Worship

Seek the Glory of the Lord

Our readings today are filled with mystery and wonder. Isaiah writes to a city that is sleeping, having been abandoned and ransacked by foreign nations and her people taken away into exile. In the midst of calamity Isaiah records the next chapter of the Lord’s plan for Jerusalem, revealing that the glory of the Lord will rise over the darkness and beckon the people to Arise! Shine! For the Light of the World has come. It was a mystery to Isaiah’s hearers that this glory of the Lord that shines over Zion would also be the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53. And this Suffering Servant will come to be a light not only for Israel but for the nations, the very nations that were so often in conflict with Israel! The Gentiles, too, would come to the Glory of the Lord shining over Jerusalem. Verse 3 of Isaiah 60 says, “Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.” That was alarming for some of the Israelites, as our Gospel text reveals, but for those who were in contact with that light by the power of the Spirit, as our Second reading reveals, it was also a glorious privilege to come to that light.

In Ephesians 3 we see Paul so filled by the power of the Gospel that even suffering as a prisoner did not deter his joy over the gift of God’s grace. Instead he rejoiced even in the midst of earthly suffering over the wonderful privilege he had, as he says in verse 8: “Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ.” And because of God’s glory revealed in Christ, Paul was preaching how marvelously available the Lord had now become through Christ and by his grace. As he says in verse 12, “In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.”

As we celebrate Epiphany today, may we too seek to approach our very available God with this same freedom and confidence. So that we may marvel and wonder with the same joy as the Magi from the East. The first Gentiles led to the King of the Jews. The Magi, who saw the glory of the Lord and rejoiced a very great joy, literally. May we, too, seek the glory of the Lord confidently so that freely we may fall down to worship him.

The Magi are very much a mystery to us. We do not know how many came from the East, what their jobs were, or where exactly they came from. Some think that because they gave three gifts there were three of them. Others think they were kings, although that idea really didn’t become popular till it appeared in paintings around the 6th century. A former beloved professor of mine actually thinks that they were shamans, masters of reaching alternative states of consciousness in order to interact with the spiritual world. I think it is worth considering that possibility with their understanding of the stars, especially considering their willingness to listen to their dreams and avoid King Herod. 

The very star itself is a mystery to us. How the Magi were made aware of the King of the Jews is a mystery to us. But we know they came by faith. By faith they sought the star and believed it would lead them to the King of the Jews. The Incarnate God! Who right away reveals through the Apostle Matthew that his reign is not just for Jews or Jerusalem, but for the people of all nations. Whatever language they spoke, whatever their lives previously were, they saw the child, they fell before him, and they worshiped him.

Perhaps the biggest mystery for the Magi themselves was when they got to Jerusalem no one could answer their question: “Where is the one born King of the Jews?” Surely the newborn king would be in the nation’s capital, and they would go to join in praising the birth of the King of the Jews with the rest of Jerusalem. But were met with hospitality, glad tidings, or even rejoicing? with “Where is the one born King of the Jews? We have come to worship him! When King Herod heard this, he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.” Disturbed to the very core, there was alarm, whispering, and paranoia. Yeah it makes sense for an Iudaeminean King like Herod to fear a true Israelite, Davidic King, but all of the people of Jerusalem? Why would they be disturbed? That truly is a mystery.

Well might it be the case that as the Roman world was infesting itself into that area of the world and funding Herod’s massive tourist trap of a temple filled with marketplaces and trade and traffic, that the people of Jerusalem were starting to buy into the life that Caesar Augustus, the son of the god julius was selling to them? “Where is the one born King of the Jews?” Forget those old scrolls and stories, any average Yusuf with a bit of charisma can build a pretty self-sufficient life in this new world. “Where is the one born King of the Jews?” Buy something from me, then we can talk. “Where is the one born King of the Jews?” Perhaps the city’s elite feared any upheaval, as Herod’s iron grip on power left no room for rivals. “Where is the one born King of the Jews?” In a Jerusalem grown complacent under foreign luxuries, such a question threatened to disturb the fragile peace of assimilation, syncretism, and profit.

The very people who had the revealed knowledge of God in the Word given to them and were equipped to answer that exact question were more focused on keeping the status quo than having to bear the burden of change in their comfortable-enough lives. They didn’t need the Glory of the Lord when the glory of Rome was enough for them. Notice how all the chief priests and teachers of the law knew exactly where the Messiah would be born, only seven miles from where they were, but not one of them was willing to seek him out. How sad is that? They would have the scriptures remain a mystery forever, have so many rules and regulations and procedures that God becomes so unavailable in the lives of the people that they forget he exists altogether. Or think there is no fulfillment of the scriptures, it only is a moral code.

This is because this fulfillment of the scriptures, if believed so confidently and freely, would disrupt the status quo. God’s Word does disturb the rulers because it shows them what little rule they actually have! Friends, if we were to gain the same confidence and freedom to worship the Lord who is always available to us with the same joy of the Magi, or with the same heart of Paul who counted all as loss for Christ, is there a part of us that is actually terrified of the upheaval that would cause? How it might shatter our priorities of serving money over God, or whatever patterns of life we have made for ourselves to make us just unavailable to worship the Lord or to seek his glory. Or has your joy for the Lord been neutered by the glory of capitalism as we celebrate 250 years of Merica. The truth is there is a part of us that does not want scripture to be fulfilled, it is the nature in us that does not want the glory of the Lord to come. “Come quickly, Lord Jesus, just not while I have a baby on the way, or not now when I’ve finally got the job I worked so hard for, or not when I’ve finally gotten comfortable.”

It is obvious that neither the Magi nor Paul nor Jesus were in the least bit concerned about such things, even in the face of the current rulers and authorities that be. Instead the Magi earnestly, joyfully, and freely sought the face of the King of the Jews. The King of the Jews whose kingdom is above. The King of the Jews who is the glory of the Lord prophesied in Isaiah, having been exalted above Jerusalem. What a wonder and what a mystery friends, that the King of the Jews was exalted in glory over Jerusalem on the place of the skull on a wooden pole. The King of the Jews.

But the theology of the cross is such a wonder because it says that the same time the King suffered the most that anything in creation can suffer, combining the loss of a child an innocent life, and an unjust death, the King was also exalted above everything in creation because he did it voluntarily, willingly, for you. 

Thanks be to God that Christ has become so available to us that he dwells within each heart. Thanks be to God that this King has shown us how to live and act in his kingdom before we even get there, so that we may be confident and free in this foreign place. Thanks be to God that he gives us his Word that we still may find wonder in the mysteries of the unsearchable riches of Christ yet to be revealed. May we so in faith witness them together.

The greatest mystery and wonder that the dogmaticians at the Seminary had to offer was the teaching called the Beatific Vision. Or the Visio Dei. Linguistically, it is called the ultimate eschatological hope. Literally it is that moment when faith finally and fully turns to sight. When we witness in eternity the full glory of the Lord. What will happen when the Glory of the Incarnate God is revealed to us? I do not know now, but then I will fully know even as I am fully known as Paul says. 

God grant that we change our focus this year to seek the glory of the Lord. Confident by the power of his Spirit and our Savior present in Word and sacrament, free by the fulfillment of scripture, and rejoicing a very great joy like the first Gentiles who beheld the King—the magi from the East. Amen.