Sermons from Moorpark Presbyterian Church |
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Wise Men, a Dragon, and You by Dave Wilkinson Matthew 2:1-3, 13, 16-18; January 9, 2000
Today is Epiphany Sunday. The word epiphany means "revealing." This is also the day we celebrate the visit of the Wise Men. So we are celebrating the revelation of God’s salvation in Jesus to the non-Jewish world as symbolized by the visit of these Magi from the east. Got it? Good. Now we had six Wise Men in my home when I was a child. We were allowed to play with one set. These were the sacrificial Magi. Originally one had been painted purple, one blue, and the third a rose pink. But after years of Christmas play, in which they had supporting roles with dump trucks and army tanks, most of the color was rubbed away. In the other set, the off-limits one, the Wise Men were off their camels carrying gifts. One of them was kneeling and the other two were getting ready to kneel. These wise men we couldn’t touch -- although a few times I took one of the camels, stuck its nose in the manger with the baby Jesus, and blamed my brother. Don’t worry. He deserved it. Not Jesus, my brother. The Wise Men are from the Gospel of Matthew. All the rest of our decorations are from Luke. Madonnas and Shepherds and Angel Choruses are all from Luke. But Luke is over now and we go to Matthew. Exit the women; in come the men. Exit the stable; now it's a king's palace. Exit the shepherds; enter the Wise Men from the East. Exit the angels, and in comes King Herod. The only sound we hear now is the sound of mothers and children from Matthew. It’s not a Lukan lullaby. It’s a scream of despair. "I heard a voice in Ramah. It was Rachel weeping for her children." King Herod is extremely cruel and extremely unstable. The massacre of the infants of Bethlehem is just one example of his vicious nature. He murdered his wife Marianne and her mother Alexandra. His eldest son Antipater and two other sons, Alexander and Aristobulous were also assassinated by him. Augustus, the Roman Emperor declared that it was safer to be Herod's pig than Herod's son -- an epigram in Greek where hus is the word for pig and huios is the word for son. Later, when Herod is near death, he orders that a collection of the most distinguished and beloved citizens of Israel be arrested and imprisoned. He commands that they all be killed when word is received of his own death. Herod is well aware that no tears will be shed for him, but he is determined that there will be crying when he dies — even if the crying is for his final victims. This was the world into which Jesus was born. It was a very tough world. And although we tend to cover Christmas with sentimentality, the Gospel of Matthew refuses to let us lapse into softness. For Matthew tells us that everything -- even God entering into the world -- comes at a cost: "Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled because they were not." But is spite of the cost both to Himself and to the world, Christ still had to come. For if He had not come, the world and we too, would continue to exist in the cycle of sin and death forever. Only if God breaks the cycle, at whatever the cost to humanity and Himself, will there truly be "tidings of great joy to all people." Now listen to another Christmas story. This is the Christmas story from the 12th chapter of the Book of Revelation. As John describes his vision, he says:
(Read Revelation 12:1-12)
That doesn't sound a whole lot like Christmas, does it'? But in this powerful passage the Apostle John lifts the veil for us to better understand what happened at Christmas — and what continues to happen to us today. John lifts the veil to the spiritual warfare in which we are now engaged. Unlike most of Revelation, chapter 12 is not a foretelling of history. It is, instead, a representation of the spiritual struggle behind history. There are three main figures in John’s vision: the Woman, the Child and the Dragon. The woman in verse one is described as clothed with the sun, having the moon under her feet, and wearing a crown of twelve stars. This is a picture of Israel from Genesis. She is waiting the birth of a child. The child is Jesus -- the male child who is to rule all nations with a rod of iron. But with the Woman and the Child is also a Dragon — identified in verse 9 as "the Devil and Satan." This dragon is waiting to destroy the child at his birth Now you don't usually find a little statue of a dragon in a manger scene. I don't remember ever seeing one. But the Dragon was there in the guise of King Herod. Through Revelation 12, John tells us that the Magi who stood before Herod didn’t really know what they were dealing with. They thought they knew, but they didn’t really know. John tells us it is that more than purely human evil, jealousy, and malice that order the slaughter of the infants of Bethlehem. John tells us that it is actually Satan who is working through the human evil of Herod to attempt his purpose. So what's the result? After the child is born, He is rescued from the dragon. Revelation skips over the thirty years of Jesus' earthly life and ministry. John goes in one verse from Christmas to the resurrection and ascension. He shows us that God always carries out His purpose. He shows us that we can have courage in the world. For we are also a part of the story of Revelation 12. We are part of Christmas as well. Listen to verses 13-17:
Read Revelation 12:13-17
In these verses, John warns us that we are the objects of hatred -- a hatred that is intensified because the dragon knows that his time is short. He can no longer attempt to destroy Jesus. All he can seek to do is to harm us -- the people who belong to Jesus -- "And the dragon was enraged with the woman and went off to make war with the rest of her offspring" -- that's us — "who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus." I bet this really finishes off the last of your Christmas spirit. "Merry Christmas -- and by the way you have a powerful enemy who hates you because you love the Messiah that he hates and tried twice to destroy -- once in the manger and once on the cross. He failed then so now he’s after you." In Ephesians 6 -- the passage we will look at for the next several weeks -- Paul tells us more about the conflict. He says that beneath the surface appearance of world events, an unseen but very real spiritual battle rages about us. Paul brings up the devil and certain "principalities and powers" at his command. Paul does not give us a biography of the devil and no account of the origin of these "spiritual forces of wickedness," His purpose is not to satisfy our curiosity but to warn us of their hostility and to teach us how to overcome them. It is against these powers that we are told that we are waging war — wrestling in grim hand-to-hand combat. Paul reminds us that the church was not called to be an audience but an army. We are engaged in a battle for the soul of this world, the soul of our nation and the souls of our fellow human beings. This war is fought in the structures of the world system and in the innermost recesses of our own hearts. There is a Peanuts cartoon in which Linus is standing behind the walls of his snow fort shouting defiance at the world, "This is an impregnable fortress!" he shouts, "No one can take it, I could defend this position from a hundred attackers. This fortress stands firm as the Rock of Gibralter. It is like . . . " Suddenly his words are interrupted by a snow ball that Lucy has smashed against the back of his head simply by walking around to the undefended rear of the great fort. After Linus recovers he says to her: "You'll notice that you had to use strategy, though, didn't you." Well, our enemy is not above using strategy to defeat us. In this passage Paul warns us against this very thing -- against the wiles of the devil. What are these wiles? Paul describes them in various places in his writings. He knew that the evil one could take the form of an angel of light so as to lead believers astray from the path of service. It is because we are seldom attacked openly that we are caught unsuspecting, He is a dangerous wolf who enters Christ's flock in the disguise of a sheep. Sometimes he roars like a lion but usually he is subtle as a serpent. We must not imagine that open persecution is his primary weapon against the church. He prefers to deceive us into compromise and seduce us into error. A man was going to attend a Halloween party dressed in a devil costume. On his way to the party it started to rain very hard so he darted into a church where a revival meeting was in progress. At the sight of his devil's costume people began to scatter through the doors and windows. One unfortunate woman, however, got her coat sleeve caught on one of the seats, As the man came toward her she started to plead: "Satan, I've been a member of this church for over twenty years -- but you know I've really been on your side the whole time." I bet the people in that church already knew that. In the church Satan works for the destruction of Christian unity through the spreading of false doctrine and through dissension. He is called the slanderer. The name devil, "diabalos" comes from the word which means to "accuse." He accuses us to ourselves -- "How can I possibly call myself a Christian after what I did? I might as well give up trying to live a Christian life." He accuses others to us -- turning us against our brothers and sisters in Christ. He accuses God to us -- "If God really loved me then this would not have happened -- I can't trust God anymore." Accusation, slander, is a primary weapon in his arsenal -- turning us against God, against each other and against our own selves. This means that we need to be very aware when we start coming down on anyone - especially a brother or sister in Christ — that we are not, in fact, responding to the subtle insinuations of the enemy. We do not need to be afraid even in the face of subtle and insidious strength. For the glorious fact is that, while we are engaged in a battle, it is a battle whose outcome is guaranteed. We are fighting an enemy who is, in fact, defeated -- like a rattlesnake with the head cut off. The head was cut off at Easter. But even a snakehead without a snake is capable of biting and capable of injecting poison if not handled with care. We are fighting a defeated enemy -- that what Revelation tells us -- but one made perhaps more dangerous by the fact that his doom is sealed because he is determined to inflict all of the damage he can inflict in his rage before the inevitable end. Jesus said "In the world you will have trouble." That’s a promise. But have courage. The victory is mine. "I have overcome the world." Jesus told the parable of a strong man who was bound so that his treasure could be plundered. Who is the strong man in the parable? It is Satan -- called the Prince of this World. Who is the one who has bound him? It is Jesus who came to set us free. Who is the treasure? We are. Once we were Satan's property but God has, in the words of the Apostle Peter, transferred us from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of His beloved Son. We are the treasure who has been plundered and now we are a new community set down as a colony of heaven in the midst of what was once the domain of the evil one. God has made us His own and has given us the privilege of participating in the war for the world. In the face of this struggle, we need to be made strong -- strength such as that prayed for by an old time evangelist named Bud Robinson who used to pray daily: "0 Lord, give me a backbone as big as a saw log and ribs like the beams under the church floor. Put iron shoes on my feet and galvanized breeches on my body. Give me a rhinoceros hide for skin, and hang up a wagon-load of determination on the gable-end of my soul. Help me to sign the contract to fight the devil as long as I've got a tooth -- and then gum him until I die," That is the kind of strength we need, We need it because the fight is fierce and the struggle is continuous, We need strength to sustain our efforts not just for the occasional burst of energy but for the discipleship long haul. After the Battle of the Bulge during World War II, one German officer described the capture of an American unit early in the fighting. Among the booty was a box that contained a cake. What was remarkable about the cake is that it had been sent to an American soldier from Boston and it was still fresh. The German described his feelings when he realized that the Americans had the resources to fly over cakes from home even in the midst of a global war. He said that he knew then, that they would never defeat an enemy that had such resources for the waging of the battle. That is the kind of support we need. We need the support that is not merely adequate but absolutely lavish. That is the kind of support we have from our Lord. It is true that the principalities and powers are strong but God is stronger. John writes in 1 John 4:4, "Greater is He (the Holy Spirit) who is in you than he (the devil) who is in the world." This passage causes us to confront a dimension of reality that we might like to ignore. But I am glad that the passage is here because it forces us to take a bigger view of our lives and of all that God is seeking to do through us. We are engaged in a spiritual conflict of tremendous dimensions. Next Sunday we will take a closer look at what Paul says about the enemy we face. Then, in future weeks we will look at the armor and equipment with which God supplies us for the fight. |
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