Light Through Cracks in the Wall

 Matthew 2:1-23

January 6, 2019 Milwaukee Mennonite Church

January 12, 13 King of Glory Lutheran Church
© 2019

We have come through the Advent and Christmas seasons with their emphasis on the prophecies of peace, righteousness, justice, and prosperity to be brought by the Christ child, whose birth is accompanied by praising angels and adoring shepherds in Luke’s Gospel. We delight in the inspiring, if sometimes sentimental, music of the season. And then we come to Epiphany and get clobbered by the clashing accounts of the Magi and Herod in Matthew. Sure, we’d rather have the Magi arrive at the manger, simultaneously with the shepherds or maybe after their departure, and skip Herod’s bloody slaughter of innocent babies in Bethlehem.

Yet, that unsettling disconnect simmers in our minds and hearts even as we celebrated hope and peace, joy and love. As much as we push it into the shadows, the real events of our world and even our personal lives ask where is the promised hope and peace, joy and love? That is hardly a new anguish.

I well remember Simon and Garfunkel’s 7 O’Clock News/Silent Night, in which real news events from August 3, 1966 were played over them singing Silent Night. The jarring discontinuity was just too easy. Not much creativity needed as the Vietnam War raged on.

You may know the song I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day with its lyrics from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem. It was written on Christmas Day 1863 in the midst of the Civil War and published in February 1865, three months before the war ended. The specifically Civil War verses are not usually included in the musical versions. Longfellow clearly saw the Confederacy as an evil threat to peace on earth.

Then from each black, accursed mouth

The cannon thundered in the South,

And with the sound

The carols drowned

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Just an aside here. Having lived in Texas for 17 years, I can tell you that plenty of people there still think Abraham Lincoln and the Union Army were the real threat to peace on earth. Those whose ancestors lived through that war call it The War Between the States or even the War of Northern Aggression. Nevertheless, we all have moments of identifying with Longfellow’s gloom.

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!”

Matthew reported the birth of Jesus by jamming the discordant stories of the Magi and Herod into each other. This not only acknowledges our painful reality, but sheds light on the way to look for Christ’s peace in our own troubled world and lives. Like light coming between the cracks in a wall, the shadows within are illuminated and we get a glimpse of the light beyond.

The Magi are mysterious figures. We have more questions than information about them. Where did they come from? How did they know that star meant a King of the Jews? How did they recognize this humble baby as that king? If they saw the star rising in the east, how did they know to go west? How did the star point out the house where Jesus was with Mary? Did they not see Joseph in the house? How did they know their dreams were from God and not eating strange food while traveling? How many were they? Of whom did they inquire about the newborn King of the Jews – Temple leaders or Herod? How did Herod know what they were up to? How old was Jesus when they saw him? What did King of the Jews mean to them? Did they understand this baby was the Jewish Messiah or God in human form? Were they historical, or legendary, or both? As a masterful storyteller, Matthew answers none of our questions but piques our curiosity to draw us deeper.

As Matthew tells of mystery and majesty of the visit of the Magi, he plants just enough foreboding of the threat of Herod the Great that we are compelled to keep reading or listening even though we know it will be dreadful. Herod probably thought he killed the child who he thought threatened his power. The horror of killing the babies of Bethlehem accentuates the intrigue of the escape to Egypt under cover of night. Herod the Great had died before Joseph brought Mary and Jesus back from Egypt and withdrew to Galilee because Herod the Great’s son Herod Archelaus was in power in Jerusalem. By the way, Herod was the family name of a dynasty. After Herod Archelaus, his brother Herod Antipas figures in the fate of John the Baptist and in Jesus’ crucifixion. In the next generations Herod Agrippa I dealt with the Apostles Peter and James, and Herod Agrippa II with Paul. That they are all called by the family name Herod gets confusing. Here though, Matthew wanted us to feel the suspense of the threats to the young Jesus.

Obviously Matthew did not tell the stories of the Magi and Herod for children’s story hour. He told them to evoke enough curiosity to keep us reading and engaged to the very end of his Gospel. The child Jesus slipped away into obscurity until just the right moment to proclaim a radically different kingdom than Herod or Caesar or any of the Temple leaders imagined. Jesus’ eventual violent death accomplished God’s purpose in God’s way. Yes, we ponder and puzzle about that too. Jesus’ resurrection signals the triumph of this kingdom of peace. Rather than a coup to dethrone those who rule by violent power, the proclamation of Jesus’ resurrection renders their threats meaningless. The light shines in through the cracks in the wall.

Simon and Garfunkel leave us hanging with incongruity. Longfellow seems to defy his own logic as though peace will inevitably come. He asserted that God was neither dead nor asleep, but gives no sign of that hope. He made no reference to Jesus whose birth the Christmas bells announced. He undoubtedly saw that in the Union victory in the Civil War, though we know that was not peace.

Then 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.”

Matthew, on the other hand, is both more realistic and genuinely hopeful. The light of hope and peace, joy and love shine through the cracks between Matthew’s stories of the Magi and Herod.

First the story of the Magi tells us that God is alive and awake in obscure and hidden people, neither the pious nor powerful. This is not just wishful thinking; it is always God’s way. Like the Magi, these folk may not fully understand what they are up to, but they are still God’s agents of peace. And the story of Herod tells us that though the people of violent power are visible, they are powerless to stop Jesus’ people of peace.

Second, the light shining through the crack between these two stories illuminates the darkness within. Within our world and within ourselves. Where does the light coming through a crack highlight someone acting as an agent of peace? A compassionate touch or act for someone struggling? A reconciling word for those who have been alienated? Where does the light coming through a crack light up a dark corner in your own soul? Or an opportunity for you to encourage someone in pain?

Third, the light invites us to come close to the wall and peer through the crack to recognize the light of God’s peace on the move in the flow of human affairs. As Martin Luther King Jr. paraphrased Theodore Parker (1810-1860), “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Its meaning and truth are debated, but Matthew’s accounts of the Magi and Herod affirm that God is alive and active whether we recognize it or not. Perhaps we only hear the whisper of one obscure voice, but when we look beyond our immediate situation, we can recognize how God is fitting all of these seemingly insignificant pieces into a redemptive whole. The Magi and Joseph got enough of a glimpse not to be intimidated by Herod. Look through the crack to see the light of God around and beyond us.