“What Will We Give Up for Jesus?”

Matthew 2:1-12

Since today’s sermon deals with giving up things, I’m going to start by asking you to surrender some cherished misconceptions. First of all, in contradiction of all the Christmas plays any of us were ever in, the magi did not arrive the night of Jesus’ birth. Theirs was a separate visit.

How do we know this? Matthew 2:11 tells us that by the time they had arrived Mary, Joseph, and Jesus were living in a house. We don’t know how long they’d lived there – days, weeks, maybe months, but it had to be less than two years because, as Matthew tells us a little later on, Herod ordered all children less than two years of age to be slaughtered. By the time then the family had fled to Egypt.

Two more misconceptions – those reflected by our opening hymn, misconceptions based on centuries of church tradition - are that there were three magi and that they were kings. We don’t know how many there were. We assume three because they brought three gifts.

The reference to kings comes from verses 10 and 11 of the 72^nd Psalm, verses describing various kings bringing gifts to a king of Israel, verses later interpreted in terms of the coming of the Messiah. Kings will bow before Jesus when he comes again as the triumphant Christ, but none of them were bowing to him in the weeks following his birth.

Who were these guys, these men we call magi? They were more than just wise men. They were learned experts in the areas of philosophy, medicine, and science. And although the word magician is derived from magi, they were much more than that. They were definitely not the kind of sorcerers that we identify with demonic forces. They could interpret dreams, maybe even foretell the future, but they didn’t cast spells or worship the Devil. Otherwise they would, like Herod, have been seeking out the Son of God to destroy him.

Why did they come seeking Jesus? They followed a star, a star that foretold the birth of a great king. Even as Israel was longing for the Messiah, much of the known world was waiting for a great and wonderful king. The magi wanted to honor that king. Their star-led journey led them first to Jerusalem – to Herod. They assumed that this king for whom they were seeking would be born into a royal family. They assumed wrongly. Eventually they followed the star to Bethlehem.

Meanwhile their brief visit to Herod had stirred up a storm of political fear and insecurity; fear and insecurity that led Herod to try tricking them into finding the baby Jesus so that he could kill him. And Herod surely would have done just that. That slaughter of the innocents described by Matthew is proof of that. But even in secular circles Herod was known for his ruthlessness and paranoia. No one was safe from him, not even his own children. Augustus said of him, “It is safer to be Herod’s pig than Herod’s son.”

The great irony of today’s text is that the religious scholars of Judea, the ones who pointed the magi toward Bethlehem, were totally indifferent to the birth of Jesus. They knew the Scriptures prophesying his birth, but never took the time to act on that knowledge. The religious elite of Judea couldn’t be bothered with exploring the birth of God’s own Son.

Whatever, the magi found Jesus, and heeding the warning of a God-sent dream went home by another route, leaving Herod to his paranoid rage. While they were with Jesus they honored him not just with their presence, but with gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The early church interpreted each gift as something symbolic of the life of Jesus. Gold was the symbol of royal character. The Messiah was, after all, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Frankincense – incense – was used in worship. It was believed to symbolize Jesus’ priestly function. Myrrh was a bitter spice used in burials. This was, for the early church, a sign of Jesus’ future crucifixion.

Some biblical scholars disagree with those interpretations, understanding the gifts of the magi to simply be gifts fit for a king. Without getting too caught up in debates about what those gifts did or didn’t symbolize, we can safely believe that they were real offerings from real magi, offerings they had carried a long distance for the purpose of honoring a great king – more than likely attained by them at a great, maybe even sacrificial, expense. Their quest to find Jesus was a journey undertaken with a serious purpose and a devout belief that they were following a star to the birthplace of a king.

Those magi gave Jesus three astoundingly costly gifts. More than that, they sacrificed time, energy, and wealth in order to undertake a long and dangerous journey. These were important people, but they surrendered all their well deserved pride as they knelt before a baby whose mother and step-father were essentially peasants. These proud, learned, men of means and social significance humbled themselves before a helpless, somewhat homeless, powerless-in-the-eyes-of-the-world child. They surrendered a lot to Jesus.

According to some interpretations of the text, they offered Jesus more than just expensive gifts and awe-struck humility. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh were basic tools of those in the magi business. Some believe that in giving these gifts to Jesus they surrendered their vocations; they gave up their lifelong positions as scholars and philosophers to enter into a life of contemplation. They surrendered to Jesus everything that had heretofore given their lives meaning.

That brings us to the question asked by our sermon title: what will we give up for Jesus? What gifts are we willing to lay at the feet of our Savior-King? What spiritual, emotional, or even geographical journeys are we willing to undertake in the name of Jesus? What parts of our lives and ourselves are we ready to sacrifice for the King of Kings and Lord of Lords? What risks are we willing to take? What price are we willing to pay? What constitutes the gold, frankincense, and myrrh of our lives?

In a moment we are going to sing words of surrender: “All to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all.” Those words describe gifts that are freely given to the Lord. We’ll be singing about forsaking all worldly pleasures as we give ourselves to Jesus: mind, body, and soul. Nowhere in that hymn will we find a single reference to reluctance or half-heartedness. All is to be surrendered without hesitation or regret.

For Christians living in America there is, at least in the foreseeable future, we do not have to risk life, limb, and in order to follow Jesus. Although Christianity is being more and more ignored and pushed to the sideline by our culture and the church possesses less and less political and social clout, being a Christian is still dangerous. Unlike Christians living in other places around the globe martyrdom is not being required of us.

What does it cost any of us to be part of Grace Presbyterian Church: an hour or two on Sunday, one or two meetings to attend every month, weekly choir and praise team rehearsals, one week of Warn Nights a year, a week spent doing mission away from home, sometimes without all of our accustomed comforts, some Bible study or Sunday school prep time, financial offerings that may amount to ten percent of our incomes but still leave us with ninety percent of our money?

What, besides those things, does God require of us? In our present cultural circumstances God is asking us to spend some prime time studying his Word, seeking his will in prayer, taking care of one another, and sharing the Good News of Jesus. God is asking us to be faithful stewards of our personal and church resources, stewardship that will often require making choices we’d rather not.

God is calling us to journeys of the heart, mind, and spirit that will demand changes in our attitudes, behaviors, choices of recreational activities, and maybe even friends; journeys that might bring geographical relocation, vocational changes, and lowered standards of living; journeys that will require us to reassess our racial and social beliefs and attitudes along with our economic and political assumptions.

We have no star to follow on these journeys. We do have the Holy Spirit working through God’s Word, prayer, Christian relationships, and worship to guide us along the way. Being the sinful human beings that we are we will often misunderstand what we’re hearing as it is channeled through our stubborn hearts, already-made-up-minds, and culturally influenced beliefs. Sometimes we will clearly perceive God’s will yet ignore it if it threatens too much our prejudices and lifestyles.

But at times we will go where God wants us go and do what God wants us to do no matter what the cost. Sometimes we will find a Spirit-empowered will and way to leave everything behind in order to lay our lives at the foot of the cross. Sometimes, just like the magi, we will go where Jesus really is rather than wherever it is we assume he should be. Sometimes we really will surrender all. Amen.