More Than A List: Gift with Rev. Nicole Unice

Good morning, Ward Church. Good to see you guys this morning. Can we give it up for the worship team? That was an awesome wasn't that great? I just love the mix of Christmas hymns with some of our, more contemporary worship songs at Awesome Time.

Are you guys in the Christmas spirit? Oh, got the the this side of the room is in the Christmas spirit. These guys were like, I'm running through the list of things that I still need to do in my head. Let's have a moment of interactive church if we can. Will you turn to your neighbor and tell them one of your favorite things about Christmas, big or small?

Just one of your favorite things about Christmas. Go ahead. Alright. Do we have any do we have any cookie fans in the room? Any cookies?

Anyone on if you're online, I hope you talk to your to your, family member about it. So we got some cookie fans. We have any decor decor fans in the room? Can you guys come to my house next year? I would appreciate it.

Every anyone say Jesus because we're in church. The right and they're like, oh, shoot. Was that one of the answers? Maybe you're in the Christmas spirit. Maybe it's been harder to get into the Christmas spirit for you.

This has been quite a year for a lot of people. And, I think especially at this time of year, we can have some counterintuitive feelings, maybe some things that feel out of step with the lights and the inflatables and the gifts. We can feel a sense of loss at this time of year. Perhaps we thought something was gonna change this year that didn't. Maybe we have some expectations that haven't been met, or just we sense just a sense of apathy or dreariness with the gray and the cold and the dark.

Sometimes it can be hard to find that Christmas spirit, But I'm hoping over the next few minutes that we spend today, we might see something different that shifts our perspective, that gives us an opportunity to take a courageous step toward the thing that I believe God is asking of us this year. We're in a series called more than a list, and today we're talking about a longing that God has for us. Something that he deeply desires for us to experience, and that longing, that desire is for us to honor his son. We're gonna talk about what that looks like this morning. I wonder if this year or perhaps in years past, you've ever had a year where you've had a gift that you were really excited to give, like something that you felt like was really gonna hit and you're really, really I love giving really great gifts like that.

A few years ago, about a decade ago actually, our kids are in their twenties now, but my husband Dave and I, we decided that instead of doing all like material gifts, we really wanted to create experiences for our family, and so we started pretty much every year doing some kind of trip at Christmas time as our gift to our kids. And so we're getting this underway, and this was kind of the first time that we were doing it. So we were trying to think of creative ways to make Christmas morning really fun and bring this surprise to the kids. The kids were about like eight to 10 age around that age at the time. And so what we did is we cut up the name of the place we were going into letters and put them in an envelope.

So there was a few other clues that went with it, and then they got the envelope. And so, they open this Manila envelope, they shake it out. They're very competitive. I don't know where they got it from. They're extremely intense about these things.

So, there was like, they were trying to solve the puzzle really fast, and my oldest son was trying to solve it. And so they lay out all these letters, and then all of a sudden Charlie goes, we're going to the Shire. The Shire as in Hobbit, like Lord of the Rings. I don't know if you know anything about the Shire. The Shire is filmed in New Zealand.

My eleven year old thought that we were going to get on a plane to New Zealand that day. Here's a picture of The Shire. If you you could actually go and visit it. Those are people up there on the top that you could see. You can go visit the set here in New Zealand.

However, in their haste to solve the problem, they didn't take the time it would have taken to see that where we were actually going was New Hampshire, which is very different than New Zealand. Here's a picture of where we went in New Hampshire. We still had a great time. But what reminded me as I was getting ready for this message about this story was that sense of of like sacrifice and vulnerability that comes when you want to give a gift that you hope the person who's receiving it will love and cherish as excited as you are to give it. And we really did have a fantastic time, but I do wanna talk this morning about the fact that God did something very vulnerable when he sent us the gift of his son, and that there is very different responses that come from this gift.

So would you pray with me as we go to the text? Father, in the midst of the many distractions and many emotions that we may be feeling this morning, would you center our hearts to receive your word? Would you give us clarity in our minds as you open the scriptures to us? In Jesus name, amen. So I wanna talk this morning about a very familiar passage.

You heard it for just a moment. We're talking about the wise men, the part of the story where the wise men come to Jesus. But I wanna take it in a little bit of a different direction that may be surprising at first, but I do believe this is actually what the evangelist Matthew was setting up for us, which is that this passage is actually about a very big question. And that very big question is, what is the nature of man? What happens when man is confronted with an object of worship?

What happens to power in a situation like this? And here's why I think that we are meant to see this in this passage. Look at Matthew two verse two that you heard just a moment ago. Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, and then we get this context during the reign of king Herod. So we now know about one powerful king that is a part of this story.

About that time, some wise men, k, so now we have another powerful group. Some wise men from Eastern lands arrive in Jerusalem asking where is the newborn king of the Jews, a third powerful figure. So in this first sentence, we're actually set up to see that there are three powerful things happening in this passage. They ask, where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose, and we have come to worship him.

We are meant to notice that these wise and powerful men from the East come looking for what must have been a powerful newborn king. They have come from so far to find this newborn king also during the reign of a powerful king. Here's a little bit that you might wanna know about these wise men. The word magos describes these wise men. That's also translated magicians in scripture.

We know that these were astrologers. So we kind of have two words now. There was only one word at the time to describe, wise readers of the stars. We now have astronomy, which is a study of like the mapping of the stars, the science of the stars, and astrology, and that logos there is the word of the stars, the message of the stars. And at this time and in this day, that was combined into one, And these were considered very powerful sorcerers, magicians who had the ability to predict the future through the stars.

Now as it is today, as Christians, we do not believe in the practice of astrology nor did righteous Jewish people believe in the practice of astrology at the time. There is no other place in scripture where magicians are considered a positive force. In the Old Testament and the New Testament, magicians are considered idolaters. These are people who make an idol out of the stars. So they've taken what we would call in Romans a created thing and made it equal to the creator.

So how unusual is it that this, these are the people who actually begin the Christmas story? The furthest outside of the righteous people of Israel are the people who begin the Christmas story, and not only that, God uses the actual object of their idolatry to bring them to Jerusalem. How unusual, how creative, how upside down, how strange. And yet this is the story. Every other place that we hear about magicians, they're considered idolaters, but God uses a star to guide them to Jerusalem.

Perhaps we can expand our minds and know that God can use anything to lead people to himself. Oftentimes in my work when I'm with people who maybe aren't close to God or aren't wouldn't consider themselves religious, don't go to church. I don't know if you've ever talked to a person like this who really notices nature. They look for signs in nature. Perhaps it's someone who says, ever since my grandma died, I see cardinals, and I know that my grandma has sent those cardinals, or or has a sense really that there's something bigger than them.

And they look to nature, and they're like, is there something bigger out there? I have a friend who is an agnostic who said to me, how can you not believe in in a higher power if you've experienced the birth of a child? There's this mystery and this desire for majesty, for something bigger, for something greater, but not maybe sure what it is, but seeking what that thing is. And what's so amazing about our God is he makes it really clear that he will use his creation to speak of who he is. Look at Psalm chapter 19.

It says, the heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship. Day after day, they continue to speak. Night after night, they make him known. It doesn't matter your background or your religion.

It doesn't matter your relationship status or your bank account status. We all experience the craftsmanship of God's creation equally. And here in what probably feels even disturbing to us, the astrologers of the day are the ones who are coming to seek this newborn king. And so they arrive in Jerusalem because the star nature doesn't lead them to Christ. Nature does lead them to God.

God leads them to scripture. Scripture leads them to Christ. And so they go to Jerusalem, And when they get to Jerusalem, it says immediately that they meet another powerful king with a very different reaction. The scripture says that when they arrived in Jerusalem and king Herod heard about them, he was disturbed and all of Jerusalem with him. Now why was all of Jerusalem disturbed by this news?

Could it be that the idea that there might be power somewhere else feels like a threat to those on the inside? Because as this story develops, it's the outsiders. It's the people who don't belong. It's the people that you would not think would have a seat at the table. It's the people who are furthest from God who are actually seeking with a curious heart.

And it's those who are on the inside, the insiders, who are immediately disturbed by this news. And so king Herod calls together all the people's chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he asks them where the Messiah is to be born, and they say in Bethlehem in Judea because this is what the prophet has written. So God uses his creation to bring the wise men to Jerusalem, but then he uses his scripture to bring the wise men to Christ. In the scriptures, they actually talk about the idea that this is this is a prophecy that was written that Bethlehem will be the land where out will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. And so now we begin to get a little bit, let's say, under the hood of Herod's motivation.

The next thing he does is he separates the Magi from everyone else in his court, and he meets with the Magi secretly, and he says to them, find out he wanted to know exactly when the star appeared. And then he sent them to Bethlehem and said, go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me so that I may go to and worship him. Now notice, king Herod had an opportunity to go and worship him and he did not. He stayed back along with all of the chief priests and teachers of the law, and it is only the outsiders who proceed to go and discover where this newborn king is.

We've now met another powerful king in this story, king Herod. And there's actually a lot we can know about king Herod. There's several things written about him. Josephus was a Jewish historian who wrote extensively about king Herod. There's Roman sources that tell us about what kind of king King Herod was.

We know that he was set up as king over this area, and he was he was called to basically keep the peace among the varying factors here. We also know that it was a unstable time in the Roman government and that King Herod was highly strategic. He survived shifting Roman regimes by aligning himself with whoever was in power. He ruled with an authoritarian and fear based leadership through intimidation, surveillance, ruthless elimination of threats. He was paranoid.

He was paranoid about rivals, about anyone who could take his power. In fact, he killed his own three children, his own three sons to retain the throne. And it was said that he actually loved his wife, but he killed her too. Augustus Caesar had a saying about this king Herod, and the saying was, it is better to be Herod's pig than his son. Because Herod wouldn't kill pigs due to Jewish law, but that did not apply to people, including even his own family.

Now you you may be thinking, wow, we really have a villain in the story, And we really do. But all of this aligns with a king who wants to retain power with a person who finds their security in their identity, with a person who becomes increasingly paranoid that they will lose that power and that security because when we have an idol of power in our lives, we will be pulled away from others. It will become dangerous for us to be close to other people. We will not be vulnerable. We will not be loving.

We will want to retain our control at all costs. All of this aligns with how this story ends because remember King Herod says, hey, come back. Do you when was the exact time that that star appeared? Come back to me so that I can worship this king as well. But after the Magi proceed to baby Jesus, they're warned to not go back to King Herod so they don't.

And when King Herod finds out that they have not returned to him, he goes into a murderous rage and he orders all baby boys under the age of two to be killed in Bethlehem. Now when you read that passage in scripture, it is very alarming, But when you know more about King Herod, it tracks. Because if you need control at all costs, if your life and identity are based on retaining power to feel okay in this world, then you might go to any lengths to contain that. This is unchecked corruption. It is control at all costs.

It is competitive. It is insecure. It is no holds barred power. It's the same kind of power we've seen corrupt in our world generation after generation. And the reality is we may feel very far in our hearts from this kind of king, but there's a little king Herod in all of us.

Because I believe what the evangelist Matthew wants to do is to set up two very different approaches, two different responses to Jesus, our newborn king. Jesus is a polarizing figure. In fact, this is the very beginning of what we will see is increasing conflict all through the gospel. Right after this when when Jesus is presented in the temple as a baby, this is when the prophet Simeon says to Mary, a sword will pierce your heart too. His entry into this world creates an opportunity to respond, and that response comes with a very, very powerful reality.

The question will always be, what do we really worship? On the one hand, have king Herod. And then on the other, we have the wise men. God uses their idol, a star to draw them, and then he brings them to scripture that brings them to Christ. God can use anything to lead people to himself, but it's scripture that leads people to Jesus.

I love that Psalm 19 that we just read a moment ago about creation goes on and it switches from celebrating creation and the glory of God in creation to celebrating the glory of God's word. It says, the instructions of the Lord are perfect, reviving the soul. The decrees of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The commandments of the Lord are right, bringing joy to the heart, and the commands of the Lord are clear, giving insights for living. And so the wise men are led by scripture to the person of Christ.

It says in scripture that they entered the house and they saw the child with his mother Mary and they bowed down and worshiped him. They didn't come alongside of him. They didn't consider themselves equal in any way, but they entered in worship. They opened their treasure chests and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Herod's reaction was disturbed.

He was manipulating. He was secretive. He was scared. He was insecure. The wise men's reaction was curious and seeking and humble and overjoyed.

And most importantly, they are the first to worship the little newborn king. A king who doesn't do anything to prove his power. They worship. And we know that at the very beginning of this gospel, that Jesus receiving worship is a very important reality about who he is. Because the the ultimate commandment in the Jewish faith is that you will have one God, that you will worship God alone.

In fact, when Jesus is tempted later in Matthew chapter four, he actually says those words. He says, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. So the fact that Jesus receives worship here and a few other places in the gospels is meant to alert us that this is not a prophet, this is not a teacher, this is actually in the mystery of the reality of it. This is God in human form, fully divine, fully human, on a rescue mission to offer us everlasting life. But how we respond to the idea that there is something greater than us, that there is something in control that we are not in control of is everything.

It is the ultimate powerful person of Jesus that draws two very different responses from people of power. If honor my son was on God's Christmas list, it implies that we might not take it. The vulnerability of our God is that he invites us to honor his son, but he does not force us to. We each in our own heart and in our own way come to the manger and to the newborn king, and we are offered the invitation to honor the son, but it's possible to not choose to do so. The Magi had worship on their mind.

Herod had murder on his mind. It's easy to distance ourselves from King Herod, especially as dramatic as it is, but what if there is a little King Herod in all of us? I was writing this sermon in a coffee shop in Richmond on Wednesday, and there was a person who decided to take a FaceTime call at full volume right next to me. And I was very annoyed and very irritated because that's the little Herod in me who wants to control the environment around me and thinks that my time and my way is more important than people around me. I'm tempted to believe that buying the perfect gift is what makes a perfect Christmas, that if I can just provide that material thing, all will be well.

That's the little Herod in me that believes in consumerism will bring happiness. We all have a little Herod in us. That little part of us that wants things to go our way, the part of us that deeply craves security and looks for that security in the form of things, and in people, and in bank accounts, and in circumstances that we can put around us to feel important, to feel valuable. The little Herod is the part of us that wants to grasp onto things rather than to give. It's the little part of us that wants to make us the God of our life.

But yet the choice we have is in this little Jesus, humble, vulnerable, entering into humanity as the apple absolute antithesis of worldly power, as everything against worldly power. He comes in such humility that it's possible to miss what honoring this newborn king actually means. I love this quote from Henry Nouwen in his book, In the Name of Jesus. And he says this, what makes the temptation of power so seemingly irresistible? Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love.

It seems easier to be God than to love God. Easier to control people than to love people. Easier to own life than to love life. And you may ask, I I don't know. I don't know what that feels like and what that looks like, but it looks like every little step in every little day where we say, instead of holding on tightly, God, I want to give to you.

I want to honor you. I wanna adore you. One of the hardest things to do in our DIY culture, in our grit yourself and make it happen culture, is to simply receive. And that is the gift of our newborn king, that the opportunity and the invitation is to adore him. And to adore is to simply allow ourselves to worship in the midst of all the things that aren't right, in the midst of all the things that did not come true this year for you, in the midst of all the questions that you may still have unanswered, in the midst of your sadness or your anger or your grief or your insecurity, it is turning away from the little Herod in you that says there is something you can do about that.

That must be your fault. You can change something. And it's turning instead to worship, to honor, to adoration. To honor God's son is to choose love over power. It's to choose love over control.

It's to choose love over ownership. It's adoration over possession. The word possession means to get or acquire by any means. King Herod had the spirit of possession. I must retain what I have by any means necessary.

But the opportunity for us in a newborn king is adoration, and to adore is to give away. We have a God who prepared a gift for us, who humbled himself, became vulnerable to ask us a question, will we honor his son? He comes quietly and unassumingly into the world. And the most crazy thing about this love, this wild, fierce, relentless love that God has for each of us is that it can be ignored. This love can be denied.

God does not demand that we honor his son. He gives us a gift and he asks, will you come and adore him? Will you come and honor him? In a world that says fight for your own, compete, strive, try, grip so tightly to what you have and always try to get more. In a world that lives in the spirit of Herod, will you this Christmas do the one thing, the one hard thing, which is to simply adore in the midst of unanswered questions, in the midst of grief, in the midst of loss, in the midst of even despair, would you just come and adore?

Our last verse for today is from Philippians two, and it says, have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. And I don't even know why God brought me to this verse except that I thought, how do I even say another way that you can practically apply the idea of coming and enduring him? And I realized that this verse tells us everything we need to know because it says that the mind of Christ is available to us, that each and every day we can put on the mind of Christ. A mind of Christ is a mind of compassion, of love, of forgiveness, of generosity. A mind of Christ is one that does not need to have all the answers, but can simply participate in the beautiful things that our creator God is doing.

To have the mind of Christ this week is to enter into the Christmas spirit and to say, will cherish what God cherishes, and I'll be present with what God has given me as a gift. Friends, come. Let us adore him. Let's pray. Father, if there's any parts of us this morning that deeply desire to honor you, to worship you, to love you, but we know we're holding back.

We're holding back because we've got a root of bitterness or a spirit of unforgiveness or a place that just feels unhealed. Father, would you would you give us the courage to open the doors of our heart that maybe feel a little locked away? The places where we're worried that sadness will overtake us or that grief is too strong for us or that anxiety will overwhelm us. Instead God, would we let go and simply worship, simply honor you, and know God that when we do, you answer all of those needs in your own way, in your own time, but you are faithful to do so. In Jesus name we pray.

Amen.