How do we find Unity in Difference?
This Sermon link: https://youtu.be/X87v88bWbIA
Bible Study at https://www.fathersonand.com/bible-studies/the-wisemen-unity-in-diversity
Readings: Ephesians 3;1-12
Psalm 72:1-8, 11-14, 19
Matthew 2:1-12
In our modern western culture, division seems to just be the way things work. We are divided by our work, by our education, by our homes, by our political affiliation, by our race, our nationality, our wealth and now most recently by our vaccination. Difference is beautiful and can create variety and joyful discovery in life. We all are different in many ways that make us special, that add to the beauty of this world, but our differences do not have to divide us. The problem is not that we are different, the problem is when we make our differences define us, or when we make our difference more important than it is. The problem is ultimately when we allow anything to lead us that is not Jesus Christ.
As our creator, Jesus Christ is the creator of all of our difference. He is the origin of our beautiful variety. God’s beauty and splendour is so broad, rich and deep that each of us can be made in his image and yet can be different. If we were to actually find where all our difference gathers together and if we understood how our difference fits together in one great beautiful image that is Jesus Christ. How could our difference be divisive? It would all lead to the same place.
That is what the wisemen found. Tradition says that there were three wisemen. Balthasar king of Ethiopia, Melchior king of Persia and Casper the king of India. Of course, we can not prove that these are the wisemen, we can’t even prove that there were three. But what we can say is that they travelled a great distance carrying heavy and expensive gifts to honour a king. This tells us that whoever they are, they are wealthy, well protected, important, well educated, with time on their hands.
Why would they come all this way and work so hard to see Jesus? They tell us. They saw His star rise and have come to worship Him. To ancient people, celestial bodies had a way of imaging what was happening on earth and telling us what was happening in heaven. They were symbolic representations of something that often beyond sight. The sun rising daily was the sign of a great God who brought life and no darkness could extinguish. The stars were signs of a heavenly host that worship that great God made in His image. The tidal effects of the moon were a sign of spiritual realities affecting our physical realities. And this star was the herald, was a kind of angel that announced the coming of a great king. Two times in this story we hear about this star rising. If this star moved that much, it must have been a very special star. These men saw how special it was and somehow understood that it was for a king, the Jewish king who was worthy of their worship. I don’t know enough about celestial bodies or ancient interpretation to understand how they knew this, but they did, and they were right. They may have been very different from one another and from us, but their difference all leads to the same place.
Our modern culture often thinks that where we are born, what religion we are born into or raised around will determine our faith and who we follow, but these wisemen prove otherwise. They leave wherever they are, whatever kingdoms and kings are there, and they come to Jesus to worship him. To some degree they may be even better equipped then the Jewish people to understand that this king is God, as most non-Jewish kings say they are descended from the gods, but that just helps to point the way to how much honour and worship this king of the Jews truly deserves.
The interesting thing about this story is that these wisemen and possible kings want to worship Jesus despite it all. They start by going into Herod’s palace. Herod was technically in power, in wealth and position the king of the jews. They would have walked into his palace and abundance and yet the wisemen knew that they weren’t coming to him. They at least hoped Herod would know the way. Thankfully, Herod did what we are all called to do. He, with His scribes searched through Scripture to find the truth. If he cared enough, he could have gone too, or at least sent an envoy, but Herod was only really following himself as Matthew would later show.
It was not in a palace where the wisemen would eventually find this star king, it was probably in a small home with humble parents. A carpenter, Mary and a little baby – though probably not in a manger as we envisage. They would not have had much, yet these wisemen and possible kings could see beyond the humble stature. They knew of a world where God could lift up Kings and more out of nothing and so they still knelt down and worshipped. They still gave great riches to this little boy. Knowing that maybe, just maybe they would have a hand in helping this Jewish star king that would be far greater than them.
This is a truly incredible story for too many reasons. It speaks of the numerous ways in which God points us towards himself. It speaks to God’s desire to gather all people to him. It speaks of Jesus’ great kingship and how even the natural order directs us and praises him. It speaks to how we should seek after him. It speaks to the truly humble and powerful life of Christ. It speaks to how we can give of our difference, give from the individual gifts we have been given to lift up Christ.
These wisemen saw this Jewish Star King, not as a king that would take away their authority, their greatness, their importance, but they rather saw Jesus as a source of greater authority and importance. They couldn’t have sought to lift him up otherwise. Yet King Herod did not. He was frightened by this other Jewish King. He thought this king would take away His power and authority and so he would later seek to kill Jesus. Herod would become like the Pharoah before him that in order to uphold his difference committed genocides. Upholding our difference can just as easily point us towards such hostility, fear, anger and more. These wisemen use their difference to lift up Christ, but Herod uses His difference to swing a sword. I hope you understand the difference. The challenge will be for you to understand how to use your difference to lift up God and how to meet difference with a vision for beauty and wonder.
Our passage from Ephesians goes into this in some incredible ways. I wish I had time to go into all of them. It speaks about how Paul who was zealous for Jewish difference became an instrument for God to unite us in even our national, racial and religious differences. He speaks of how Jesus is good news for everyone. He speaks about how our sharing and speaking this good news about Jesus as Lord can even change spiritual authorities. Just like the wisemen, Paul understands that what he will gain from Christ, the honour, importance, kingship – inheritance as he calls it, is far greater than anything else he would try to uphold otherwise. I would encourage you to read and pray over this. Ultimately, Paul is showing that our difference is all gathered together in Christ. That in Christ our difference becomes our unity. This is why Christianity can be so diverse in practice, in look and understanding, because our infinite, powerful and humble king, is broad, rich and deep in his splendour and our diversity speaks to that. We need to stop looking at our difference as divisive, but rather put it under the Lordship of Christ. As long as we are building up our own lives, our own kingdoms, our own inheritance, our own separation, we will never be united. Under Christ, some of our difference will disappear, some of it will become even more special, some of it will change, but the diverse beauty and splendour that remains will be even more broad and wonderful that what we have now. Each of us will be even more splendid and different than we are now, because it will be speak to the glory of our Jewish Star King. AMEN
