Texts: Isaiah 60:1-6; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12
Kiwis are great travellers – we like to be going somewhere – we rarely spend a whole day at home. And, of course, at this time of the year in particular huge numbers of us are journeying all over the place. So that's one appropriate theme for this first Sunday of the New Year, the theme of journeys. But New Year is also a time for looking forward, looking ahead, hopefully or otherwise according to our mood. If the financial pundits are right, it's going to be a tough year, but if financial pundits knew what they were doing we wouldn't be in the mess we seem to be, so perhaps they're wrong. Let's hope so anyway.
Journeying and hoping for a better future go well together, and they go well with the Christmas Season. For at the heart of Christmas we find two things. We find a people on the move; there are at least three journeys in our Christmas story. And we find God working his purposes out to bring about the future he has had in mind from the beginning.
So what sort of journeys are Kiwis engaged in at this time of the year, and how do they relate to the journeys in the Christmas story? First of all, not all our journeys are entirely of our own free will, to quote our marriage liturgy. Sometimes they are made out of family or social obligations, and those are becoming ever more complex with re-constituted families adding to the rich tapestry of life. How do we make sure that we are treating the grandparents fairly? Is it our turn to visit, or theirs? Do we have to visit the in-laws this year or can we skip them for a change? Whose turn is it to have the children? Every year we tell ourselves how much we are looking forward to spending Christmas with the family, but that doesn't mean that every member of the family is as much fun as all the others, does it? Some of our journeys are simply required of us.
Others really are a source of excitement and pleasure for us. We might be going to a favourite place for a holiday, or investigating somewhere we've heard about but never visited before. We might have decided to start the New Year with a new adventure; white-water rafting, or exploring caves deep underground, or bungee-jumping. We're on a journey of this kind because we really want to be.
Or perhaps we are taking the opportunity to pursue a particular interest, more of an intellectual journey. If we're into genealogy, we may be going to a place where we expect to glean more information about a particular branch of the family. Or if nature study is our thing, we may be going bird-watching, or walking in the beech forests, or collecting butterflies or wild-flowers. We may be journeying to watch a sports event or the New Year's fireworks celebrations. Journeys serve all sorts of purposes in our lives.
The first journey in the Christmas story is that undertaken by Joseph and the heavily pregnant Mary. It is rather like our first type of journey, a journey of obligation rather than choice. However inconvenient, it had to be made; it was not an enjoyable experience. It had all the difficulties of arriving at this time of the year without a prior booking – never a good idea. Joseph may have come from Bethlehem, but it seems that he had run out of relatives to impose upon; and there was no room for them at the traveller's inn.
The second journey was undertaken by the shepherds, in great joy and high excitement, with a healthy dose of fear thrown into the mix. They were on their way to see for themselves what they had heard about. Most likely they were young men, constantly at risk of behaving badly, and egging each other on. The account of their journey is full of excitement and noise, including a great company of the heavenly host singing in full voice. And when they had seen for themselves, they went around telling everybody what they had seen – an early version of the tiresome tourist who thinks his holiday pictures are of great interest to everyone else!
We commemorate the third journey today, that of the mysterious Magi from the East. Theirs is entirely different in nature and tone. Theirs is an intellectual journey; look how much thought they have given to the gifts they would present. Theirs is certainly quieter: a silent star rather than a choir accompanies them on their journey. Their conversation on the way was probably scholarly – speculating on what they might discover as they continued their pursuit.
The Christmas story features three journeys, undertaken by different people, and all seemingly serving different purposes. And yet they had two things in common. First, they were all centred on the Christ Child; and, secondly, they all served God's purposes. Mary and Joseph had to go to Bethlehem, because long ago God had ordained that little town to be the birthplace of the Messiah. And the shepherds had to go to Bethlehem and see for themselves all that they had been told because God had decided to reveal the Christ child to the least and the lowly, and the shepherds fitted that bill perfectly. And thirdly, the Magi had to find the Christ child because his birth was good news for the Gentiles as well as the Jews, and God had chosen them to represent that part of the truth of Christmas.
Real Christmas journeys take us into the presence of Christ; and the whole point of the Christmas story is that he is to be found by all sorts of people in all sorts of ways and in all sorts of places. Some of us may be more like the shepherds: we may have had some sort of overwhelming experience that has set us on the journey. God may have come to us through our emotions, our feelings, through high excitement, joy or even fear. Others of us may be more like the Magi, coming to God through intellectual curiosity, thinking things through, trying to make sense of this "Christian thing". And others will acknowledge that they started on the journey because it was expected of them; they were brought up in the faith by their parents, and simply did what they were told. In that case their journey is more like that of Mary and Joseph.
What we are talking about here is journeys of faith; and what is important with such journeys is not how or why we started, but where we are going, or to whom are we going? The start of a New Year is a good time to reflect on that question. Over the past year, have we moved closer to Christ or not? As we start the New Year, how dedicated are we to the journey we are on?
We started our Advent journey way back on the 30th of November, with the great cry from Isaiah, "O that you would rend the heavens and come down." At Christmas we celebrated God's astonishing answer to that plea: he did indeed rend the heavens and came down. So now let us start our journey into this New Year with this cry from the same prophet: "Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you: see, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you."
May 2009 see the fulfilment of that prophecy in our land, in our church, and in all the nations of the world. Amen.
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