SermonStudio

This is a day for telling, as Paul Harvey says at the end of every radio broadcast, "the rest of the story," that is, the rest of the story surrounding the birth of Jesus Christ. It is the tale of how the heavens themselves entered into the birth event with the appearance of a star - the Star of Jesus, not the Star of David - in the sky, which became a sign for the wise men from the East that a mighty king had been born, in Israel. There is a mystery here that will never be completely understood; how did they comprehend that the bright star in the sky had significance for them and all people? The wise men simply "read" the star, followed it to Jerusalem, sought out the king, who consulted the biblical scholars, and completed their journey to Bethlehem, where they saw the child for themselves, worshiped him, and gave him those precious gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Now, that is the beginning of the rest of the story but it is not all of it.

One thing that this part of the story does is help us to get our bearings, not geographically, but religiously, theologically. Has this Christmas season been a time when we have worshiped the Christ as he should be worshiped, especially by those of us who believe that he is the King of kings and the Lord of lords? Or have we dismissed him, the one who is Lord and King at his birth, with listening to the intriguing story of his birth, the singing of a few lovely carols on Christmas Eve and, perhaps, a cursory visit to his table? Has anything of significance happened to us to enrich, even change, our faith and life? Have we found Jesus Christ to be present in our Christmas worship, giving us fulfillment and hope? Especially at Christmas, we ought to be able to say, with the unknown poet:

I know not the way I am going,
But well do I know my Guide!
With a childlike trust do I give my hand
To the mighty friend by my side;
And the only thing that I say to him,
As he takes it, is "Hold it fast
Suffer me not to lose the way,
And lead me home at last. "26

We, too, are on a journey, a life-long pilgrimage, if you will, led by the Lord and King - not a star - who saves and sustains us as we go. At least, that's how it is supposed to be for us Christians, isn't it? We have no star to guide us, do we? How do we find God in this strange, often confused world of Christmas?

Edmund Steimle tells how he "was asked to sit in on a bull session at a topnotch college. It included a fascinating cross section of viewpoints. Some of the students were frankly agnostic. Some were on the fence. Some were troubled but seeking. Some were openly Christian. They were drawn together on that evening by an unspoken desire to probe God - if there is a God. Without any guidance from anybody, they started talking. First they talked about God, the shadowy creator and sustainer of life. But that led inevitably into speculation and a general fog. So someone asked the question, but what about Christ? That gave concreteness to the discussion but still left their crucial question untouched. So one of them finally blurted out, 'But what I really want to know is, where can I find God here and now?' " Steimle adds, "And that's what you and I would like to know too, isn't it so? That the Holy One, focused in history in the life and death of Christ, is present with us here and now, available for comfort, enlightenment, guidance and strength."27 That's why the gospel writers tell us "the rest of the story," isn't it? It tells us that God continues to care and is active through his word and Spirit in our world, doesn't it?

Still, some people say there is no God, or at least that God is not available when he is needed. It is time to get rid of the idea of God, isn't it? The poet Swinburne popularized what has for many people become the credo of this century. In one bit of verse he took up where Nietzsche left off with his "God is dead" proclamation. He wrote - almost sang - in glee:

Thou art smitten, O God, thou art smitten;
thy death is upon thee, O Lord.
And the love-song of earth as thou diest
resounds through the wind of her wings -
Glory to Man in the highest! for Man is
the master of things.28

We might say that on Good Friday, but we can't say it on Christmas and Epiphany or, particularly, on Easter. And God continues to make himself known in Christ through the Holy Spirit, the word, and the sacraments and sometimes in very personal ways! "The rest of this story" comes to us in our distress, should our faith be weakening or waning.

So what happened to the wise men after they found Jesus, worshiped him and gave him their gifts? Did they have a realization of the part God had played in all of this, that God had been directing the action all along? Did they go home with a deeper sense of the reality of God? All we know is that the angels were busy again, visiting them in a dream, directing them to avoid Jerusalem and Herod, who was threatened by the birth of "the king of the Jews" and wanted to kill him. They took another route home - that is clear - but their lives must have been changed forever. Is it too much to assume that they told their story when they got back to their homeland? Could it be that they were the first missionaries, just as the shepherds were the first evangelists? They could have been duped by Herod into participating in his plot to murder Jesus and, thereby, eliminate him as a threat to his throne, but the angel's visitation prevented that, thwarted Herod temporarily and gave Joseph and Mary time to whisk the Child out of Israel into the sanctity of Egypt.

Once more there is a gap in the story, but God is active once again. He sent the angel to Joseph with that cryptic message to take Jesus and Mary to Egypt, and Joseph obeyed immediately. Just where did Joseph take the Christ when they went "down" into Egypt? Where did they live? How long were they in Egypt? We would like to know the details of that story, but they seem to have been lost forever. All we know is that an angel visited Joseph, told him to take charge and ordered him to take "the Child and his mother" to Egypt and we know that once Herod was dead Joseph had another angelic visit, in another dream, which sent him back to Israel and to Nazareth, where Jesus was reared and lived until the beginning of his ministry.

This, too, we must realize: The fate of Jesus was revealed, if not sealed, shortly after his birth. Once he began to preach, teach and heal - when his public ministry had begun he would be a threat to the religious authorities, but not to the king, and they would take over for Herod, who needlessly slaughtered the baby boys of Bethlehem in his effort to find and destroy the newly-born Jesus. The religious leaders became the persons who sought to destroy Jesus, not because they saw him as a pretender to the throne, but because he was a threat to the religious establishment and their way of life. The issue of Jesus' "kingship" doesn't really surface again until his trial and execution. The cross, with the sign dictated and ordered by Pilate fastened to it, gives a far different answer to the wise men's question, "Where is he who is born king of the Jews?" The cross says, "Here is the king of the Jews and the very King of all kings, of all people, believe and fall down and worship him!"

And if we have truly worshiped, and continue to worship, Jesus Christ as Lord and King, our task as followers of the Lord is many-fold. For one thing, it is for us to protect all the innocent children of the world from hunger, suffering and death, as though we were caring for and protecting Jesus Christ himself. "When did we see you, Lord?" The "rest of the story" gives us the answer to that question, doesn't it? And this is one of those tasks that will never be totally completed. Jesus himself tells us to care for those who cannot care for themselves, doesn't he? (This should be expanded in light of the contemporary emphasis on child abuse, etc. There have been some terrible cases where children have been crippled, even murdered, by beatings, not from kings and rulers, but from their parents and relatives.)

It has been said that we have now improved upon Herod's slaughter of the innocent children of Bethlehem. People who are "pro life" - against legalized abortion - point out that babies are killed before they are born to a much greater degree than after they are born. In 1990, it is claimed that a quarter of a million fetuses were aborted for various reasons. The movie, Cast the First Stone, told the story of a school teacher played by Jill Eikenberry, who was raped by a hitchhiker she had picked up on the highway; she became pregnant. She rejected an abortion - "I'm a Catholic" - and decided to carry the baby to full term and then give it up for adoption. But she changed her mind and decided to keep the child, a boy, and rear him herself. The result was that most people in the community became her enemies; the school board, under public pressure, took action to fire her and finally did. In the end, she was vindicated when the jury "found" for her in her court case against the school board. The "rest of that story" was not told (and might be the subject of another movie). The main issue was discrimination against a woman who had been raped and impregnated against her will, and rejected abortion or adoption of her child, electing to establish a one-parent family. One of the pressing and controversial questions of this era is whether legalized abortion is really legalized "slaughter of the innocents." Just what are the ethical and moral implications of this controversy? We have to work through this dilemma in the light of the Word of God allowing the Holy Spirit to enlighted us in this crucial matter.

At least one unanswered question remains in the "rest of the story:" Did Herod "get away" with the slaughter of the children in Bethlehem? Would the Romans have allowed him to take the law into his own hands, murder innocent boy babies without any sort of hearing or trial, simply because he was insecure in his reign as King of Israel? Remember, the Romans lived by the law. And remember, too, that when the religious authorities wanted to kill Jesus, they had to take him to Pilate for trial and judgment and execution; they couldn't do these things themselves without a reaction from Rome, could they? What of Herod? This much we know, that the church has called for an annual remembrance of this horrible event in the festival of the Holy Innocents three days after Christmas!

The bottom line in all of this has to do with how we reveal ourselves as "followers of the Star" of Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords. What we believe and how we live as Christians and what we do in the name of Jesus will constitute our worship of the one who was King at his birth. As we allow God's word to guide us and the Holy Spirit to empower us to appreciate and protect the gift of life, we will proclaim to the whole world that he is the Lord and King of all people and in "the rest of the story" we give thanks to God that he preserved the life of the child-king Jesus, who has taken control of his kingdom and has begun his reign and rule over the world as God the Father has planned. And he will reign forever and ever! Amen.