HOME FOR CHRISTMAS
GOING HOME FOR CHRISTMAS
DR. JIM DIXON
MATTHEW 2:1-12
DECEMBER 7, 2008
The Wright Brothers invented and crafted the first successful airplane. The day was December 17, 1903. Wilbur and Orville Wright had crafted this plane simple in its aerodynamics, with a simple engine, and that day, December 17, 1903, they made history because they, with Orville at the controls, took off and left the earth for 11 seconds. They reached a speed just over 30 miles an hour. They went 120 feet, but it was history making. So, Orville and Wilbur immediately telegraphed their sister at home in Dayton, Ohio. They told her what they had done, that they had created a flying machine, that they had established history, and told her also, “We’ll be home for Christmas.” She was so excited she went and told the local newspaper. She told them everything. And you wonder what the headline was going to be. I mean would it be, “History Made,” “Heavier than Air Flying Machine,” what would the headline be? And the headline was, “The Boys will be Home for Christmas.” You see, sometimes that’s more important than anything. Sometimes there’s nothing more important than being home for Christmas. That’s our new series this month as we approach Christmas Day and Christmas Eve: Home for Christmas.
Today we look at the Wise Men who left their homes and traveled a long way to see the Christ child and they went home by another way. Their lives changed. As we look at the Wise Men this morning, I have two teachings. The first teaching concerns human gifts, and my second teaching concerns divine gifts.
So, we begin by looking at human gifts. The Wise Men brought gifts. At first service this morning in the chapel at 7:30, instrumentalists in the Chapel service played a Christmas carol We Three Kings. You know that Christmas carol. We’ve all sung it, I think as children, and we still sing it today. “We three kings of Orient are…” I remember when I was a child, kind of like you, I’m sure, mischievous, we kind of made up our own words to that song. To this day I don’t remember exactly what the words were, but it was something like, “We three Kings of Orient are, tried to smoke a rubber cigar. It was loaded, it exploded…” something like that. You might think, “Well, that’s kind of disrespectful to do that with a Christmas song.” But I will say this: If there is any Christmas song that deserves to be made a little bit fun of, this is the one, We Three Kings, because there is a lot of stuff wrong in that Christmas song.
First of all, the Wise Men were not kings. The Bible does not tell us they were kings. In fact, the Bible clearly tells us something else. They were not kings. The Greek word for king and the Hebrew word for king are not used in the Bible in reference to the Wise Men. The Wise Men are called Magi. Now, magi is a Persian word, and it was borrowed by the Jews and it was borrowed by the Greeks. It came into Greek and it came into Hebrew, but it was a Persian word. You see the word in Acts 13, it is true, and also in Acts 8 because there were some Jews who took the title Magi, but it was a Persian title. And in Persia (or in Media, or in Medo-Persia) in that region of the world, they had Magi and Magi were royal counselors. They were not kings, but they were counselors to kings and they had received great education in history, philosophy, and theology because they had to advise the king. Now, in Persia many Magi were also kind of mystics, and many of them claimed to have abilities in prophecy and some of them were astrologers. We really don’t know much about the Wise Men that are described in Matthew’s Gospel, but we do know they were not kings; they were counselors in the court of a king.
We don’t know that they were three, either. “We three kings,” well we really don’t know that there were three kings. We know there were three gifts. We know that there were three gifts, but the Bible doesn’t tell us the number of Wise Men. And so, these Wise Men by some traditions were 7 in number in the early church. Some traditions said there were 7 of the Wise Men. Some said 12. The truth is we don’t know. Now you might be thinking, “Wait a minute. Weren’t their names Gaspar and Melchior and Balthasar? Weren’t those the names of the Wise Men?” Well, understand, those names didn’t even exist until the 7th century. Surely, they are bogus names. The truth is, we don’t know the number of the Wise Men.
So, they weren’t kings, and they probably weren’t 3, and they weren’t from the Orient either. They weren’t from the Far East. They weren’t from China or anywhere else in the Far East because, as we’ve already seen, Magi is a Persian word—a Medo-Persian word. They were from east of Jerusalem, but still in the Middle East. They were in the region of Iraq, Iran, Tigris, Euphrates, Mesopotamia. That was the region they were from. So, other than that, We Three Kings of Orient Are is a great song.
We do know that these Wise Men brought gifts. We know that. They brought wonderful gifts to the Christ child whom they had come to worship. They brought him gold, for he is royalty. He is the King of Heaven come to Earth. They brought him frankincense because he is the great high priest and frankincense was a gift fit for the priesthood burned on the altars of Israel. And of course, they brought him myrrh. Myrrh was used by morticians. Myrrh was used by undertakers. They used myrrh to prepare and anoint bodies for burial, and how appropriate, I mean how guided by God were these Wise Men, for Jesus was born to die. The gifts were almost prophetic. They certainly indicated he would be the Savior who would die for the sins of the world. Great gifts.
At Christmastime we think of gifts, don’t we? You’re already thinking about, it and even given the financial situation there are people you’re going to buy gifts for. There are people you hope will buy you a gift. And so, you put some thought into this and you shop around and that’s great. Think back. Where did the idea of giving gifts on Christmas come from? Probably from the Wise Men who brought their gifts. Probably from Christ himself, for he is the Gift of Heaven, he is the gift of God.
Some people trace the giving of gifts at Christmastime to St. Nicholas, and that’s appropriate. St. Nicholas really did exist and was an incredible Christian. He was the Bishop of Myra and Lycia. Lycia was in the southern tip of what today is Turkey. St. Nicholas lived in the fourth century. We just don’t know much about him. There were many traditions. One of the traditions was that St. Nicholas was arrested by Diocletian, the Roman Emperor. St. Nicholas was incarcerated because of his testimony to Christ and his faith in Christ. According to tradition, St. Nicholas was later released by Constantine himself. Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor, released him. According to these traditions, St. Nicholas became a representative to the Council of Nicaea in the year 325 A.D. But we don’t know these things for sure.
Now, it’s also traditionally believed that St. Nicholas was a gift giver, that he gave gifts to the incarcerated, because he had been incarcerated, that he gave gifts to newly married couples because he loved to see people fall in love. Also, traditionally he gave gifts to the poor, and he took a vow of poverty and gave all that he had to the church. And he gave gifts to children. These are all traditions relating to St. Nicholas and his giving of gifts. But there’s much we don’t know.
We do know this: We know that in Holland, in the Netherlands, in the Dutch language, St. Nicholas is Sinterklaas. St. Nicholas in Dutch is Sinterklaas, St. Klaas. And it evolved, mutated, into Santa Claus. Santa Claus is associated with the giving of gifts, as is Pere Noel, Father Christmas… all the characters in Europe associated with Christmas gift giving. The heritage of gifts relating to Christmas is rich.
Historians tell us that the commercialization of gift giving is really more recent. Most historians who check out this kind of stuff believe that Macy’s department store was really big in changing the commercial nature of Christmas. It was 1867 when Macy’s Department Store made that groundbreaking decision to keep their department store open on Christmas Eve until midnight so people could buy gifts at the last second. This just changed the shopping world. In 1874 Macy’s started those famous display windows, the Christmas display windows. This just kind of caught on and became pandemic in the shopping world. It was the commercialization of Christmas.
I love the concept of giving gifts. When my kids say, “Hey, let’s not do gifts this Christmas,” or when my brothers say, “Let’s not do gifts this Christmas,” something about me just kind of goes, “Ugggh,” because I love to give. I love to give gifts. It’s just fun, and I love the whole idea of giving.
Now one of my favorite stories concerns Fred Craddock. Fred Craddock was a great missionary. He was a great missionary in India in the first half of the 20th century. He loved Christ, and he ministered to the poor and he shared the gospel. During WWII Fred Craddock made the decision to come home to the United States for Christmas. He wanted to come home for Christmas. And so, Fred Craddock wired his denomination asking for money for the trip home, and they sent him the money for the trip home. And as he came to a coastal city in India, he found many Jews. He found many Jews because this was WWII and Jews were fleeing not only Germany but many different parts of Europe. Many Jews had fled to British-controlled India. And so, there were large Jewish communities in India and some of those Jewish people were destitute.
They had left their homes and they had nothing. Some of them were poor, some of them were starving. Some lived in basements, some lived in attics, wherever they could find a place to live. In India sometimes the big buildings would have the entire basement just filled with Jewish men, women, and children. Fred Craddock, this Christian missionary, arrives in the coastal city, this port city, and he somehow comes into contact with a whole community of Jews living in the basement of a big building. And his heart goes out. He feels the touch of Christ, and he says to them, “Merry Christmas.” A little bit early, it wasn’t Christmas yet, and the Jewish people said, “You know, we don’t celebrate Christmas.” He said, “Yeah, but you should let me get you a gift. Let me give you something. What would you like for a Christmas gift?”
The Jewish people in the basement of the building began to talk and the kids began to talk and they said, “We’d love candy. We’d love Christmas candy.” So, it’s a matter of historical record Fred Craddock used all the money that had been wired to him from the denomination for his trip home to buy candy for everybody in the basement. He bought candy for all the parents, all the kids. It was his Christmas gift to this Jewish group. Then he wired the denomination again saying, “Send more money.” They said, “Well, what did you do with the money we sent you?” And Fred Craddock explained. Rev. Craddock said, “I saw all these Jews huddled in the basement and I bought them all candy with the money as Christmas gifts.”
I hope you love to give, and I hope you give a lot—even in these times. Remember, the Wise Men brought their gifts to Jesus. Remember that they brought their gifts to Jesus. And I hope this Christmas you’ll bring a gift to Jesus.
Here at the church, we have Manna Ministry and it has been one of our great ministries through the years. It was founded by Maxine Jones, a great friend to us and on our staff. Maxine just passed away recently, and she is with Jesus. She was inspired by the Lord to start this ministry and we’ve ministered to hundreds and thousands of poor families and we have our Christmas outreach every year. We’re doing it again this year. Manna’s not going to quit because Maxine’s gone home. The ministry continues. We’ve got lots of volunteers this Christmas—thank you—but we don’t have enough money, so give a gift to Jesus. The church is in scary times. Not just this church, but the church around the world and certainly this church. We’re over half a million dollars down in terms of contributions compared to expenses. We’re over $600,000 down. Scary times. But remember Jesus as we come to Christmas and bring a gift.
We have a second teaching. We’ve talked a little bit about our gifts. Talked a little bit about human gifts. The second and final teaching has to do with God’s gifts—the divine gifts. And when we look at the Wise Men we not only think of human gifts, the gifts they brought—the gold, frankincense and myrrh. We think of the divine gift when we look at the Wise Men.
Now, you’ve heard of the 12 days of Christmas from some song when you were a kid. You sang it as a family, maybe with your kids. We used to sing it in our family just driving around in the car, “On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me…” and you go through all the days. The twelve days of Christmas. What’s that all about? Where’d that come from? What are the 12 days of Christmas? Did you know the 12 days of Christmas, that whole concept, comes from the church? It comes from church history. It comes from church tradition, it comes from Christian theology—both in the Eastern Church and in the Western Church there is the concept of the 12 days of Christmas. The 12 days of Christmas are the days between Christmas day, December 25, and Epiphany, which is January 6. So, the 12 days of Christmas are the days between Christmas Day and Epiphany. The days between December 25 and January 6 are the 12 days of Christmas. Throughout Christian history, churches around the world have done varying things on the 12 days of Christmas.
Epiphany comes from the Greek word “epiphaneia,” which means manifestation. In the Eastern Church when they celebrate Epiphany, they celebrate the nativity January 6, 12 days after Christmas. They still celebrate the nativity because they’re celebrating the manifestation of God’s glory. That same day on Epiphany, January 6, they remember the baptism of Jesus and the manifestation of his glory there. And they also celebrate the miracle at Cana because that manifested the glory of Christ. So manifestation, epiphany, is January 6. But in the Western Church, in the Roman world in the Western Church, epiphany is all about the Wise Men, and epiphany commemorates the visit of the Wise Men and their visit to the Christ child and seeing his glory. Epiphany.
Of course, the Wise Men probably didn’t visit Jesus 12 days after his birth. That’s just a day set aside to remember the visit of the Wise Men. We don’t know how old Christ was when the Wise Men showed up. Herod ascertained from the Wise Men the time that the star had first appeared. He was trying to figure out exactly how old the Christ was. And he calculated that the Christ had to be somewhere between infancy and two years of age, and he wanted to be safe making sure he rid the world of the Christ, so he had this two year range from birth to 2 years of age and he commanded that all male babies in Bethlehem be killed (which would have been about 40 or 50 male babies given the size of Bethlehem). But of course, we really don’t know how old Jesus was when the Wise Men showed up. We don’t know. But we do know that the Wise Men had some kind of an epiphany, some kind of an ah-ha moment, some eye-opening insight. It was indeed an epiphany for them.
I was going to show you this morning a clip from the movie The Nativity, but what with our partially raptured instrumental section, we didn’t have the screens this morning, so couldn’t do that. But it was kind of a fun clip. It showed the Wise Men coming to visit the Christ child, bringing their gifts. And they bring him gold and they say, “This gold is because you are the King of Kings and you are bringing your eternal kingdom to earth.” And then they give him frankincense and they offer the frankincense saying, “You are the priest of priests, and you are establishing your church and will forever intercede for your people.” And then they bring him myrrh and they call him Savior and myrrh because he will die for the sin of the world. You wonder when you watch that clip, did they really have that much insight? Did they have that kind of an epiphany? Did they really have that kind of an ah-ha moment? Surely, they understood much because they had come to worship him. They had come to worship him, so they had some kind of epiphany to be sure. And they understood while they were bringing gifts, the real gift was Christ. He’s the real gift.
Of course, he was no longer in the manger, or at least he was not in the stable, because the biblical narrative tells us that when the Wise Men came they were now in a house in Bethlehem. So it was a little bit later, but he is the real gift at any age. Jesus is the real gift, and he brings the gift of his kingdom, his eternal kingdom, which he has established forever. And what a gift it is.
Do you have a purpose in your life? Do you have a reason for living? Do you have a reason to get up in the morning? Do you have a reason to be excited when you go to bed at night? I mean, is there something that gives your life significance? The kingdom of Heaven is the greatest cause on the Earth. We seek first his kingdom, and Jesus has brought the kingdom to Earth. He has founded his church. He came to build his church. He said, “I will build my church, and the powers of Hell will not prevail against it.” So, he has formed the assembly, the ecclesia, the church, the gathering, the Body of Christ, the Family of God, and it too is a gift. He brought the gift of the forgiveness of sins; to have sins forgiven, to have the guilt washed away, the slate wiped clean. To have a fresh start, and to know that all your sins now and forever are forgiven—Sins in the past, sins in the present, sins in the future. You know that your ticket is punched for Heaven and you have salvation and eternal life.
All these things he offers. The gift is so great it is incomprehensible. The divine gift—the gift of Jesus. We receive that gift and we open that gift only through faith. And that’s why the Bible says God loved the world so much he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. I know that we are a Christian church. I know we are an evangelical church. I know that many of you are Christians and have received Jesus and you’ve come to a moment of faith. But perhaps some of you this day are not. What a great day this would be, December 7, to give your heart to Jesus, to respond to the gift with faith and to come home. Come home.
I read some time ago the story of a dad who lived in Phoenix, Arizona, an elderly dad. One week before Christmas this dad called his son who lives in New York City. He says, “Son, this is a hard phone call to make. And I don’t even know what to say, but your mom and I are getting a divorce.” The son was just stunned. He said, “Dad, you and Mom have been married for 40 years and I know you love each other very much. Don’t do this. Let me come home. I’m going to come home right away, Dad. Don’t do anything till I get there.” They hang up and the son calls his sister in Chicago and says, “You’ re not going to believe this. Dad just called, and he and Mom are getting a divorce. This is just crazy.” She says, “Oh, I’ll call Dad, and I’ll go out there too.” She calls her dad and says, “I just heard you’re getting a divorce, you and Mom. Don’t do this. You guys love each other. Wait for us to get there. Wait for us. We’ll be right there.” And so, the dad gets off the phone after talking with his daughter, turns to his wife, and he says, “Honey, the kids are going to be home for Christmas. And we don’t have to pay.”
Now, if you own a Bible, you know God is called Abba. In the Bible, God is portrayed as “Abba,” Daddy, Father, and he looks at this world and the people he created and he invites people to come home. He invites people to come home, and he wants you to know you don’t have to pay. In fact, you can’t pay. It’s only Jesus. Jesus paid. Jesus paid the penalty for sin. It’s not our sacrifice; it’s his sacrifice. We’re not saved by our goodness; we’re saved by his goodness. We’re not saved by our righteousness; we’re saved by his righteousness. He paid. We open the gift, this divine gift, just through faith. We live in a jaded world; we live in a world where there is so much pain and so much doubt. Everybody this side of Heaven has doubt, but oh, choose faith. Choose faith. Open the gift. Accept Christ.
I just recently read a little deal where a minister and an astronomer were on an airplane and they were seated right next to each other and they struck up a conversation and the astronomer said to the minister, “What do you do?” The minister said, “I’m a Christian pastor. I’m a minister.” The astronomer said, “Oh that stuff. Isn’t that just for kids? ‘Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so.’” And the pastor said, “I see. What do you do?” He said, “I’m an astronomer.” And the pastor said, “Oh, that stuff. That’s just for kids. Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder where you are.”
In the Bible, Jesus tells us that there’s a sense in which we do have to become like little children. In order to enter the kingdom of Heaven we need to become like little children. There’s something very precious to God, something very precious to Christ, about having childlike faith in the midst of this world that feels so enlightened. As you approach Christmas make sure you’ve given your life to Jesus and you’ve responded to him in faith. Christmas is just a few weeks away. Here we are at December 7. If you’ve never become a Christian and you’ve never given your heart to Jesus Christ, this could be your best Christmas ever. Just think if you accepted Christ today, this whole month, the rest of your life, it’s all going to be oh-so different.
The Wise Men traveled a long way from home to visit Jesus. They went home by another way because of the threat of King Herod, but in a sense, they were home already. As soon as they found Jesus, they were home. You understand that. Jesus takes us home. So, come home. Come home. As we close in prayer, I want to give you a chance to come home and accept Jesus. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.