Our story from Matthew this morning tells us of the visit by the Magi to Bethlehem to worship the baby Jesus. Their visit and their gifts—rare and costly —signified Jesus’ heritage as a “king.” We do not know who the magi were; the only clue is that the frankincense and myrrh have origins in Asia. We do not know when they made their visit to Bethlehem only that is must have been sometime in the first two years of Jesus’ birth.
What we do know is that there was a historical Yeshu born during Herod’s reign. We also know that the Gospel stories are rooted in the words of the Hebrew prophets. It was the prophets who told of this baby, this son of the line of David, this miracle of Mary, as the “shepherd of the people of Israel,” the savior, and the king who would save Judah. And we know it was Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, who told the stories of his birth and life.
At any given time, the Messiah could have been born. He had been prophesized for more than six hundred years; yet, this is the time, during the reign of the particularly brutal and vicious ruler Herod, that the Messiah was born.
My thoughts on Jesus’ birth led me to ponder the question of “time.” Was Jesus, born in God’s time or humankind’s time? Of course, God is beyond time. As Reinhold Niebuhr would say, “God is outside of time.” So when I ask the question, “Was Jesus born in God’s time,” I don’t mean God had a “time” as we know it, I simply mean God’s time as that eternal knowing or eternal existence in which God resides.
Again, I ask myself, “Was Jesus born in our time, or in God’s time?” And, “Why is that important for us today?”
Time is a construct of the human mind. It was the great philosopher Hegel who said that what makes humans different from animals is not reason, but our awareness of time. Of all creatures, it is only humans who know that there is an end to our time. So when we talk of time, we are talking about our awareness of time’s passing.
Another concept in our human construction of time is that we make meaning of the events of our time and they become our story or history.
If Jesus was born in our time that would mean that his people were aware of their helplessness, their despair, and they needed Jesus. Did they call for the Messiah? Those followers in the first century saw or discovered in the Mediterranean peasant from Nazareth, the fulfillment of the hope of salvation for the Hebrew people. They recognized the Prophecy.
Jesus was a person who appeared as the incarnate word of God; divine in the sense of wonderment. When humankind needed the Messiah, Jesus, appeared, and when they called him to fulfill the prophecies, he answered the call.
If Jesus was born in “our time,” then humanity would know that we were dying—in some way—and needed to be saved. It is instinctive for humankind to ensure survival—to rescue the child from the burning home, the drowning woman from the river’s flood, and the town from the runaway train. In each one of us, there is the genetic will to ensure our continued existence. There is in each one of us the capacity to be the hero. Jesus knew why he was called. He was called to offer salvation from the oppressors.
Now, Joseph Campbell said that each of us has the opportunity at some time in our lives to become the hero. We can choose to take the risk that goes along with the opportunity, or we can say, “No.”
In Jesus’ story in the Garden of Gethsemane he briefly wanted to say, “No.” In Matthew Chapter 26, he said, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will." In the end, he accepted his fate; the call to the be Messiah, the call to be the salvation of his brothers and sisters was something he would not refuse.
Of course, what that looked like for Jesus, was different from what it looked like for the great majority of the Jews of his day. It was, in fact, so different, that they refused to believe he was the Messiah. However, there were a few who saw in him Jehovah’s promise. It was the few believers who discovered that what he left behind was the promise, not only of salvation, but also of redemption.
The Jesus who was born in our time is the one who teaches us about salvation and redemption. Salvation from ourselves, usually, and redemption for our sins. Our sins are very human acts of commission and omission. Commission are the acts that cause pain in the world. Omission is the unintentional hurt of others. We are guilty of both. There is no getting around it. What Jesus did was show us that just as sin is within us, salvation and redemption are within us. Remember the stories of his miraculous healing?
Luke 4:38,39
… Simon’s mother-in-law was afflicted with a great fever, and they begged him for her. He stood over her, and rebuked the fever; and it left her. Immediately she rose up and served them.
Luke 18:35-43
Standing still, Jesus commanded him to be brought to him. When he had come near, he asked him, "What do you want me to do?" He said, "Lord, that I may see again." Jesus said to him, "Receive your sight. Your faith has healed you."
When a person was healed by Jesus it was about faith within, Jesus’ faith as God’s light to the world or the faith of the person who was healed.
If Jesus was born in our time, it was because we needed Jesus and called him forth.
If Jesus was born in God’s time, God saw our need and sent Jesus to us. We did not have to ask; God provided. Paul Tillich described God as “the infinite and inexhaustible depth and ground of all being.” [The Shaking of the Foundations, Tillich]
If God is the depth and ground of all being, then God would know the despair of humanity, and would find a way for us to know God’s hope, God’s love, God’s peace.
If Jesus was born in God’s time, then what Jesus had to do was show us not only how much God loves us, but how to love God and each other. Jesus did that. He showed us how to love, he showed us who to love, and he showed us “why” God called us to love.
Jesus showed us how to love, by teaching us that loving is about giving up
Giving up the last two pieces of fish in our basket—by doing this we feed everyone
Giving up our plans to stop and help the victim on the highway—by doing this the victim is healed and so are we
Giving up our attachment to money for money’s sake—by doing this we begin to love God and each other, not the riches and the power of this world
Giving up our desire to be better than the others—by doing this the woman at the well is forgiven and so are we
Jesus showed us who to love by inviting the crippled, the lepers, the poor to the wedding feast
Jesus showed us “why” God called us to love by showing us that in loving we are loved, in loving we find redemption, in loving we find salvation
If Jesus was born in God’s time, then God sent the incarnation of his love because we needed it. Alone, left to our own devices, we are often too busy to tend to our relationship with God. Left alone, we might not even think about God, or even believe that we needed God. But humanity alone, without love, just isn’t that good—look at our story.
Oh, we may love our family, and we may love those who look like us, but history has shown that if someone is different than us, we tend to think of them as “the other,” and we don’t naturally love those who are different than us. Can we deny that? All the great empires of the past conquered everyone who was different from them by murder and enslavement.
Left alone, we might not even think about God, or even believe that we needed God.
If Jesus was born in God’s time, God sent Jesus to give humanity an opportunity to experience God’s love through the experience of selfless giving. Not to give so much that we become nothing, but to give so much that we become spiritually nourished, full of joy and love.
Was Jesus born in our time or God’s time? Both, I think.
In the poem that Jeff read as our second reading it talks about two different kinds of time. On calendars the seasons march in apt procession across neat-numbered months/ … the village clock keeps time as time should be/ but
The author writes “but” …
I blaspheme Old Cronos with months I make and seasons centered in myself / My year: / A year that is my life -- / a life that is my time / My time that ought to be eternity enough /
We have both. We have that construct of time that allows us to make meaning and record history. And, we have God’s promise of eternity, being outside of time, love outside of humanity.
In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, 'Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.'
There was a Yeshu born in our time and in God’s time. A Yeshu who embodied love, peace, and hope
READINGS
Matthew 2:1-12
In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, 'Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.' When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, 'In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:
"And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who is to shepherd my people Israel." '
Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, ‘Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.’ When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure-chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.
This Year by Max Coots from To Meet the Asking Years” edited by Gordon B. McKeeman
A year’s a year!
A string of kindergarten beads strung once-upon-a-time:
Of flighty minutes for clocks to tsk-tsk about,
And days in simple black-and-white conformity.
For clocks and calendars it’s so.
My time is something else again:
Minutes sometimes hours long,
And days of seconds or eternities.
On calendars the season march in apt procession across neat-numbered months.
For me, and other of my ilk, the seasons are not just holidays of green or white.
I sometimes sense some stronger seasons in myself,
Where time is rearranged as something clocks could never tell:
A time in some subjective order all its own
Where Winter sometimes starts in June and leaves grow gold in Spring;
When light is long or short in spite of sun,
And Winter comes when grass is green except in me.
The village clock keeps time as time should be,
But I blaspheme Old Cronos with months I make and seasons centered in myself.
My year:
A year that is my life –
A life that is my time –
My time that ought to be eternity enough.