AtomToo Smart for the Manger?
Matthew 2:1-12
I love this little story: Little Joey was moving up in the Sunday School world; he had just been promoted from the 4th grade class to the 5th grade. Coming out of church after class, he met his former teacher, whom he liked a great deal and regretted losing as a teacher. “Mr. Smith,” he said, “I sure wish you were smart enough to teach me this year!” I chuckle whenever I hear that, but unfortunately there is an element of truth in it, in the way we view the Christian faith as we grow older and smarter. Many of us not only outgrow our Sunday School teachers, but we also begin to believe that we outgrow the need to grow in faith or even the need to believe in silly stuff like a Christmas story about a virgin having a baby in a sheep barn.
I may have shared this with some of you before, but I will never forget an experience I had at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji. Again, my wife, Holly, and I were a part of an Outreach group from Concordia that was visiting the Islands. After a particular time of singing about and sharing the story of Christ and our own Christian faith, one of the students came up and shared her utter amazement that we were all American college graduates. In her eyes it was utterly fantastic that we should have so much education and still take this Christian stuff seriously. In her developing country, she saw religion as superstition and the domain of the old and the uneducated. To be educated was to outgrow such need for religion and to move on.
She is certainly not alone in this assumption. Many people today see belief in Jesus, the virgin birth, the resurrection and a personal relationship with God’s Son as a crutch for emotional cripples who don’t have enough intelligence to figure out life on their own. As one high school student responded when asked if he had prayed before his physics test, “Why should I pray for help to a God who probably doesn’t even know what a [laser beam] is?”
I believe it is a great temptation as we grow older and smarter to begin to think that we are too smart for God. We think we know enough to make it on our own without God. And yet isn’t that the very temptation that started us down the road of separation from God – the temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden? “If you eat of the fruit on the tree,” the tempter said, “You will have all knowledge. You will know what God knows. And you won’t need God!”
Whenever we become so tempted – whenever we begin to think that we are too smart for the manger – I think it wise to read the story of the magi once again, as we did today. It is a part of the story of Jesus that we dare not miss the importance of. These were not ignorant, down-on-their-luck shepherds who came to find the Christ child. They were not helpless children. They were men of science and learning – and even of wealth, judging by their gifts! They were men skilled at finding answers to life’s questions…questions like, “Why are we here?” “Does the universe have order and direction and if so, why?” They asked and sought answers to questions of the heart and mind…questions that have not changed all that much in thousands of years.
What I’m trying to say is that these Magi who came to Jesus were not dummies. They were most likely astrologers since they studied and followed stars. And in their day, astrology was considered a calculated science which provided insight into an orderly and predictable universe - not unlike our view of science today. But the interesting thing to me about their particular story is that the pursuit of knowledge did not take them away from God but rather toward God. It brought not greater skepticism, but greater commitment.
For some it still does. Last week I was in a big Nature story studying a whole wall of butterflies mounted for collectors. I had no idea there were so many varieties that looked so much alike and yet were so different upon closer examination. The variety and complexity of the natural world around us is almost beyond comprehension, which is why most scientists have to specialize to even begin to have a handle on their subject. As I looked and wondered, I was reminded of a little piece of writing I came across by one Dr. B. H. Shadduck, doctor of Entomology – a Doctor of bugs, that is. Of his study of bees, he wrote:
Here is a little bee that organizes a city, that builds 10,000 cells for honey, 12,000 cells for larvae, a [special inner sanctuary for the queen mother bee]; a little bee that observes the increasing heat, and when the wax may melt and the honey be lost, organizes the swarm into squads, puts sentinels at the entrances, glues the feet down, and then, with flying wings, creates a system of ventilation to cool the honey that makes an electric fan seem tawdry; here is a little bee that will include 20 square miles in the field over whose flowers it has oversight. And if a tiny brain in a bee performs such wonders, who am I to question the existence and guidance of God who guides my life with such wisdom and purpose?
And so also believed the Wise Ones – the Magi. They did not discard their scientific training to seek out the Son of God. In fact they used that very knowledge to guide their journey. “We have seen his star while yet in the East,” they told those who wondered at why they had come so far.
And yet, just because they were wise, doesn’t mean that they always got everything right! For one thing, they ended up in the wrong town in looking for Jesus. It seemed logical to them that the king of the Jews should be born in Jerusalem, the center of academic learning and study and the capital city of the Jewish nation. It would be similar to seeking a leader in Washington, D.C. if one were to come to the United States. It is logical that if Jesus were to come in the flesh today that he wouldn’t be born in Detroit Lakes, MN. If he were to come today, one would expect him to be born in the center of power in the U.S.
And yet God never has and probably never will fit into our kind of logic. We may use our sciences to understand how God has worked and created up to this point in history, but God will invariably use other means to accomplish God’s purpose than that which makes sense to us. Jerusalem made sense to the Magi. God chose Bethlehem.
How often that happens. How often God comes in ways we do not expect. How different the wisdom of God is from our wisdom. And that may be a good thing, because history has shown that our wisdom doesn’t always solve our problems. Sometimes it makes things worse. We know that. And the Magi knew it, too.
They no doubt knew of the struggles of the Jewish nation to find freedom and independence. They could probably predict from all their studies that there would continue to be years of conflict and slavery. They could see all the political forces pitted against each other in the Eastern world.
We can do the same kind of analysis and prediction. Today we can identify how it is that we’ve gotten into the political and economic messes that we’ve gotten into. And yet diagnosis and solution are two quite different things. Science and knowledge help – thanks be to God for science and knowledge – but they rarely offer the love needed to heal conflict and to empower neighbors to forgive one another. The unresolved conflicts in so much of our world are not for lack of knowledge!
And so the magi concluded, as many present day scientists have concluded, that pure knowledge does not save us. We still need a Savior. We still need someone to deliver us from ourselves, from our own self-seeking, from our own moral and physical brokenness. And so they came looking for this one born king of the Jews, Jesus the Son of God. And having seen him, and having somehow recognized what God was doing in the world, they bowed and worshipped and offered the best that they had – their best gifts.
As have many great and wise minds who find themselves eventually bowing to the One who came not only to redeem our Souls, but also our hearts and minds. Jesus offers something beyond that which science and knowledge offers. The great philosopher Socrates taught for forty years. Plato taught for fifty. Aristotle for forty. Jesus taught for three years. Yet those three years have had greater influence on the affairs of this world than the combined 130 years of teaching of Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates – three of the greatest thinkers of human civilization.
Again, Jesus painted no pictures; yet the paintings of artists Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci received their inspiration from him. Jesus wrote no poetry; but Dante, Milton, and scores of the world’s other great poets were inspired by him. Jesus composed no music; still Handel, Beethoven, and Bach reached their highest perfection in the hymns, symphonies, and oratorios written in His praise. The Magi – the wise ones – in every age have bowed before him and offered their gifts. They have recognized the unique contribution Jesus brings to the human race – forgiveness of sin and life with fullness and purpose and peace with God. Philosophy could not offer that – nor art – nor literature – nor science. Only Jesus Christ in his birth, life, death and resurrection breaks the power of sin; only Jesus speaks “power into the soul without strength and life unto the dead.”
Too smart for the manger? Let’s hope not…I believe the Magi would tell us this morning…no, God would tell us…that the old bumper sticker is still true: Wise men (and women) still seek him! It’s just the smart thing to do! Let’s pray…
Lord God, you have given us wonderful gifts of intellect and wisdom, for which we are grateful. Only help us to not confuse the gift with the giver and to recognized the true light and life that comes alone from you. Amen.
Page 1 of 1 comment pages