the need for control, or that all pervasive sense of not being enough.
Nurture the child of light within you, honor the fears of Herod, and accept the
gift of love, the warm wonderful gift of God’s unconditional love, which is
incarnated in the Christ child.
