January 10, 2010
Double Agents - Matthew 2:1-12
Pastor: Luke Maybry
DownloadHumam Khalil Abu-Mulal Al-Balawi was a 36-year-old doctor from Jordan. The Central Intelligence Agency knew full well that he had been sympathetic to Al-Qaida. In fact, he was arrested just more than a year ago by Jordanian officials and was thought to have been persuaded to join the Jordanian and US side — our side — in our collective fight against terrorism. He had a lot of inside information on Al-Qaida, especially on some of their top leadership, that we thought would be very helpful. Yet in a crowded room on a US camp in Afghanistan last week, he proved very much that his real loyalty was still with Al Qaida. He was invited to attend and hopefully contribute to an intelligence briefing. Instead, he detonated a bomb in the middle of that briefing, killing himself and a total of eight CIA employees and one Jordanian intelligence officer. As it turns out, Al-Balawi was a double agent. He had one foot in the American camp, and the other foot in Al-Qaida’s camp. Unfortunately for us, and especially for those he killed, the foot in Al-Qaida’s camp won out.
The story of the wise men, or magi as Matthew puts it, is one of the best known stories in all of Scripture. And yet it’s also one of the least known stories. We know nothing at all, really, about the magi. We assume that there were three of them because the offered three gifts, but there could have been thirty. We don’t know. We don’t know where they came from, or what they did. We do not know whether they were really kings, as they are normally portrayed, or magicians, or astrologers, or what. We have no idea who told them about Jesus being born, or why they would care, or how they associated that big star in sky with his birth. To be sure, Matthew raises far more questions than answers in this story. And, by the way, Matthew is the only Gospel to include this story.
The one thing that is clear, though, is that the magi firmly believed that that little boy born in Bethlehem was worthy of their time and their worship. In fact, the magi even went to King Herod, the supposed King of the Jews, to see if he could help them locate Jesus. They told him everything they knew about Jesus. Herod knew as much as they did. Herod had the same information, no more or no less. Unlike the Magi, Herod did something completely different with that information. Herod did not go worship the new-born King. Instead, Herod set about to kill the new-born King. If you read the rest of Chapter 2, you will read the disgusting story of how he attempted that. He never could find Jesus himself. The magi tricked him. So instead, Herod killed every baby boy in the entire region under two. I’ve heard that called the dark side of Christmas.
Nobody else does anything in this story. It’s those two sides. Both have the same information, and yet the magi use it to worship Jesus, and Herod uses it to kill him. Where are we in this story? That’s the hard question, I think, that Epiphany poses for us. We all see this star. We all go to church. Many of us grew up in Church. Our parents had us here when we were knee high to a grass hopper. We’ve heard about Jesus before we could even pronounce his name, or even our own name. We certainly don’t know all there is to know about Jesus, and we certainly have our questions, but, like Herod and the Magi, we all, in some way or other, have inherited this faith, this story about a man named Jesus. Now that we’ve heard about him, what are we going to do about Jesus? When the world’s story is finally closed, and all of history’s foot notes are finally written, what will your footnote say? Whose side will it say that you were on?
As much it bothers me, we’re all a little bit like Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal Al-Balawi. We’re all double agents. We often respond appropriately to Jesus. We show up to Church and we worship him here. We read our Bibles, and we work at Room in the Inn. We go to Sunday school. We teach Sunday school. We get selected to be an elder or a deacon, and we pour our hearts into it. There may be a few things in Church that we may not like or understand. But we keep coming back in order to remain faithful to God. And not only that, we do our dead-level best to live our faith outside of Church, too. And of course we know that not one of us has it all figured out. But when the last ding dong of time has finally clanged, we’ll have to be given an “A” for effort.
And yet, on the other hand, we’ve got a good bit of Herod in us, too. We get really nervous about the idea that we may not be our own bosses after all. We like our control, if not of many things, then at least of a few things. We get fussy when it gets questioned, even if Jesus questions it. We see the light of the world very clearly, but we intentionally turn away from it. I don’t know what ya’ll think about the prayer of confession, you know when I come down and lead us in that prayer that says we’ve all sinned. It’s sort of a downer, so much so that it’s tempting to take it out. But then I read it, I have to sadly admit that it’s true, and that I need to be forgiven (and forgiving).
Today is a big day in the life of our church. It’s a huge day in the life of our church. Seven of our children are making decisions today to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Seven of our children are accepting this faith that has been given to them as their very own. It’s not just their parents’ faith anymore. It’s their own faith. Now guys, ya’ll don’t know all there is to know about Jesus, and goodness knows I don’t either. But we have covered a lot of material over the last three months in Sunday School, and with your mentors, and not to even mention in Sunday school before that. You know more about Jesus than you think you know. You have a decision to make. You can either be like the magi, and bow down and worship him and serve him with your lives, or you can be like Herod and do your very best to get Jesus off your back. That’s a hard choice, and you have to make it every day of your life.
I am telling you that in the end, Jesus is really the only light this world has. It’s a harsh world out there. You will have some brutally hard decisions to make in it, and following Jesus will not make it any easier. But more than your school work, more than your boyfriends or girlfriends, more than being cool, more than being accepted, more than where you end up in college, more than how much money you end up making, more than anything else in all the world, Jesus Christ and your response to him matter very much. And, ultimately, as we learned with Mr. Balawi, there’s really no such thing as a double agent. So give your lives, all of your lives, to Christ, who as God knows so well, gave his life for you.
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
