Let’s pray.

Father in heaven, you are love. In your love you sent your only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In your love, you had your son pay the price for our sins. In your love, we are given new birth, new purpose, and new family. We are called your children because you love us as your own.

We love you because you loved us first. You make us perfect in your love. We celebrate Christmas because it marks the day your love was birthed on earth in the form of a human and we celebrate that momentous occasion today.

I ask that your love will manifest itself in us and through us by the power of your holy spirit. Illuminate minds and hearts, and bring us toward your love. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.

Matthew 2:1-16.

¹ Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, ² saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” ³ When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; ⁴ and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. ⁵ They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet:

⁶ “‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
    are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
    who will shepherd my people Israel.’”

⁷ Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. ⁸ And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.” ⁹ After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. ¹⁰ When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. ¹¹ And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. ¹² And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.

¹³ Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” ¹⁴ And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt ¹⁵ and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

¹⁶ Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men.

(Matthew 2:1-16 ESV)

We’ve been looking at eyewitness accounts of the first Christmas, and learning from the stories of the people who were there in the hopes that their experiences can teach us something about ourselves and about the purpose of Christmas – Jesus. Regardless of what or how you feel about Christmas, I want to give you a lens to reframe your emotional responses about Christmas, God, and Jesus based on three characters in this story: Herod, the chief priests and scribes, and the wise men.

From these three characters, we see three responses to the birth of Jesus — apathy, anger, or adoration. There’s also a fourth response – anxiety, and I’ll address that because I know some of you are thinking that more than apathy, anger, or adoration, around Christmas time, you feel anxious.

So, we’ll start with Herod.

Anger

Let’s look at the Bible again, this time looking at the portions of this story that are Herod’s.

^1b … wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, ² saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” ³ When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; ⁴ and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born…. 

When the wise men from the east came to town looking for the king of the Jews, Herod, the actual king of the Jews, started off troubled or anxious when he heard about it. In his anxiety, he assembled the chief Jewish priests and scribes (basically the experts) and asked them to alleviate his anxiety. What’s clear is that they don’t alleviate any of his anxiety, because he has a secret meeting with the wise men and tries to coax them into giving him what he wants so his anxiety can be alleviated.

⁷ Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. ⁸ And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.” ⁹ After listening to the king, they went on their way….

Any of us try to alleviate anxiety by manipulating a situation? I’m sorry, we don’t like that word, we call it exercising our emotional intelligence – trying to get what you want because the anxiety you have about certain things and people, especially around the holidays, requires some cunning. Yes, this is a safe space, you can be honest, just don’t look at your spouse because that’s the fastest way to get a lump of coal with your name on it. When all that manipulation failed, Herod’s anxiety turned into anger.

¹⁶ Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. (Matthew 2:1b-3, 7-9a, 12, 16 ESV)

So he has all the male children born in Bethlehem two years old or younger killed. That’s genocide! He killed the very people who pay taxes to him because of his anger. Talk about anger!

Most likely, your anger around Christmas time is not at the level of Herod. Yeah, your anxiety goes up which causes outbursts here and there, but overall, your anger is more subdued. You can even call it a  gentle simmer. It is quiet enough not to create a big scene and splatter everywhere, but it definitely burns when touched and provoked.

We can deny our anger toward Christmas, Jesus, God, I mean you can’t quite put your finger on the cause. But here’s why Christmas time causes anxiety and anger. It’s the:

• reality of another year ending with goals not achieved
• memories of people lost
• meals you have to prep, serve, and clean up
• family members you have accommodate
• bills that are piling up
• unfulfillment at work

If it’s not those things, then it’s the pressure to choose the best present, go out to parties, and to spend money you don’t have, all without catching COVID.

So when things don’t go the way you plan, and they very rarely ever go the way you plan, your anxiety makes you straight up angry. Don’t turn away from me, I know I just made you angry because now you have to make a stop at 7-11 and buy a Christmas gift for that uncle you completely forgot about.

If those aspects of Christmas make you anxious and angry, then guess what: your uncle, the one you didn’t buy a present for because you don’t really like him anyways, well, his feelings aren’t going to be hurt because you’re actually saving him a trip to the dumpster.

Christmas isn’t about you, your kid, your family or friends or whoever else you feel socially obliged to invite and gossip with. It’s Jesus’ birthday. It marks the day God entered into the fray of humanity.

Maybe it’s not anxiety and anger, you have Christmas. You know Christmas isn’t about you, so you have:

Apathy

Toward Christmas. You may be apathetic to Jesus and to God. You’re only here because this is something you do to spend time with your family or friends. If it wasn’t for them, you wouldn’t care. It’s just another day in a long list of days. It doesn’t add another day or hour to your life. Why does it matter if you celebrate Christmas? It’s not your birthday. It’s something that happened 2,000 years ago in the middle east. I got Netflix to watch, projects to work on, people to see, and things to do, why should we be anything but apathetic?

It’s not like you couldn’t buy whatever you wrapped for yourself for Christmas on another day of the year. You’d even save on the wrapping paper if you bought your gift any other time of the year.

That was the chief priests and scribes in the first century. Let’s check out the chief priests and scribes story.

⁴ and [Herod] assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. 

The big question to ask here: When the wisemen were clamoring about asking for information on the king of the jews, why did the client king have to assemble the people who should have cared about the Christ? It shouldn’t have been Herod, the guy appointed by the Roman senate to be client king of the Jews, to gather them.

The chief priests and scribes apathetically continued to live their own busy lives away. I want you to see how legendary their apathy truly is. Read this with me:

⁵ [The chief priests and scribes] told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet:

⁶ “‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
    are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
    who will shepherd my people Israel.’”

(Matthew 2:1b-6 ESV)

People with no vested interest in a Messiah were more interested in finding the Messiah than the Messiah’s own people. They spit out the information on where to find the Messiah but didn’t even bother to go with them.

The chief priests and scribes, they were the religious people. They were the very people where the arrival of the Messiah should have mattered most! Yet, they were apathetic. Here’s why this blows my mind: the chief priests and scribes occupied the seat of second class citizen in their own country. They were colonized, their rights, their traditions, their lives mattered little to Rome. They should have been eager! But obviously, second class or not, life as they knew it, didn’t bother them much. So they were apathetic to the arrival of their savior. His arrival doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of their lives.

If you’re here and you’re not a Christ follower or Christian, this is not for you. In fact, I commend you for coming today and taking interest in Jesus. God is going to bless you for your interest.

But if you’re here and call yourself a Christian or Christ follower and just don’t care one way or another about the king being born. Ask yourself why you don’t care? Does the love of God not feel real to you? Have you not experienced his touch in your life? Or are you too preoccupied with something else, with somebody else that you don’t have enough emotional energy for Jesus?

If we care at all about what we say we believe about who God is. About his love for us. About how his son, Jesus, was born to bear the punishment of our sins. Then we wouldn’t be apathetic at Christmas. We would talk about what we love, who we love. We’d celebrate God’s love for us.

In fact, we can learn something from the wise men about celebrating what and who we love.

Adoration

Adoration is embodiment of love. Adoration is the willingness to go through great lengths to show love. Let’s look at what the wise men teaches us about enacting love at Christmas.

¹ Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, ² saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

^9b …And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. ¹⁰ When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. ¹¹ And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. 

(Matthew 2:1-2,9b-11 ESV)

These people, I said it earlier, had no vested interest. They weren’t even Jews. They were basically astrologers. The adoration or love the wise men had for the Messiah, was so great that they were willing to travel. I’m not talking about travelling across town from one side of Woodward to the other. I’m talking about travelling two or three years from one country to another. We know that’s the approximate time of their travels because when Herod ascertains the time the star appeared before the wisemen, he has all boys in the region under three years old killed.

I know some of you Wolverine fans, you’ll be travelling to Miami in the next few days to show your adoration for your team on News Year Day—it’s been a quarter century in the making. Hopefully, it’ll be worth your offerings.

Then in verse 10, when they finally get to their destination, the wise men “rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.” These guys spent their own money to follow a star for multiple years and now they are doing the happy dance outside of a random house in a tiny rural village. That is love – going through great lengths, travelling two or three years just to see somebody.

Then when they get inside the house, they fall down to worship a baby. The humility it takes for grown adults to get on hands and knees to worship a baby. Then to give the child gifts for a king: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. This is not like giving a child the latest version of tickle me Elmo or the PS5. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh, they were all hard to get, and if somebody did go through the lengths to have it mined, harvested, and gathered together for a gift, that’s what showing love really looks like. That’s worship!

Big Idea: Wise men worship Jesus

I want to ask all of you, when you woke up this morning, how much time did you spend worshipping our king? That is, showing God love? I don’t mean reading a few verses on your phone or asking for things in a quick alley oop prayer. But said, “thank you, God, you’re amazing. You are incredible, you are beautiful” and then sat in awe of who he is?

That’s what Christmas is all about—worshipping the born king, Jesus, who was born to die so that we could live free from the penalty of sin. We adore Jesus in worship because our savior arrived as a baby and lived as we lived, so he could die on the cross for our sins and be resurrected so that our eternity can be secured with God. The Christ takes us from being from being angry, apathetic, and filled with anxiety about our eternity and makes us heirs to God. We adore Christ as a result.

It’s what every day of our lives should be – an act of worship because our eternity is secured and nothing and nobody can take that away from us.

If we all collectively, like these wise men would worship Jesus every day, there is nothing our bosses could say, our children could do, or spouses could resent that would make you anxious, angry, or feel apathetic any day of the year… ever!

Try it! You’ll experience the joy of Christmas just like the wisemen who journeyed far and wide to worship the born king.

Candle lighting

I want us to invite the band back up and ushers if you can get ready.

So that we can collectively experience the adoration of Christmas, I want all of us to stand up with your candles. Ushers are coming around to light them up.

We’re going to worship Jesus, the lover of our souls. Our God, our Savior, our King. In the gospel of John, the evangelist tells us about Jesus:

⁹ The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. ¹⁰ He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. ¹¹ He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. ¹² But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, ¹³ who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:9-13 ESV)

We believe we are children of God because Jesus. He was born of a virgin, subjected to the law, tempted by sin, and yet died sinless, sacrificed for the sinful. He was resurrected on the third day. The penalty of our sins past paid by Jesus; the power of sin in our lives now, rendered powerless by Jesus. The presence of sin in our lives in the future, removed by Jesus. That’s the good news of Christmas.

In John 8, Jesus says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

The flame that burns on your candle, that represents Christ’s light to the dark world. We receive this light and allow it to fill our lives.

Let’s sing this song together as a token of our love for him.

Have a merry Christmas!