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Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Brothers and sisters, using the Gospel reading, the visit of the three wise men, for the sermon text, please be seated.
And that’s what we observe and celebrate on Epiphany Sunday, is the visit of the three wise men. But epiphany is a fancy word for revealing, and epiphany commemorates the revealing of the Messiah, Jesus, to the Gentiles or the non-Jewish people, showing that God’s gift of a Savior was for all people. In the Gospel reading, the Gentiles are represented by these three wise men, or the Magi, as they’re called, or sometimes the three kings, that traveled from the east guided by a star that revealed the way to where Jesus was.
Now, a couple of things about the Magi, okay? They probably weren’t kings, but men who were well-educated in medicine, science, and probably astronomy. Maybe they wrote the daily horoscope for the paper back then. And there may not have been three of them. We use three because of the three gifts that were given: gold, incense, and myrrh. They probably didn’t visit Jesus when he was in the manger there on the night of his birth. Because in the reading we just heard, it says that they came to a house where Mary and Jesus were, perhaps as much as even two years after Jesus had been born.
Now, none of that means that you have to go home and change your nativity set, okay? It’s not that important. What’s important is the revealing and the receiving of that revealing in this event. First of all, the Magi, the three wise men. Their receiving of this revealing was not easy. They came from the east, likely modern-day Iraq or Iran, maybe even as far as India. Traveling that distance to Judea, to Israel, was hard back then. You couldn’t just say “road trip,” throw a bunch of stuff together, and take off. There weren’t smooth roads, there were no travel agents, no MapQuest or GPS devices. Well, they had the star, I suppose that kind of counts, but travel then was slow, dangerous, and uncomfortable.
I mean, having to ride on an animal with no shock absorption, no temperature control, no emission control, for that matter, just doesn’t seem like a fun thing to do. But it is reasonable to think that they rode camels to get there, and so that part of your nativity scene doesn’t have to change, okay? But even with the difficulty and the danger of travel and not even being exactly sure where they were going, the Magi, the three wise men, went. They received that revelation with joy. Besides the star, it’s reasonable to believe that the Magi had more revealing, more that revealed to them about this person to be born King of the Jews. They learned it from the Hebrew Scriptures, from the Old Testament, as we call it today, from the Bible.
Again, these were educated men. It’s very possible that they had access to and read the literary works of other cultures, especially literary works that talked about and prophesied about a king and when and where he was to be born. It was God’s Word that revealed to them about this king, about the Jewish Messiah.
In contrast, there’s Herod. At that time he was the king of the Jews, and now these guys come along asking, “Where can we find the one who’s been born king of the Jews?” Herod’s like, “What, am I chopped liver? What’s this?” His response, his receiving of this revealing, was that he was troubled. That’s how he received the revealing—troubled. But he’s not surprised, and he shouldn’t be, because he and all of the people of Israel had been looking for this king of the Jews, this Messiah to be born. Herod knew this, and it was revealed to him in the same source that the Magi had—the Scriptures, the Old Testament, God’s Word. Because that’s where Herod and the chief priests and the scribes looked for this revelation about this king, and the prophet Micah spelled it out for them where he would be born.
Herod’s troubled because now the Messiah, the king of the Jews, is here revealed in the flesh. Herod’s not just troubled in his response to the revealing of the true King of the Jews. Eventually, this results in him ordering the murder of many innocent children, all trying to kill that newborn King of the Jews. The three wise men and King Herod, they had the same revealing, just a different receiving. They had different responses to the revealing of Jesus born to save all people from their sins.
And we have the same revealing today: God’s Word, the Scriptures, the Bible. Because it’s the Bible that reveals to us, from cover to cover, about this one to be born King of the Jews and Savior of all people, Jesus. Now, the Bible gets received in many ways today. People will say this about the Bible: it’s not reliable, it’s not relevant, it’s a fairy tale, it doesn’t apply to today, or it doesn’t apply like it did years ago. They’ll say, “I don’t agree with the Bible,” and in fact, “I don’t even like what it says.” The Bible can often trouble people, and no wonder, because some of the things the Bible has to say about people are kind of troubling.
The Bible says this about us—it’s about you and me: we’re filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice, envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. People are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, and ruthless. The Bible also says there are none righteous, no not even one, and all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Troubling stuff, but, true. The troubling things of this world are far too easy to see every day. And the troubling things of this world are too easy to see in our lives as well.
Yeah, in that long list I read, I’m sure I hit you with somewhere in there, and me too. The Bible reveals things about us that we don’t want to know, much less anybody else know. Again, what the Bible reveals can trouble us, but the Bible also reveals good things. It reveals God’s mercy and grace and love, that even though we are sinners of that degree, of all of that list, He still loves us. And when we search the Scriptures, when we look at them, we find the same thing that was revealed to Herod and to the wise men, that the Messiah, the king of the Jews and Savior of all people has been born.
He is the revelation of God’s mercy and grace and love. Jesus revealed all of this to us in the forgiveness of our troubling sins by dying and rising from the dead to give us that forgiveness. In all of those things—Christ’s birth, his life, his death, his resurrection—the Bible reveals to us that good news. That’s what’s in the Bible, in the Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation, is all pointing us to Jesus, born to save all people from their sins.
Now, maybe you’re really troubled by cares in life, and maybe you’re even troubled by your sins. Of all those troubling things that you’ve done that keep you from what God is revealing to you in Christ, the trouble of sins can become a huge burden of guilt and shame, and it keeps you from receiving the revealing that God really wants you to have. Because the Bible reveals differently. Yeah, the Bible reveals the troubling sins that we commit, but it also reveals how much God truly loves you.
To label the Bible as not relevant, or it doesn’t apply today, or even a fairy tale, that is so wrong. We all need relief from the trouble of our sin. I think all people want forgiveness, especially for things that they’ve done that really trouble them. I think everybody wants that. It’s just where do they look for it? Where do they try to—where is that revealed to them, the forgiveness? That’s why the Bible reveals it to us in Christ. You had to say the Bible is irrelevant? No, it’s not. It’s got what everybody really does want and really needs. The Bible is completely reliable in that.
But yeah, I know it can be hard to receive that revealing, because like the wise men, traveling in life according to God’s revealing is according to the Bible. That can be hard; it can be uncomfortable and sometimes even dangerous because we meet opposition along the way. The Bible and people who follow it are often criticized and even attacked. But we still hold to it. We hold to it as God’s inspired, inerrant, and infallible word for us because it reveals what we really need.
The Bible is that revealed word to us. We don’t hold to our human opinions or our own ever-changing minds or emotions. We hold to the Scriptures. All of our ideas, our theology, our outlook, our ideals, our worldview are according to the revealing of Christ in the Scriptures. We even say it in the creed that we believe that Jesus rose from the dead according to the Scriptures. It was revealed that way to Herod, to the wise men, and to us today.
It’s said sometimes, and rightfully so, that God works in mysterious and hidden ways. Okay, fair enough, true enough. But sometimes, God just lays it right out for us, and He’s done that in Jesus. He’s revealed Himself to us in ways we can relate to: flesh and blood, in humanity, in suffering and in death, and in life.
In Jesus, God just lays out his revealing to us of how he relates to us right there—he relates in dying for us and rising again. And God lays it out for us literally in black and white in the Scriptures that when we read it, when we hear it, when we proclaim it, those are His words revealing to us what His relationship to us is in Christ.
I pray that you’re active in seeking God’s revealing to you in the Scriptures. In Sunday school class today, in Bible class, we learned about the Bereans and how they diligently, daily searched the Scriptures. It’s early in the year; it’s still not too late to commit to a new resolution, to be involved in studying the Bible or hearing it on a daily basis. There’s all kinds of Scripture reading plans and little devotions that you can be a part of each day, seeking that revealing, and like the wise men, receiving it with great joy.
What Christ has done for you in His life, death, and resurrection, may you receive that revealing with great joy, maybe even each day. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
