Our Sunday Message

Where's My Jesus: Retelling the Story, Restoring the Call: Matthew 2:1-12
Rev. Dr. Carol McCall Richardson
January 6, 2008
Epiphany

  Where is the child who is born king of the Jews? A thought-filled question for each of us here at Epiphany, the season in the church year when we patiently watch and listen as God is quietly revealed before us once again. Epiphany gives us the time to watch, wait, listen, look, and anticipate the light, life and truth of the Lord’s presence in our midst, if we have eyes to see and as we once again ask the question: Where is the child? Where will we find the Christ this year in our ordinary lives?
  Once a year I hear from my long-time friend, Emily Foreman Sharp. Some of you may remember Emily, once a member of this church, who met and fell in love with a long, tall Texan who whisk her away to Lubbock to live. Emily, a superb English teacher, never sends the usual Christmas greeting or letter, rather hers is always an original creative composition that stirs her readers to reflect on the meaning of the season, at least, this reader. It is always sent the same way—electronically.
  One year it was a poem, another year a profound thought gleaned from her study of Advent scripture readings. This year it was a story, a story about her nine year old son, Michael. It begins in this way:
  Our nine year old boy seemed to be confused as he studied his Advent calendar this year, a calendar that he’s had since he was a little boy, a calendar of the Nativity. Every day a new character or animal is taken from the pocketed date and added to the scene. Angels, Joseph, Mary, a couple of sheep, two Wise Men, and some gifts had already been chosen and placed. Our son’s confusion came when he couldn’t find Jesus. He asked, ‘Hey, Mom! Where’s my Jesus?’ He hadn’t spotted the babe stuffed way down low in the pocket of December 24th.
  For Emily the question posed was a good Advent question for her readers to consider. It also seems to be a good question for us at Epiphany as we continue our journey with the Wise Men, following the star. For the question, I think, echoes many such wonderings and speaks to the confusions that many had in the biblical narrative of our salvation history we call the Bible.
  It is not just a question for those at Jesus’ birth.
  The Hebrew priests and prophets had asked the question for centuries as they waited and anticipated God’s promised Messiah.
  Where is He?
  And the shepherds, who ran breathless to the stable still awestruck by the glorious sound of angel voices, embodied the ancient Hebrew prophets’ question and they fell down to worship the Infant King—who indeed was the Answer for such an ancient question.
  Today our Wise Men pose again the question for us, “Where is the child?” “Where is the child who is born king of the Jews?” Though we know very little about these Eastern visitors who asked again this ancient question that had sent them half way round the then known world in search of the answer, we do know that these magi from Persia were probably from the learned Priestly caste, those who were skilled in occult powers and astronomical and astrological knowledge. As learned men they may have heard of the major world religions of their day—central Asia’s Hinduism, India’s Buddhism, China’s Confucianism and Taoism, and Japan’s Shintoism.
  They probably also knew that the Roman culture had a crowded gallery of gods and goddesses in addition to Mithras, who was worshiped as the invincible god who gave life and maintained justice and truth. And they obviously had heard of Judaism but were unaware at this point in our story of the prophecy that foretold that the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem, like King David.
  But, as our scripture tells us, these magi or wise men were evidently stargazers who were awake enough to their surrounding to hitch their camels to a Star that they trusted would take them on a westward journey to Jerusalem and eventually lead them to the Answer to their question—Where is the child who is born King of the Jews?
  Upon reaching Jerusalem they began asking about this Jewish King-child. Their inquiries soon reached the palace where their question piqued King Herod’s royal paranoia who was deeply troubled by the thought of another king who might be a threat to his royal rule and so Herod immediately calls his own sages and asks this same ancient question, Who is this Messiah and where is he to
be born? Find the prophecy!
  We know that Herod’s question wasn’t posed for the purpose of discovery and worship like that of our Eastern travelers, but was posed in order to rid his kingdom of the One who was the great threat to his power. We can almost hear Herod’s sleepless anxiety and see his wringing hands.
  Where is he? Where is he? Where IS HE?
  And so secretly and frantically, Herod calls for these visitors from the East and asks them to find the answer to his question under the pretense that that he too may come and worship him and then he tells our Wise Men that, according to ancient Hebrew scripture, this child can be found in Bethlehem of Judea.
  Once again our travelers set out on their journey, following the Star, seeking the answer to their question and when they find the Answer, when they find the Christ child, we are told, they are filled with joy and are so moved by their discovery that they abandoned all previous plans and go home by another way.
  Our Question, however, continued to follow Jesus as he grew up. Surely it was the one posed by his worried parents who retraced their steps to Jerusalem following Jesus’ Bar Mitzvah at twelve years of age in the Jerusalem Temple, where every young male was taken for dedication. When they couldn’t find him, each moment without him increased their anxiety.
  “He’s got to be at the Temple,” we can hear his now desperate mother say. “Didn’t you say you were going to get him?”
  “No”, says Joseph, “I was loading the donkey. You said you would get him.”
  “Where is he? Where is he? O, Joseph, where is he?”
  And then, there he was, just there on the steps—a teenage boy, wise beyond his years, mesmerizing the Temple priests with Answers that had eluded them for centuries.
  As Jesus continues grow in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man, it will be John the Baptizer, the who one recognized Jesus in his mother’s womb and lept with joy when her cousin Mary came to call; wild-eyed John, who from his birth was called the prophet of the Most High, who lived in the desert alone and cried out to anyone who approached, “Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths strait; stern John, who knew Jesus the moment he laid eyes on him at the river Jordan and said, “ need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me; John, who was there when heaven opened and the spirit of God descended upon Jesus like a dove; John, who devoted his entire life to the coming Messiah who now poses the question at the end of his ministry, a question filled with doubt, yes, but a question in search of an honest answer. Sending two of his own disciples to Jesus, he asks,
  “Who are you? Are you the Answer to the ancient question, the One, that we have been searching for through the ages or should we look for another?”
  Where is he?
  And the Question continues to follow Jesus even to the tomb. This time it is uttered by Mary Magdalene. The same question lingered in the early morning air as she and the other Mary hoped to give Jesus just one last gift, that of a decent burial. The question posed between them as they stared in disbelief at the empty tomb, make them anxious as they tried to recount directions that might have become foggy with grief.
  Where is Jesus? Where is Jesus that I might take him away? Oh, no. Where is he? Where’s my Jesus?
  The innocent question posed by my friend’s nine year old son in her Advent story, the question asked through the ages by the wisest and most humble, now becomes our question, “Where’s your Jesus?”   What Michael didn’t realize in his earnest asking was that he had answered his own question inside the question.
  “Where’s my Jesus?”
  The remarkable gift of the Christmas season and this Christmastide that ends with revelation, Epiphany, is that Jesus is his.
  Jesus is yours.
  Jesus is mine.
  God gives the Answer to anyone, anyone with courage enough, anyone with faith enough to look for him and pose the question:
  Where’s my Jesus? Where is he? Where is he? Where will I find the Christ this year in my ordinary day?
Where will we as a church find him this year as we keep telling the story and restoring our call?
Will we find him among the most humble of us who quietly, with no need for recognition, continues to minister week after week to our children in our preschool?
  Will we find him among out Laotian friends as they boldly and enthusiastically express their faith and share the Eternal Answer with their friends?
  Will we find him at the beside of one of us who has served their Lord and their church a life-time full of years and confidently declares, “I have no fear of death. I am ready to see my Jesus?
  Or will we find him in the heart of a young pastor, who, though comfortable where he is, is willing to set out on a journey into the unknown to follow God’s guiding light to serve among an exceptional people called First Baptist Church of Memphis?
  Where’s my Jesus? Where is he? Where is he? Where will you and I find the Christ this year in our ordinary day?
  Amazing, isn’t it, how the Question still lingers in the air. May it linger with us all year long. Amen.

In gratitude to Emily Foreman Sharpe for her Advent Question, 2008