Strangers in the house of the Lord

Christmas: God Remembers to be Merciful
December 23 Strangers in the house of the Lord - Matthew 2:1-12
Dennis Mullen

Every once in awhile I think of something I should have said in a message after I preach it (I usually think of three or four things I shouldn’t have said too!) Last week I preached about the Kingdom of Herod vs. the Kingdom of God and I challenged you to choose your alliance deliberately and carefully. Will it be Herod’s Kingdom, symbolized by money, popularity, and power over others? Or will it be God’s Kingdom, which sometimes seems to be losing, and which takes an act of faith to choose?

The thing I forgot to say was: How foolish of Mary to sing that song, that Magnificat, and say all that she said about God putting down her enemies! Mary, a poor, pregnant peasant girl! We saw in the film clip how Herod had a ring in these people’s noses, how he stole from them to build up his own empire and his status with Rome. He had armed soldiers and horses and chariots and he was ruthless enough to see that his kingdom would never end. How arrogant of Mary to sing this song about God lifting up the likes of her and tramping down Herod and even Caesar! How often do you really see that happening? Even today, as far as we can see, the people with the most guns win, and in my lifetime there have been generations of people in a place like China who have never known anything but the iron fist of the government. How could Mary sing like that?

A question, though: Where do you go if you want to learn about the Kingdom of Herod and Caesar, the Empire that covered half the world 2,000 years ago? To a library. To Wikipedia. To a museum where you can see some moldy artifacts behind glass. That’s what’s left of the Empire.

Where can you go to see the Kingdom of Mary’s baby? Here. New York. Denver. England. Italy. Papua New Guinea. Mongolia. Africa. Russia. Korea. In China, it’s a hundred million strong!

Jesus said “Don’t store up your treasures here…” and “Don’t gain THIS world and lose your soul”.

It’s hard to be an illegal immigrant. Sometimes I think that if we have never been poor and desperate, we don’t have enough life-experience to have the strong opinions on illegal immigration that we often have. To be desperate, poor, and on the run is a tough place to be…

Wilfredo Garza lived the life of an illegal immigrant for more than 35 years. Year after year, he eked out a living crossing the border from Mexico into the United States—some days finding work, some days not. Regardless, he was constantly looking over his shoulder. He was caught by the Border Patrol four times during that period and bused back to Mexico every time. Undeterred by each apprehension, he swam back across the Rio Grande to try again.

The cycle would likely have continued for several more years if not for an amazing discovery. One day, Wilfredo worked up the courage to walk into an immigration lawyer's office. There, incredibly, he found out that his father was born in Texas and spent time working there, which meant that Wilfredo was actually a U.S. citizen!

All these years he possessed the very papers—his father's birth certificate and work records—that proved his citizenship, and yet he lived in guilt and fear. Now he has a certificate of citizenship. Now he doesn't have to sneak across the border; he can walk through the main gate. From Preaching Today and Anderson Cooper, "360 Blog, 5.24.06

It’s hard for us to understand how important a gang tattoo is for a boy or young man in certain parts of Los Angeles. You might get it when you’re 13, 14 or 15 and it symbolizes acceptance into a brotherhood, protection, identity.

It also binds you to a criminal lifestyle. When you’re 20 or 25 and you see a chance to break out of that damaging life, that tattoo is a permanent mark on you that says “No, you’re not going anywhere. You’re part of the gang.” Gang tattoos prevent you from getting jobs and can get you killed on the streets when you run into the wrong people.

That’s why a priest in East LA has put together a gang of doctors trained in laser technology to provide, as a ministry, free removal of these tattoos. A guy trying to wipe the slate clean needs to have the tattoo wiped clean too.

One thing about this procedure is that it is extremely painful – like sitting still while someone drips hot grease on your arm, some say. And yet there is a long waiting list of guys ready to sit through it to be free. What once seemed like life to them – belonging to this gang – is now death. What seemed like freedom is now slavery and they are anxious to wipe away that mark of ownership and put the past behind them. Story from Ravi Zacharias International Ministries - Jill Carattini, "A Slice of Infinity," No. 1186, rzim.org (6-23-06).

I’ll bet that you can draw some spiritual meaning out of each of these stories. If you have the tattoo of your former way of life on you and everyone still judges you by it, how awesome to have it wiped away, whether it says Adultery or Drunkenness or Druggie or Thief or Liar or worse. It may have seemed like freedom when you started down those roads, but then it enslaved you and when YOU decided to leave it behind, you found that you couldn’t, that the mark was still upon you, and then you heard: “What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”

Or that guy who lived for 35 years, sneaking back and forth across the border, working poorly-paying cash jobs, just getting by, living in fear…and then discovering that he had every right to be here, that he was in fact an American and all he had to do was claim it…that’s a story with gospel overtones if ever there was one! ANYONE can come into the house of God and become part of the family, but how many years did you spend thinking you had to earn it first or prove your worthiness, or maybe just stay out of God’s way and try to not get sent back over the border?

The common thread between these two stories is the theme of BELONGING vs. NOT belonging. Mr. Garza was a stranger, an alien in this country because he didn’t know that it was his native land and that he was welcome here if only he would claim that blessing. And these young men in LA, who now want to break free from a destructive lifestyle and live higher find themselves as strangers and aliens in their own native land because they made a choice and got this tattoo and pledged their allegiance to another power. To reclaim their inheritance they have to receive a free gift and have the slate wiped clean, which may end up hurting a bit, which is often the case when you give up part of yourself.

Now we know…do we not?...that Jesus was born into this world for such as these, and that in one way or another, we are all such as these, strangers in the house of God. That’s why THIS is so appropriate:

MT 2:1 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him."

MT 2:3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people's chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. 5 "In Bethlehem in Judea," they replied, "for this is what the prophet has written:

MT 2:6 " `But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.' "

MT 2:7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him."

MT 2:9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

Magi – magicians, star-gazers – some call them astrologers. Certainly they were foreigners, and most definitely they were strangers in the house of God. In the OT, your pedigree mattered a great deal, and for the Israelites, there was but one correct way to learn about the coming Messiah, and that through the Law and the Prophets. But these guys didn’t fit any mold. They weren’t Israelites and astrology wasn’t well-thought-of in the OT. For example, God says in Isaiah 37:13-14…

ISA 47:13 All the counsel you have received has only worn you out!
Let your astrologers come forward,
those stargazers who make predictions month by month,
let them save you from what is coming upon you.

ISA 47:14 Surely they are like stubble;
the fire will burn them up.
They cannot even save themselves
from the power of the flame.

Astrology is connected in the OT with things like witchcraft, divination and idol worship, and rightly so. And as such, magi are among the strangest candidates to be invited to the worship of the newborn king.

Some people think that these magi, being perhaps from Persia and Babylon (Iran and Iraq) may have had some knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures because of all the years that these countries held Israelites in their borders as slaves. Remember Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? Captives in Babylon, but they rose to power and influence there. Remember Esther? A captive in Persia, but she rose up to become Queen of the realm.

There is actually an interesting point of contact with Daniel. King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream, and in Daniel 2 he calls all of his magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and astrologers to tell him what he had dreamed – not just to interpret the dream (because any phony can make up a good interpretation) but to actually tell him what it means. They fail, but then God gives Daniel the dream and the interpretation. What is hidden from the astrologers is revealed to God’s prophet.

In Matthew 2, God’s son is born, and the priests and rulers of Israel know nothing about it, and that’s because they have wandered far from God and have invested in this present kingdom. So WHO comes to THEM with the revelation of God’s will? The astrologers. What is hidden from God’s priests and leaders is revealed to strangers in the house of God.

Hebrews 11:6 says: And without faith it is impossible to please God (a strong negative…but now hear the positive), because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. When it came time for God to send his Son, the religious leaders weren’t seeking him. Magi from the east were. So strangers in God’s house got to honor the newborn king, and the regular residents missed it.

The point of all this is that there are indeed strangers in the house of the Lord, but the reason they are strangers, the reason they don’t belong isn’t because of race or nationality or former membership in a gang or any past crime or sin for that matter, nor does it have to do with gender or age…. True strangers in the house of the Lord are those who come in to his house for their own personal gain…to build their own power base in the Kingdom of this world. Herod, for all his evil ways, was a religious man. The priests and rulers who had Jesus crucified were careful to do it in a way that didn’t violate the ceremonial laws of their religion.

And even today, people come to church not to seek God but because it is a place where you can exercise a certain kind of power – be it raw political power, or the power of your looks or personality, or the power of money. But there is nothing down that road other than emptiness. Lloyd Ogilvie says: “The institutional church in America is filled with religious people who desperately need an experience of the living, holy, forgiving, gracious God.” Leadership, Vol. 10, no. 3.

In Acts 17, Paul visited Athens and he saw a lot of pagan temples, and it was almost like the Athenians were trying to cover every possible god they could think of. Then he found an altar with the inscription “To an unknown God”. Paul could have attacked them for their ignorance or idolatry, but instead he sensed by the Holy Spirit that they were, like the Magi, seeking for God, even though they were going down a lot of wrong roads. So he said, “I’m going to tell you about this unknown God”.

AC 17:24 "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 `For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, `We are his offspring.'”

God wants us to seek him. But he isn’t far away. In fact, we live and breathe and move around in him all day. We are his offspring.

Strangers in God’s house are seeking themselves, just like the world says to, only their using religion to do it. God wants us to seek him.

C. S. Lewis said: Look for yourself and you will find in the long run hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find him, and with him everything else thrown in.

Morrison Hill Christian Church
P.O. Box 59 - 1008 E. Race St.
Kingston, TN 37763 (865) 376-5205