This Epiphany sermon was preached on Matthew 2:1-2 on January 10, 2012, in chapel at Grand View University, Des Moines, Iowa.
There’s a great old James Taylor song about our wise guys from the East coming to visit Jesus. It’s called “Home by Another Way.” I don’t know what his religious leanings are, but I think he’s on to something about the story in our reading today. He sings, “A king who would slaughter the innocents will not cut a deal for you. Then warned in a dream of King Herod’s scheme, they went home by another way.”
The warning isn’t just for the Magi, it’s for us, too. There’s danger in heading back King Herod’s way. He’s the epitome of power and glory, and once you head down that road there’s no escaping him. That’s the dark underbelly of falling prey to the allure of glory and success as a way to measure yourself and especially as a way to get yourself home to God. Once you step onto that path, it’s a never-ending string of demands that, in the end, are going to kill you. If I glory in the response to my preaching, I’ll only ever be as good as my last sermon. Tim Tebow is only as good as his last game, or even his last pass. You’re only as good as your collective GPA. And there’s always the next thing. You’ve gotta hold up the glorious standard. It’s what lay behind King Herod’s fear. The appearance of another king born in Bethlehem meant he had to work harder to maintain his grip on his future. The easiest way to do that is to eliminate your opponent by killing the innocents in Bethlehem and conniving to kill the three wise men. Even if he’d done it, it though, the demand to keep the illusion of control going would have hounded him until his dying day. Striving, working, fighting – they’re no way to get home to God.
But the three magi going home by another way. The way home is not the visible glory of success or adherence to the Law or performance of any good works, for there is no one who is truly successful, obedient to the Law or absolutely good than Christ. You haven’t got it in you. But the other way home is a strange path and most often unchosen path, because it leads to the cross. It’s the path of the one who says, "I am the way, the truth and the life." You see, God calls you home by an unexpected route. It starts with the unlikely event of God appearing as a real baby, flesh and bone. In Jesus succumbing to the Law's accusation already in his baptism. In his hanging out with sinners. On Golgotha where he who no sin became sin for you. And in the utterly unforeseen event on that third day outside Jerusalem. Where your life is upside down and where you find your cross, you will find yourself linked to Christ. Where you die with him, you will rise with him.
That's your new map home. Your way home to God isn’t through prosperity, NFL touchdowns and end zone prayers, or even in achieving an A in my Ethics course. Instead it leads you down the Christ road. And you’re not alone in the walk down to the cross and to your home with God, for God himself walks with you in Christ Jesus and he provides fellow walkers – other believers who hold your hand as you wander down into ultimates like death, salvation, resurrection and the forgiveness of your all sins.
As a reminder today, that Christ is your way, your path, your other way home, I’m going to ask you to leave at the end of the service not by the doors at the back there. Instead, I’d like you to leave by this door up front. Like Christ’s path that leads down into the cross and into the fellowship of the saints, this way out goes down into the kitchen and out into the fellowship hall and, eventually out into the world. Have a great trip home. Bon voyage. Amen.
