One of my family’s favorite Christmas
carols is the 12 days of Christmas. There is no deep religious meaning to the
song. It is just fun to sing. And every year for the past 9 years we went to
the children’s Christmas program at Gesu Elementary School where our children
attended. The highlight of the show every year was the Kindergarten classes
singing the 12 days of Christmas at the tops of their lungs complete with hand
motions. It was a hoot. We even sang it
in the car ourselves, in their honor.
Perhaps you know that the 12 days of
Christmas count the 12 days from Christmas day to Twelfth Night, January 5th.
That is the night before January 6th,
the day we call Epiphany (Three Kings Day in Puerto Rico and in the Hispanic Community).
This is the day that we celebrate the day the magi or the wise men from the
East made it to visit Jesus in Bethlehem. Now, the truth is it was probably not
just 12 days, it was possibly more like 2 years and 12 days when they got there
to see Jesus. We think he was mostly likely a toddler by the time these
visitors from the East arrived. These 12 days of Christmas are important,
because you see on the Church calendar the Christmas season does not START
until Christmas day. As you recall, we celebrated Advent during December. That
is the time of waiting for Christmas.
But out there in the world, in the
consumer driven culture, the retailers start the build-up of Christmas so
early, usually right about Halloween time (it’s getting closer to Labor Day),
that by the time Christmas day comes, we are done with carols, and trees and
just want the whole things to be over.
How many of your wanted to take down your tree on December 26th?
So when the church calendar invites us
to linger for another 12 days, we feel this kind of tension. We are counter
cultural because we are still going to sing one last Christmas carol today,
about the three kings. And why not celebrate the birth of Jesus with 12 days of
Christmas?
We are celebrating the birth of the one
of whom Isaiah promised: a ‘wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting
father, the prince of peace.’ Gosh! At my house we usually give any old regular
family member a whole birthday week. Should not Jesus get 12 days of
celebration?
So, this is how the story goes of the
wise men. We are honestly not sure who they were: some sort of learned,
religious men. All we have is the short
scripture we read in worship today (Matthew 2:1-12 from The Message translation
for those following along on the net). In
fact they may have been the first religious leaders who visited Jesus. As part
of their religion they studied the stars and so we refer to them as
astrologers. Some think they were from
Persia or Babylonia. The scripture just says they were from the East, where the
sun rises. Somewhere in the tradition they were thought to be kings but we are
really not so sure about that.
We know they came from far away. This
is really important because it means that Jesus did not come just to a group of
people in one little of corner of the world. He was not just a Saviour for the
Jews living in Galilee. The news of his birth spread far and wide. The impact
of this child of God would change the whole world.
Just think about that for a moment.
There was no internet back then. No telephones. No CNN with round the clock
news. There was not even a telegraph or a railroad. They delivered messages by
hand across deserts. One side of the world did not even know the other side
existed. But the birth of a baby, to those temporarily homeless parents, who
were nothing special, in a tiny little town, was made known to these religious
scholars in a far-away land. That something
isn’t it?
The next amazing thing, is that they
set out on a journey to see this baby. It was one thing for some shepherds to
go from their field outside of Bethlehem, into the town to see a baby, on the
prompting of some angels.
But these three, traveled possibly
thousands of miles, presumably on camels, across a desert, simply on the basis
of a prophecy and a star in the sky.
You see, that is the power of Jesus. Just
let that sink in a moment.
Before this little baby even had the
ability to speak in compete sentences, he had men walking across the earth to
see him. That is the strength of the light and hope and the love that Jesus
brings into our world. Before he could
even speak a sentence. Imagine a two
year old, just imagine a two year old, having this effect.
And so they went. They went to worship
him, to honor him, and to give him gifts. They took him gold because that was
and is the most valuable gift they could imagine and it is a gift for a king.
They good frankincense, because it is a gift for a god. And they took myrrh,
sadly, because it is a symbol of death. That gift was a foreshadowing of the
suffering that was to come.
I suppose this is why we give gifts at
Christmas time. We give gifts to one another because the magi gave gifts to
Jesus. Honestly, though, when I think of this story, wise men giving symbols of
kingship, of holiness and of suffering to the Christ-child, and then I look at
much of what we in the United States do with gift giving, I am horrified.
Seriously! Don’t get me started.
Okay, well, let’s have a look.
Americans were expected to spend $469 Billion on Christmas this year. If we had
spent only 63% of that we would have had $175 billion left over. “In his
book The End of Poverty, economist
Jeffrey Sachs estimated that with this amount, we could end extreme poverty in
the world. In other words, if Americans spent only $294 billion during the
holiday season over the next two decades, nearly one
billion people suffering from hunger would have adequate food
sources; the estimated 600
million people who survive on less than $1 would see a dramatic
improvement in their standards of living.” I could spend 40% less on Christmas
to end extreme poverty in the world. How about you?
Now, I don’t want to ruin Christmas for
everyone. I like presents. I like to give presents. I even like to get some
presents now and then. But here is the question, on this Twelfth day of
Christmas, what were the wise men doing when they took gifts to Jesus? They were honoring him.
And what do we want to do to honor Jesus? You see, Christmas is just about over for
this year. Tonight is Twelfth night. But now, we have to decide: “what are we
going to do with the next 353 days of this year?” We have that long until the next
Christmas.
Because you know those Wise Men who visited
Jesus, after they gave him their gifts? They got on their camels, and had to
make that LONG journey back home. And they had to decide, “Well, now what are
we going to do?” They had to wait years to see what would become of that baby
boy. All they had, was HOPE.
HOPE is powerful. But they had a lot of years
to wait on hope. We have some years
where our hope waxes and wanes too, doesn’t it? We have years when we
experience the fullness of God’s abundance and blessing in our lives. And we
have other years when we get more than our share of suffering.
But every year, on January 6th, we
get the star. We get the star shining in the sky leading us to a baby. Epiphany
is the day that Jesus was made known to all the world. He comes to all of us. And we are called to come and kneel down and
bring gifts. We are called to honor Jesus.
Christmas is over. But we have 353 days left
until next year’s Christmas season. This is when the real living begins. We
have 353 days to honor Jesus with our lives -- 353 days to line up our lives
with Jesus and what Jesus imagines for us.
So, what will you do? What one new thing will
you do this year to honor Jesus? How will you recommit yourself to living for
Jesus? I am going to start every day, not only with prayer, but with reading
scripture and writing in my journal. I got a new guide for that called Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary
Radicals. It is a great title, isn’t
it? It has suggested scripture readings
for every day of the year. That will keep
me going for the next 353 days and beyond. I am going to honor Jesus by reading
scripture every day. Because I know that when I read a few short passages of
scripture every day, God speaks to me through them. Not through every one every
day. Sometimes I wonder what the heck
was that one about. But through many of them. And I never know which one on
which day, unless I commit to making this practice part of my daily routine.
We make other commitments, like going to the
gym, or taking a class. We make commitments to spend time with people we care
about. It just makes sense that we would carve out time every day for Jesus. So
this is how I am going to honor Jesus for the next 353 days.
Maybe you want to do something else. Maybe
you want to practice being more forgiving, or more patient. Maybe you want to join our Tai Chi class and
live more slowly and deliberately. We in the West over do and over commit in
everything we do, even the way we move. Maybe
you want to be more generous and honor Jesus by giving a bigger percentage of
your income to The Village for the next 353 days. Maybe you want to honor Jesus
by giving your time in service in some new way to end poverty, be a voice for
the voiceless, stand for women and others who society pushes down.
This is between you and Jesus. But I want to
invite you to choose one concrete thing that you will do to honor Jesus. It
will be your gift. Just like the Magi gave Jesus a gift. I want to invite you
to give a gift.
In worship we had on the tables some papers
that look like a gift. We took two of them.
One for us to keep and one for us to put here on the table with the gifts (and
yes, those were really the same three gifts, brought to us from the Middle East
by Cheri’s sister when Becca was born). If you want you can comment on the website or
You Tube page and Pastor Cheri will pray over your gifts in the coming weeks.
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