Shine, Jesus, shine!
Commentary
Object:
In their book Resident Aliens, Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon tell the story of a United Methodist congregation whose education committee was determined to make Confirmation a meaningful exercise. They held discussions as to the preferred outcomes, and then drew up a master plan by which the high school seniors would be partnered with more mature members of the congregation in order to be mentored into adult Christian responsibilities.
Young Max was teamed with 24-year-old Joe, a single fellow who seemed to have his head on straight, and who worked well with young people. Several weeks into the venture, however, Joe called the pastor in great distress. He wanted someone to put Max in his place and make him behave. Gently the pastor tried to soothe Joe's obviously frayed nerves and calm him to a place where talk could regain its balance.
Slowly the problem emerged. Joe was fine with meeting Max now and again and telling him some stuff about the Christian faith. He had even dropped the remark that Max could come by sometime, if he wanted, and the two of them could hang out together. Well, it seems as if Max thought Joe meant it, for he came by Joe's house unannounced, in what turned out to be a very awkward moment. Joe had been in bed with his girlfriend, and there was no easy way to cover it up. Joe was embarrassed and turned it all on Max, blaming him for intruding on Joe's personal life. Max, in turn, delivered a blistering accusation against Joe for being a phony and said that if it was all right for Joe to have sex with his girlfriend, Max could do the same. Now Joe was caught in a host of moral lies and inconsistencies and the shouting match ended with Joe telling Max to get out, Max stomping off and slamming the door, and Joe calling the pastor in irritation over the whole mess.
What had begun as a venture in modeling Christian behavior to those entering adult religious responsibilities had turned into an object lesson in the moral quagmire of general church life. M. Scott Peck wrote that one of the most unlikely places to create true community in modern North American society is in the church, because we have bought into both isolation and performance mentalities. Joe and Max only proved the truth of this, and they were but a symptom of a much larger problem in that and most of our congregations. We gather on Sundays to say pious things about God and morality, but we live isolated and hidden lives in which we too often don't practice what we preach. When we get caught at our lies and deceptions, as in the case of Max and Joe, we attack each other or we complain that the system is broken.
Epiphany Sunday reminds us that the secret things will be brought to light. Isaiah announces the rising light of God that reveals the best of life dawning upon us. Paul helps us see what happens when God shines this powerful beam into our world in the person of Jesus Christ; all who come into this radiance begin to glow or hide, depending on their lifestyle preference. As Matthew narrates the story of things happening after Jesus was born, some will delight in the light of eternity, while others will seek to snuff it out. Epiphany, the revealing of God into our world, is a moment of crisis.
Isaiah 60:1-6
We have just survived the great crisis of the "Fiscal Cliff." But aren't we always on the edge of crisis? A spate of apocalyptic movies has toured the silver screens of our world recently. A jilted planet fights back in The Happening and nearly destroys the human race in a bid for ecological survival. War of the Worlds has fetid aliens drugging it up on human blood until they catch a nasty virus from our biological systems and die ignobly as their harvesting spacecraft slam into skyscrapers and their crews melt down into sticky ooze. In Star Trek, time-traveling Romulans seek to annihilate the worlds (including earth) that produced their enemies, before those combatants had a chance to be born. An earlier episode in the series had the Enterprise taking The Voyage Home in order to prevent earth's destruction by its ancient alien creators, siblings of ocean's whales, who no longer heard the cry of the humpbacks from their outer space listening posts. More recently, on The Day the Earth Stood Still, interstellar civilizations have determined that humans are destroying earth, one of the few planets rich enough in resources to serve as home to multiple varieties of organic life, and so a ship of destruction is dispatched, only being thwarted in its endeavors when its robotic captain, while assuming human form in order to communicate, begins to understand homo sapiens complexities and calls off the destruction. Even shows aimed at children get in on the act, with the Transformers vividly portraying the battle between human-hating Decepticons and human-loving Autobots, with our planet nearly sacrificed as a prize.
Dozens more could be named, but the point is this: when our world is in great stress (as it seems always to be, with the rise of aggressive international terrorism and enormous financial crises), apocalyptic productions of stage, screen, or sentence proliferate. Doomsday books roll off the presses, television shows like Fringe or Eleventh Hour or The 4400 replicate and disaster movies multiply. Even 2012 loomed on our horizon as the year that the ancient Mayan calendar ended, an event that called for scary exploitation.
Apocalyptic visioning is nothing new. Every civilization, and especially those that were dying, has had end-times doomsayers. Even the Bible shows evidence of that. When the Assyrians stormed through Israel and devastated it in 722 BC, little Judah to the south was engulfed in a cloud of moody and frightening prophecies, including dozens collected in Isaiah's volume. The book of Revelation would serve much the same purpose in the early Christian church as the early days of power and glory gave way to the darkening killing fields of persecution.
But the biblical apocalyptic visions never end in total annihilation. These nasty times are always the gateway to salvation and restoration and renewal. Into this tragedy-engulfed world, however, shines a light. It is a light of grace, a light of hope, a light of salvation, a light of transformation. It is, of course, a divine light whose source is none other than Yahweh, the God of Israel and the Lord of the nations. But this marvelous light of hope and restoration, on the apocalyptic battlefields of our world, is prismed through the faith community of God's peculiar people.
The message is clear. Earth will not end with either a bang or a whimper, as T.S. Eliot presumed, but with the blazing light of divine love, which will restore and renew and resuscitate all things until God's good intentions are finally experienced by all. Whatever apocalyptic doom holds sway in any society is only the prelude to God's next great act of re-creation, which will produce a great dance of recreation among all of humanity.
Ephesians 3:1-12
The symbolic language of the Old Testament gains specificity in its New Testament realizations, of course. First of all, the prophetic "Day of the Lord" was split in two so that the blessings of realized eschatology could begin with the Messiah's first coming as a baby in Bethlehem, while the catastrophic divine cleansing would wait until a later date. Secondly, through Jesus and the church that lived in the power of his Spirit, some of the shades and shadows of humanity's self-destructive trammeling are pushed back, and pockets of glory shine around every congregation that throbs with the radiance of heaven.
The religion of the Bible is predicated on the assumption that all of experiential reality had a beginning and was brought into being by a creator and that this deity desires an on-going relationship with the worlds that exist. More particularly, this God nurtures a special longing to engage the human race as the unique and crowning species within the grand complexity of molecules and moons, fish and fowl, galaxies and granite, emotions and electrons.
However, in its understanding of this on-going arm-wrestling of Creator and creature, biblical religion is deeply rooted in human history. This expression of values and ideas is not merely a moral construct that makes life easier. Nor is it a set of centering exercises that will keep the imminent more fully tuned to the transcendent. Instead, the story put forward in biblical literature is that the creatures of earth have lost their ability to apprehend or understand their Creator, and that the deity must necessarily take not only the first but also many recurring steps in an effort to reconnect with them. So revelation is a concept involving both action and content. The deity must somehow interrupt the normal course of affairs in human existence in a way that will catch our attention. And when we have stopped to notice or ponder or even step back in fright, there must be some information that becomes accessible to us in a way that allows and encourages us to rethink the meaning of all things. This is Paul's understanding of the great "mystery" that is revealed in Jesus.
Matthew 2:1-12
There was a new star shining in the sky. Why? Because the world is dark and expectations are limited. Only a new revelation can help the Magi or ourselves find meaning. Not only that, but the darkness is so thick and bleak that Herod is himself completely taken over by it and willing to perpetuate murder in hopes of keeping the darkness all to himself!
The theme of Jesus' royal identity is consistently emphasized throughout Matthew's gospel, rooted directly in the covenant Yahweh made with David in 2 Samuel 7. There the themes of God's house and David's house came together in powerful symmetry. David wished to build a house for God now that Israel was settled in the Promised Land. While God appreciated the appropriate desire on David's part, through the prophet Nathan God communicated that it would be David's son, a man of peace, who would take up that honor and responsibility. Because David's heart and desires were in the right place, God made a return commitment to him. God would build a royal "house" out of David's descendants, and there would always be one of his sons ruling as king over God's people.
Although the intervening years since the Babylonian exile had not allowed Jewish self-determination until very recently, and even though this new small freedom of the Jews failed to follow the Davidic dynasty in restoring the throne in Jerusalem, Matthew makes it clear that Jesus is indeed the one who will fulfill, now and forever, God's commitment to David. This he communicates powerfully in the opening chapters of the gospel.
First, Matthew makes sure his readers connect Jesus' birth to David's lineage in 1:1-17, including a special division of the years to indicate that God was about to act once again in salvation, and Jesus showed up at precisely the right time.
Second, Jesus' birth is as marvelous and mysterious and miraculous as were the births of Isaac and Samson and Samuel, great patriarchs and deliverers for ancient Israel. Jesus is another in the line of God's special ambassadors to bring about the salvation of the people.
Third, when Jesus is born, nations far beyond these tiny borders recognize that an international ruler of transcendent significance has come to earth. Matthew alone records this story of the Magi not to make us speculate about who they were or how many came, or even what their names might have been. The essential point is clear: while in Jesus' own homeland there remain bloody contests for local rule, within the international community the quest to finally find a king of consequence has been divinely channeled toward baby Jesus. The signs have been posted in the heavens.
The message of Epiphany Sunday is not about the mystery of the Magi but about the divine revelation. God makes it abundantly clear that God is interrupting human affairs to bring a salvation that we cannot devise on our own. Jesus is not merely one among the many good religious leaders that have happened along through time; he is the Creator's last and greatest attempt to bring us home. Christianity is not just one dimension of the multifaceted religious landscape that surrounds us in a pluralistic world; it holds the core doctrines that bring about the salvation of all.
Epiphany is not about the marvel of seeing potential in a tiny baby. It is a reminder that the religion of the Bible is exclusive in its origins and in its message of salvation. This does not make Christianity petty or prideful; it simply means that once you know the larger story of God's redemptive purposes toward our world, it is a privilege to share the good news about Jesus!
Light is the key theme today and the revelation it cast into dark places. Matthew's specially selected story of the coming of the Magi is a reminder that the Creator has not done all of this in some secret corner but in the very religions of our world has left vestiges of human groping through blindness for a divine redemption. Let the light shine! Shine, Jesus, Shine!
Application
The literature of the Bible is rooted in two major divine interruptions into human history -- first, the events of the exodus and Sinai covenant that first created Israel as a missional nation, and then later the unusual and unrepeatable incarnation of deity in the person of Jesus Christ. All of the literature of the Bible is gathered around these two redemptive events and their implications. For this reason the Pentateuch and the Gospels are the critical elements shaping the biblical religion. They are not codes of law or wise ethical teachings from a distinguished school of thought; they are the documents articulating an unusual intrusion of divine will into the human arena for the threefold purpose of actively transforming lives by redemptive transactions, teaching the Creator's original worldview, and establishing a missional community that will live out and disseminate those perspectives.
If the Bible is to have any on-going religious value, its two historical nodes of divine redemptive activity have to be taken seriously. Stripped of the exodus/Sinai covenant or of the redemptive divinity of Jesus, the Bible makes little sense. Suddenly its moral codes are no better than others that have been formed and articulated at various points throughout history, its pilgrimage images are little different from other quests for significance and the sacred, and its personalities become only another bunch of interesting heroes and drifters who give moral lessons through their flawed frolicking.
If there is a God, and if that God wished to reclaim by creatorial right a relationship with those brought into being as an extension of the divine fellowship and heavenly energy, the Bible makes a good deal of sense. It is a collection of covenant documents that trace the divine redemptive mission through two stages: its early history in locating a transformed community at the crossroads of human society in order to be seen and desired, and its later expression through an expanding and transforming presence in every culture that tells the story of God along with the other tales of life. Paul finds himself helping the faith community of the Old Testament transition into this new age of mission. This is his special calling, and it is directly related to the great "mystery" of God's intentions that have been hovering over us from the beginning.
Like the rest of literature, the Bible can be ignored or misread or improperly used. But like the best of literature, when allowed to speak from its own frame of reference and respected as a collection of documents that are inherently seeking to enhance human life rather than deviously attempting to exploit it, the Bible is truly, in a very powerful and exciting way, the word of God.
An Alternative Application
Matthew 2:1-12. While built upon Mark's earlier gospel manuscript, Matthew's expansion includes the birth narratives of chapters 1-2, extensive inserts of Jesus' teaching material (Sermon on the Mount in chapters 5-7, missionary teachings in 10, kingdom parables in 13, teachings about the church community in 18, and the eschatological discourses of chapters 24-25), and a more fully developed conclusion (ch. 28). The first glimpse of Jesus proffered by the gospel clearly connects Jesus with the Jewish community (Matthew 1:1-17). He is identified as a son of David and a son of Abraham. The link with Abraham ties Jesus to the unique covenantal community of Old Testament Israel and all of the religious and missional implications that it carries. The filial relationship with David projects the assertion that Jesus is of royal stock and must be considered a king (see 2 Samuel 7). Both of these themes are more fully developed throughout the gospel as a whole.
Although many might find it strange to begin the story of Jesus in a cemetery, reviewing genealogical tables, Matthew turns the task into a fine homiletic art. Without numerals in the Hebrew language, letters stood in for numbers when communicating quantities. The arithmetical values attributed to the characters found in David's name, when added together, amounted to fourteen. Matthew uses this as a reference point in defining the movement of salvation history. He counts out fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen more from David to the exile, and another fourteen from the exile to Jesus' birth. In so doing, even though he has to elide some generations together, Matthew declares that the very flow of Israel's existence gives evidence that God was about to do another very special act of redemptive significance. In this manner Jesus' coming as messiah was heralded by the insistence of time itself. Furthermore, whatever God was doing on this anticipated occasion required double-dipping into the resources of heaven, for Jesus is the thirteenth name of the third set of fourteen generations, requiring the additional name "the Christ" to function as the completion figure in this category. In other words, history tells us that God is going to act in powerful ways once again and the double nature of Jesus-as-the-Christ shows the uniquely potent dimension of this next great revelation. In symbolic communication, Matthew insists that we know Jesus to be both human ("Jesus") and divine ("The Christ").
As Matthew continues his birth narratives, a further insight he seeks to convey about Jesus is that like Isaac, Samson, and Samuel, this child is a miraculously born deliverer (Matthew 1:18-25). An angelic messenger explains the matter and provides a name for the child. Furthermore, this little one will be recognized as a global ruler from birth (note that the Magi follow an internationally available heavenly sign, in Matthew 2, seeking a king who is of the Jews but serves as a beacon to the nations), and he is destined to replay the life of Israel in a host of dimensions:
* Jesus copies Israel's miraculous existence and purpose (1:18-25).
* He is saved from the murderous intents of a scheming king (2) who goes on to slaughter the innocents, just as Moses was delivered in Exodus 2 while many Israelite boys were slaughtered.
* Like the nation as a whole, Jesus is gathered out of Egypt (2).
* From his earliest days, he is dedicated to a divine mission (so the play on the words "Nazirite" and "Nazarene").
* His ministry is set in motion by passing through waters (3), right at the same spot where Israel crossed the Jordan River in order to begin its witness to the nations from the Promised Land.
* Jesus also wanders in wilderness for "forty" (3) before he can fully assume his adult responsibilities, mirroring Israel's traumatic years described in the book of Numbers.
As Matthew brings these quick comparisons to a close, he relates that Jesus goes up a mountain (Matthew 5:1) and from there restates and reinterprets the law or covenant mediated through Moses. What has come to be known as the "Sermon on the Mount" is deliberately cast by Matthew in a manner identifying Jesus as the new Moses for a new age.
Following Mark's pattern, Matthew's large outline for unfolding the life and teachings of Jesus has three significant parts:
* Jesus teaches the crowds about the kingdom
-- Transitional event - the Transfiguration
* Jesus teaches the disciples about discipleship
-- Transitional event - entry into Jerusalem
* Jesus moves through the passion to his coronation
But superimposed on this basic development is a second and more subtle arrangement of materials. Since Matthew wants us to know that Jesus is the new Moses who delivers the covenant documents for a new age, he presents the narratives and teachings of Jesus in what is sometimes called a "Five Books of the Law" structure:
* Prologue: Jesus identified with Israel and the world (1-3)
* Book #1 - Narrative: Preaching and healing in Galilee (4)
-- Discourse: Sermon on the Mount (5-7)
* Book #2 - Narrative: Mighty works, especially healings (8-9:34)
-- Discourse: Mission of the disciples (9:35-10:42)
* Book #3 - Narrative: Rejection of Jesus (11-12)
-- Discourse: Parables about the kingdom (13)
* Book #4 - Narrative: Founding of the church (14-17)
-- Discourse: Teachings about the church (18)
* Book #5 - Narrative: Travels from Galilee to Jerusalem (19-22)
-- Discourse: Eschatological teachings (23-25)
* Epilogue: Jesus identified as global messiah king (26-28)
Each of these "books" ends with a similar conclusion (7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1), noting that Jesus has finished teaching in a particular place or about a certain topic. The implication is simple and direct -- Jesus has come to carry out the mission of Yahweh, first initiated with Israel, in a new way for a new, messianic age.
The theme of Jesus' royal identity is consistently emphasized throughout Matthew's gospel, with a slightly different nuance than that found in Mark's gospel. For Mark, publishing the preaching of Peter in Rome during the crisis of Nero's persecution, Jesus was declared to be the mighty ruler who alone had the resources to defy and deny dehumanizing oppression in whatever form it challenged. In this way Mark deliberately showed Jesus to be the only real alternative to the brutish power of the Roman Caesar. That is why even a Roman centurion could make a testimony of Jesus' preferred rule over that of the might of Rome.
For Matthew, Jesus' kingship and kingdom are rooted directly in the covenant Yahweh made with David in 2 Samuel 7. There the themes of God's house and David's house came together in powerful symmetry. David wished to build a house for God, now that Israel was settled in the Promised Land. While God appreciated the appropriate desire on David's part, through the prophet Nathan God communicated that it would be David's son, a man of peace, who would take up that honor and responsibility. But because David's heart and desires were in the right place, God made a return commitment to him. God would build a royal "house" out of David's descendents, and there would always be one of his sons ruling as king over God's people.
Although the intervening years since the Babylonian exile had not allowed Jewish self-determination until very recently, and even though this new small freedom of the Jews failed to follow the Davidic dynasty in restoring the throne in Jerusalem, Matthew makes it clear that Jesus is indeed the one who will fulfill, both now and forever, God's commitment to David. This he has communicated powerfully in the opening chapters of the gospel.
Matthew never relents of this central message. Before the crucifixion Jesus is identified openly as king (Matthew 27:1-44), and when he dies, the curtain of the temple that marked Yahweh's hidden quarters is torn away so that the place become ceremonially dysfunctional (Matthew 27:51). Even the earth itself heaves and groans in the seismic religious shift that is taking place between the Old and New forms of the covenant mission of Yahweh (Matthew 27:52).
As Matthew brings his preaching about Jesus to a close, he records the royal declaration and commission by which the risen king addresses his key leaders, the ones who will take the mission of Yahweh to the world (Matthew 28:18-20). "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me," says Jesus. "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
Young Max was teamed with 24-year-old Joe, a single fellow who seemed to have his head on straight, and who worked well with young people. Several weeks into the venture, however, Joe called the pastor in great distress. He wanted someone to put Max in his place and make him behave. Gently the pastor tried to soothe Joe's obviously frayed nerves and calm him to a place where talk could regain its balance.
Slowly the problem emerged. Joe was fine with meeting Max now and again and telling him some stuff about the Christian faith. He had even dropped the remark that Max could come by sometime, if he wanted, and the two of them could hang out together. Well, it seems as if Max thought Joe meant it, for he came by Joe's house unannounced, in what turned out to be a very awkward moment. Joe had been in bed with his girlfriend, and there was no easy way to cover it up. Joe was embarrassed and turned it all on Max, blaming him for intruding on Joe's personal life. Max, in turn, delivered a blistering accusation against Joe for being a phony and said that if it was all right for Joe to have sex with his girlfriend, Max could do the same. Now Joe was caught in a host of moral lies and inconsistencies and the shouting match ended with Joe telling Max to get out, Max stomping off and slamming the door, and Joe calling the pastor in irritation over the whole mess.
What had begun as a venture in modeling Christian behavior to those entering adult religious responsibilities had turned into an object lesson in the moral quagmire of general church life. M. Scott Peck wrote that one of the most unlikely places to create true community in modern North American society is in the church, because we have bought into both isolation and performance mentalities. Joe and Max only proved the truth of this, and they were but a symptom of a much larger problem in that and most of our congregations. We gather on Sundays to say pious things about God and morality, but we live isolated and hidden lives in which we too often don't practice what we preach. When we get caught at our lies and deceptions, as in the case of Max and Joe, we attack each other or we complain that the system is broken.
Epiphany Sunday reminds us that the secret things will be brought to light. Isaiah announces the rising light of God that reveals the best of life dawning upon us. Paul helps us see what happens when God shines this powerful beam into our world in the person of Jesus Christ; all who come into this radiance begin to glow or hide, depending on their lifestyle preference. As Matthew narrates the story of things happening after Jesus was born, some will delight in the light of eternity, while others will seek to snuff it out. Epiphany, the revealing of God into our world, is a moment of crisis.
Isaiah 60:1-6
We have just survived the great crisis of the "Fiscal Cliff." But aren't we always on the edge of crisis? A spate of apocalyptic movies has toured the silver screens of our world recently. A jilted planet fights back in The Happening and nearly destroys the human race in a bid for ecological survival. War of the Worlds has fetid aliens drugging it up on human blood until they catch a nasty virus from our biological systems and die ignobly as their harvesting spacecraft slam into skyscrapers and their crews melt down into sticky ooze. In Star Trek, time-traveling Romulans seek to annihilate the worlds (including earth) that produced their enemies, before those combatants had a chance to be born. An earlier episode in the series had the Enterprise taking The Voyage Home in order to prevent earth's destruction by its ancient alien creators, siblings of ocean's whales, who no longer heard the cry of the humpbacks from their outer space listening posts. More recently, on The Day the Earth Stood Still, interstellar civilizations have determined that humans are destroying earth, one of the few planets rich enough in resources to serve as home to multiple varieties of organic life, and so a ship of destruction is dispatched, only being thwarted in its endeavors when its robotic captain, while assuming human form in order to communicate, begins to understand homo sapiens complexities and calls off the destruction. Even shows aimed at children get in on the act, with the Transformers vividly portraying the battle between human-hating Decepticons and human-loving Autobots, with our planet nearly sacrificed as a prize.
Dozens more could be named, but the point is this: when our world is in great stress (as it seems always to be, with the rise of aggressive international terrorism and enormous financial crises), apocalyptic productions of stage, screen, or sentence proliferate. Doomsday books roll off the presses, television shows like Fringe or Eleventh Hour or The 4400 replicate and disaster movies multiply. Even 2012 loomed on our horizon as the year that the ancient Mayan calendar ended, an event that called for scary exploitation.
Apocalyptic visioning is nothing new. Every civilization, and especially those that were dying, has had end-times doomsayers. Even the Bible shows evidence of that. When the Assyrians stormed through Israel and devastated it in 722 BC, little Judah to the south was engulfed in a cloud of moody and frightening prophecies, including dozens collected in Isaiah's volume. The book of Revelation would serve much the same purpose in the early Christian church as the early days of power and glory gave way to the darkening killing fields of persecution.
But the biblical apocalyptic visions never end in total annihilation. These nasty times are always the gateway to salvation and restoration and renewal. Into this tragedy-engulfed world, however, shines a light. It is a light of grace, a light of hope, a light of salvation, a light of transformation. It is, of course, a divine light whose source is none other than Yahweh, the God of Israel and the Lord of the nations. But this marvelous light of hope and restoration, on the apocalyptic battlefields of our world, is prismed through the faith community of God's peculiar people.
The message is clear. Earth will not end with either a bang or a whimper, as T.S. Eliot presumed, but with the blazing light of divine love, which will restore and renew and resuscitate all things until God's good intentions are finally experienced by all. Whatever apocalyptic doom holds sway in any society is only the prelude to God's next great act of re-creation, which will produce a great dance of recreation among all of humanity.
Ephesians 3:1-12
The symbolic language of the Old Testament gains specificity in its New Testament realizations, of course. First of all, the prophetic "Day of the Lord" was split in two so that the blessings of realized eschatology could begin with the Messiah's first coming as a baby in Bethlehem, while the catastrophic divine cleansing would wait until a later date. Secondly, through Jesus and the church that lived in the power of his Spirit, some of the shades and shadows of humanity's self-destructive trammeling are pushed back, and pockets of glory shine around every congregation that throbs with the radiance of heaven.
The religion of the Bible is predicated on the assumption that all of experiential reality had a beginning and was brought into being by a creator and that this deity desires an on-going relationship with the worlds that exist. More particularly, this God nurtures a special longing to engage the human race as the unique and crowning species within the grand complexity of molecules and moons, fish and fowl, galaxies and granite, emotions and electrons.
However, in its understanding of this on-going arm-wrestling of Creator and creature, biblical religion is deeply rooted in human history. This expression of values and ideas is not merely a moral construct that makes life easier. Nor is it a set of centering exercises that will keep the imminent more fully tuned to the transcendent. Instead, the story put forward in biblical literature is that the creatures of earth have lost their ability to apprehend or understand their Creator, and that the deity must necessarily take not only the first but also many recurring steps in an effort to reconnect with them. So revelation is a concept involving both action and content. The deity must somehow interrupt the normal course of affairs in human existence in a way that will catch our attention. And when we have stopped to notice or ponder or even step back in fright, there must be some information that becomes accessible to us in a way that allows and encourages us to rethink the meaning of all things. This is Paul's understanding of the great "mystery" that is revealed in Jesus.
Matthew 2:1-12
There was a new star shining in the sky. Why? Because the world is dark and expectations are limited. Only a new revelation can help the Magi or ourselves find meaning. Not only that, but the darkness is so thick and bleak that Herod is himself completely taken over by it and willing to perpetuate murder in hopes of keeping the darkness all to himself!
The theme of Jesus' royal identity is consistently emphasized throughout Matthew's gospel, rooted directly in the covenant Yahweh made with David in 2 Samuel 7. There the themes of God's house and David's house came together in powerful symmetry. David wished to build a house for God now that Israel was settled in the Promised Land. While God appreciated the appropriate desire on David's part, through the prophet Nathan God communicated that it would be David's son, a man of peace, who would take up that honor and responsibility. Because David's heart and desires were in the right place, God made a return commitment to him. God would build a royal "house" out of David's descendants, and there would always be one of his sons ruling as king over God's people.
Although the intervening years since the Babylonian exile had not allowed Jewish self-determination until very recently, and even though this new small freedom of the Jews failed to follow the Davidic dynasty in restoring the throne in Jerusalem, Matthew makes it clear that Jesus is indeed the one who will fulfill, now and forever, God's commitment to David. This he communicates powerfully in the opening chapters of the gospel.
First, Matthew makes sure his readers connect Jesus' birth to David's lineage in 1:1-17, including a special division of the years to indicate that God was about to act once again in salvation, and Jesus showed up at precisely the right time.
Second, Jesus' birth is as marvelous and mysterious and miraculous as were the births of Isaac and Samson and Samuel, great patriarchs and deliverers for ancient Israel. Jesus is another in the line of God's special ambassadors to bring about the salvation of the people.
Third, when Jesus is born, nations far beyond these tiny borders recognize that an international ruler of transcendent significance has come to earth. Matthew alone records this story of the Magi not to make us speculate about who they were or how many came, or even what their names might have been. The essential point is clear: while in Jesus' own homeland there remain bloody contests for local rule, within the international community the quest to finally find a king of consequence has been divinely channeled toward baby Jesus. The signs have been posted in the heavens.
The message of Epiphany Sunday is not about the mystery of the Magi but about the divine revelation. God makes it abundantly clear that God is interrupting human affairs to bring a salvation that we cannot devise on our own. Jesus is not merely one among the many good religious leaders that have happened along through time; he is the Creator's last and greatest attempt to bring us home. Christianity is not just one dimension of the multifaceted religious landscape that surrounds us in a pluralistic world; it holds the core doctrines that bring about the salvation of all.
Epiphany is not about the marvel of seeing potential in a tiny baby. It is a reminder that the religion of the Bible is exclusive in its origins and in its message of salvation. This does not make Christianity petty or prideful; it simply means that once you know the larger story of God's redemptive purposes toward our world, it is a privilege to share the good news about Jesus!
Light is the key theme today and the revelation it cast into dark places. Matthew's specially selected story of the coming of the Magi is a reminder that the Creator has not done all of this in some secret corner but in the very religions of our world has left vestiges of human groping through blindness for a divine redemption. Let the light shine! Shine, Jesus, Shine!
Application
The literature of the Bible is rooted in two major divine interruptions into human history -- first, the events of the exodus and Sinai covenant that first created Israel as a missional nation, and then later the unusual and unrepeatable incarnation of deity in the person of Jesus Christ. All of the literature of the Bible is gathered around these two redemptive events and their implications. For this reason the Pentateuch and the Gospels are the critical elements shaping the biblical religion. They are not codes of law or wise ethical teachings from a distinguished school of thought; they are the documents articulating an unusual intrusion of divine will into the human arena for the threefold purpose of actively transforming lives by redemptive transactions, teaching the Creator's original worldview, and establishing a missional community that will live out and disseminate those perspectives.
If the Bible is to have any on-going religious value, its two historical nodes of divine redemptive activity have to be taken seriously. Stripped of the exodus/Sinai covenant or of the redemptive divinity of Jesus, the Bible makes little sense. Suddenly its moral codes are no better than others that have been formed and articulated at various points throughout history, its pilgrimage images are little different from other quests for significance and the sacred, and its personalities become only another bunch of interesting heroes and drifters who give moral lessons through their flawed frolicking.
If there is a God, and if that God wished to reclaim by creatorial right a relationship with those brought into being as an extension of the divine fellowship and heavenly energy, the Bible makes a good deal of sense. It is a collection of covenant documents that trace the divine redemptive mission through two stages: its early history in locating a transformed community at the crossroads of human society in order to be seen and desired, and its later expression through an expanding and transforming presence in every culture that tells the story of God along with the other tales of life. Paul finds himself helping the faith community of the Old Testament transition into this new age of mission. This is his special calling, and it is directly related to the great "mystery" of God's intentions that have been hovering over us from the beginning.
Like the rest of literature, the Bible can be ignored or misread or improperly used. But like the best of literature, when allowed to speak from its own frame of reference and respected as a collection of documents that are inherently seeking to enhance human life rather than deviously attempting to exploit it, the Bible is truly, in a very powerful and exciting way, the word of God.
An Alternative Application
Matthew 2:1-12. While built upon Mark's earlier gospel manuscript, Matthew's expansion includes the birth narratives of chapters 1-2, extensive inserts of Jesus' teaching material (Sermon on the Mount in chapters 5-7, missionary teachings in 10, kingdom parables in 13, teachings about the church community in 18, and the eschatological discourses of chapters 24-25), and a more fully developed conclusion (ch. 28). The first glimpse of Jesus proffered by the gospel clearly connects Jesus with the Jewish community (Matthew 1:1-17). He is identified as a son of David and a son of Abraham. The link with Abraham ties Jesus to the unique covenantal community of Old Testament Israel and all of the religious and missional implications that it carries. The filial relationship with David projects the assertion that Jesus is of royal stock and must be considered a king (see 2 Samuel 7). Both of these themes are more fully developed throughout the gospel as a whole.
Although many might find it strange to begin the story of Jesus in a cemetery, reviewing genealogical tables, Matthew turns the task into a fine homiletic art. Without numerals in the Hebrew language, letters stood in for numbers when communicating quantities. The arithmetical values attributed to the characters found in David's name, when added together, amounted to fourteen. Matthew uses this as a reference point in defining the movement of salvation history. He counts out fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen more from David to the exile, and another fourteen from the exile to Jesus' birth. In so doing, even though he has to elide some generations together, Matthew declares that the very flow of Israel's existence gives evidence that God was about to do another very special act of redemptive significance. In this manner Jesus' coming as messiah was heralded by the insistence of time itself. Furthermore, whatever God was doing on this anticipated occasion required double-dipping into the resources of heaven, for Jesus is the thirteenth name of the third set of fourteen generations, requiring the additional name "the Christ" to function as the completion figure in this category. In other words, history tells us that God is going to act in powerful ways once again and the double nature of Jesus-as-the-Christ shows the uniquely potent dimension of this next great revelation. In symbolic communication, Matthew insists that we know Jesus to be both human ("Jesus") and divine ("The Christ").
As Matthew continues his birth narratives, a further insight he seeks to convey about Jesus is that like Isaac, Samson, and Samuel, this child is a miraculously born deliverer (Matthew 1:18-25). An angelic messenger explains the matter and provides a name for the child. Furthermore, this little one will be recognized as a global ruler from birth (note that the Magi follow an internationally available heavenly sign, in Matthew 2, seeking a king who is of the Jews but serves as a beacon to the nations), and he is destined to replay the life of Israel in a host of dimensions:
* Jesus copies Israel's miraculous existence and purpose (1:18-25).
* He is saved from the murderous intents of a scheming king (2) who goes on to slaughter the innocents, just as Moses was delivered in Exodus 2 while many Israelite boys were slaughtered.
* Like the nation as a whole, Jesus is gathered out of Egypt (2).
* From his earliest days, he is dedicated to a divine mission (so the play on the words "Nazirite" and "Nazarene").
* His ministry is set in motion by passing through waters (3), right at the same spot where Israel crossed the Jordan River in order to begin its witness to the nations from the Promised Land.
* Jesus also wanders in wilderness for "forty" (3) before he can fully assume his adult responsibilities, mirroring Israel's traumatic years described in the book of Numbers.
As Matthew brings these quick comparisons to a close, he relates that Jesus goes up a mountain (Matthew 5:1) and from there restates and reinterprets the law or covenant mediated through Moses. What has come to be known as the "Sermon on the Mount" is deliberately cast by Matthew in a manner identifying Jesus as the new Moses for a new age.
Following Mark's pattern, Matthew's large outline for unfolding the life and teachings of Jesus has three significant parts:
* Jesus teaches the crowds about the kingdom
-- Transitional event - the Transfiguration
* Jesus teaches the disciples about discipleship
-- Transitional event - entry into Jerusalem
* Jesus moves through the passion to his coronation
But superimposed on this basic development is a second and more subtle arrangement of materials. Since Matthew wants us to know that Jesus is the new Moses who delivers the covenant documents for a new age, he presents the narratives and teachings of Jesus in what is sometimes called a "Five Books of the Law" structure:
* Prologue: Jesus identified with Israel and the world (1-3)
* Book #1 - Narrative: Preaching and healing in Galilee (4)
-- Discourse: Sermon on the Mount (5-7)
* Book #2 - Narrative: Mighty works, especially healings (8-9:34)
-- Discourse: Mission of the disciples (9:35-10:42)
* Book #3 - Narrative: Rejection of Jesus (11-12)
-- Discourse: Parables about the kingdom (13)
* Book #4 - Narrative: Founding of the church (14-17)
-- Discourse: Teachings about the church (18)
* Book #5 - Narrative: Travels from Galilee to Jerusalem (19-22)
-- Discourse: Eschatological teachings (23-25)
* Epilogue: Jesus identified as global messiah king (26-28)
Each of these "books" ends with a similar conclusion (7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1), noting that Jesus has finished teaching in a particular place or about a certain topic. The implication is simple and direct -- Jesus has come to carry out the mission of Yahweh, first initiated with Israel, in a new way for a new, messianic age.
The theme of Jesus' royal identity is consistently emphasized throughout Matthew's gospel, with a slightly different nuance than that found in Mark's gospel. For Mark, publishing the preaching of Peter in Rome during the crisis of Nero's persecution, Jesus was declared to be the mighty ruler who alone had the resources to defy and deny dehumanizing oppression in whatever form it challenged. In this way Mark deliberately showed Jesus to be the only real alternative to the brutish power of the Roman Caesar. That is why even a Roman centurion could make a testimony of Jesus' preferred rule over that of the might of Rome.
For Matthew, Jesus' kingship and kingdom are rooted directly in the covenant Yahweh made with David in 2 Samuel 7. There the themes of God's house and David's house came together in powerful symmetry. David wished to build a house for God, now that Israel was settled in the Promised Land. While God appreciated the appropriate desire on David's part, through the prophet Nathan God communicated that it would be David's son, a man of peace, who would take up that honor and responsibility. But because David's heart and desires were in the right place, God made a return commitment to him. God would build a royal "house" out of David's descendents, and there would always be one of his sons ruling as king over God's people.
Although the intervening years since the Babylonian exile had not allowed Jewish self-determination until very recently, and even though this new small freedom of the Jews failed to follow the Davidic dynasty in restoring the throne in Jerusalem, Matthew makes it clear that Jesus is indeed the one who will fulfill, both now and forever, God's commitment to David. This he has communicated powerfully in the opening chapters of the gospel.
Matthew never relents of this central message. Before the crucifixion Jesus is identified openly as king (Matthew 27:1-44), and when he dies, the curtain of the temple that marked Yahweh's hidden quarters is torn away so that the place become ceremonially dysfunctional (Matthew 27:51). Even the earth itself heaves and groans in the seismic religious shift that is taking place between the Old and New forms of the covenant mission of Yahweh (Matthew 27:52).
As Matthew brings his preaching about Jesus to a close, he records the royal declaration and commission by which the risen king addresses his key leaders, the ones who will take the mission of Yahweh to the world (Matthew 28:18-20). "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me," says Jesus. "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
