“REACHING FOR STARS IN A HEROD FILLED WORLD”
MATTHEW 2:1-12
2:1 In the time of King Herod, after
Jesus was born in Bethlehem
of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem,
2 asking, "Where is the child who
has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage."
3 When King Herod heard this, he was
frightened, and all Jerusalem with him;
4 and calling together all the chief
priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born.
5 They told him, "In Bethlehem
of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:
6 'And you, Bethlehem, in the land
of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.'"
7 Then Herod secretly called for the
wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared.
8 Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child; and when
you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage."
9 When they had heard the king, they
set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the
child was.
10 When they saw that the star had
stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy.
11 On entering the house, they saw
the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered
him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
12 And having been warned in a dream
not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.
I don’t need to tell
you that there are people in this world who aren’t very nice. All you have
to do is watch the news or read a newspaper. You might even know someone who
isn’t very nice yourself. Maybe it’s someone at work who wouldn’t
think twice about stabbing you in the back. Maybe it’s a neighbor who thinks
she’s better than everyone else. Maybe it’s someone at school who
has a reputation for being a little bit of a bully.
One woman had her hands full
with a neighbor who wasn’t very nice. Now this woman was a devout Christian
which didn’t sit very well with the neighbor who was an avowed atheist. Every
morning the woman had a habit of walking out onto her front porch and hollering, “Praise the Lord.” Her neighbor would holler at her to keep quiet and then would add, “There ain’t no God.” One day the neighbor decided to prove his point.
He knew that the woman was poor and having a hard time making ends meet. So,
he bought some groceries and put them on the woman’s front porch. The next
morning when the woman saw the groceries she raised her hands to the heavens and hollered, “Praise the Lord!”
Immediately, the neighbor jumped out from behind some bushes and snickered, “Hah! There ain’t no God! I bought
those groceries myself.” Upon hearing that the woman raised her hands to
the heavens again and hollered, “Thank you Lord! Not only did you send
me some groceries, but you also got the devil to pay for ‘em.”
Some people aren’t
very nice and some people are down right evil. Josef Mengele the Nazi doctor
who conducted gruesome experiments on Jewish prisoners during World War II was evil.
Omar al-Bashir the Muslim president of the Sudan
who is responsible for the massacre of over 200,000 Christians in Dafur is evil. Fred
Phelps, the pastor of the Westboro Baptist
Church in Topeka, Kansas is also evil. He and his followers are
the ones who have picketed the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq.
According to Phelps God killed them to punish us for being, in his words, a nation of “fag enablers.”
Yes some people are down
right evil. Herod was an evil man. You can see the evil in Herod by looking at
what happened when the wise men didn’t go back and tell him where he could find the Christ child. Herod didn’t get what he wanted. So, did he just shrug
his shoulders and say to himself, “Oh well, you can’t win them all?”
No. He sent his soldiers into Bethlehem
to kill all the boys who were under two years of age.
Yes, some people are down
right evil and there’s a lot of evil in the world today. The next time
you feel yourself getting discouraged or depressed though take another look at what happened when the wise men went to Bethlehem. There are two
things worth noting. First of all, Herod may have been smart, but God was a lot
smarter than him. Herod fooled the wise men but he didn’t fool God.
God warned the wise men not
to go back to Herod and God also warned Mary and Joseph to take the Christ child and flee to Egypt. So, in the end Herod
didn’t get what he wanted. Herod didn’t win. God won. If you look throughout the Scriptures you’ll see that
God’s love always wins in the end. In the Old Testament, Pharaoh was a
powerful man and made life miserable for the children of Israel who were
his slaves but God’s love still lead them out of Egypt
with a mighty hand. Pilate was a powerful man and ordered Jesus to be crucified,
but God’s love rolled that stone away from the tomb and raised him to everlasting life.
Herod was a powerful man and did his best to kill the Christ child, but God’s love also won that battle.
It is that powerful love
from above that led Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to write the inspiring words to the carol “I Heard The Bells On Christmas
Day.” The poem was written at a difficult time in his life. Two years earlier his beloved wife Fanny burned to death in a terrible fire. Now he was also living with the news that his son Charles had been seriously wounded in a Civil War battle. A bullet had severed his spine which meant that he would never walk again. All of that was weighing on Longfellow’s heart when he sat down at his desk on Christmas morning
back in 1865. As he sat there discouraged he heard a church bell peeling in the
distance and that led him to write these now famous words:
And in despair I bowed my
head “There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong,
and mocks the song of peace on earth good will to men.”
Yet pealed the bells more
loud and deep: “God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the
right prevail, with peace on earth, good will to men.”
Don’t let
all that evil that swirled in and around Bethlehem lead you
away from the simple fact that Herod didn’t win! God’s love triumphed
over the evil back then. God’s love is triumphing over the evil that’s
around us today and God’s love will triumph over the evil that’s waiting for us down the road! The second thing to note is what the wise men did and didn’t do.
Let’s not forget now that these were powerful and prestigious men themselves.
After all they brought with them gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Those
aren’t the kind of gifts that you find on a discount table at Wal-mart. Those
were very, and I mean very expensive, gifts.
If the wise men were also
kings they also would have had armies at their disposal. So, they could have made life a little difficult for Herod. They could have at least gone back to Jerusalem
and exposed Herod’s treachery. That might not have given Mary and Joseph time to make it to Egypt though. So, instead of fighting
fire with fire though they did what God told them to do. They returned to their own country by another way.
That’s what we need
today. Now more than ever we need good people.
We need faithful people. We need people, like the wise men, who are willing
to do what God wants them to do. We need people who understand that you don’t
become evil to defeat evil. What you do is draw nearer to God and let God use
your faith and your goodness and your love to overcome the evil.
If you’re
not sure about that let me tell you about a man by the name of Mitsuo Fuchida. I
discovered his amazing story when I visited Pearl Harbor last year. Mitsuo Fuchida was the pilot who uttered the infamous words “Tora! Tora! Tora!” the words that
launched the attack. After the war was over Mitsuo Fuchida returned to civilian
life discouraged and disillusioned. One day as he was getting off of a train
in Tokyo an American handed him a pamphlet written by a man
by the name of Jacob DeShazer. After the attack on Pearl Harbor Jacob DeShazer’s
heart was so full of hatred that he volunteered to be one of the Doolittle Raiders.
The Doolittle Raiders bombed Tokyo a month after Pearl
Harobr in what many felt was a suicidal mission. After his plane ran out of gas
he and the others in his plane were captured. Jacob DeShazer spent 40 months
in a Japanese prison where he was tortured and starved. Sometime in 1944 Jacob
DeShazer was allowed to read a Bible for three weeks. That three weeks gave God
enough time to get into his heart and turn him around. DeShazer forgave his Japanese
captors and after the war he became a missionary and evangelist. In fact he went
back to Japan to work there. He also wrote the pamphlet that Mitsuo Fuchida was handed as he got off that train in Tokyo.
Mitsuo Fuchida
was so moved by the way God had healed the hatred in DeShazer’s heart that he went out and bought himself a Bible. On Easter Sunday in 1951 Mitsuo Fuchida, the man who unleashed all that death and
destruction at Pearl Harbor became a Christian. Not
only that but he went on to become Rev. Mitsuo Fuchida. Not only that but he
and Jacob DeShazer, these two men who had been bitter enemies, worked together many times in the years that followed.
More than ever God needs
people who are faithful. God needs people who are good. God needs people who are willing to do what He tells them to do, people like the wise men and Mitsuo Fuchida,
people like you and me. Back in 1980 Ann Weem wrote a poem that echoes that belief. The poem eloquently paints a picture of what it must have been like when Jesus was
born and then ends with these words:
Where did the
angels’ song go?
Who hushed the alleluias?
Who brought violence and
took away the sweet plucking of heavenly harps?
What Herods still lurk within
our world seeking to kill our children?
Are there still those who
listen for the brush of angel wings
And look for stars above
some godforsaken little stable?
Are there still those who
long to hear an angel’s song and touch a star?
To kneel beside some other
shepherd
In the hope of catching a
glimpse of eternity in a baby’s smile?
Are there still those who
sing, “Peace on earth, goodwill to all?
If there are – then,
O Lord,
Keep ablaze their flickering
candle in the darkness of this world! Amen
(“Peace
On Earth,” from Ann Weem’s book Reaching For Rainbows)
Rev. Dr. Richard A. Hughes
January 6, 2008
