Reflections on "Gifts You Can't Buy at the Store: A New Direction" Matthew 2: 1-12; 2 Corinthians 5: 16-21

This was my favorite sermon topic of the series when I began the sermon.  Not sure it turned out to be the best sermon of the series, but...

The difference between the Chapel sermon, when I preached from the pulpit with notes easily available, and the Sanctuary sermon, when I preached without the pulpit and notes less accessible, was the most pronounced of the series.  Not sure which worked better.  The liturgist (my daughter Caitlin) quickly noted when I sat down after the sermon in the Sanctuary service that the ending worked better in the Sanctuary service!  I had already made some mental adjustments to conclusion after the Chapel service, and I have added them in the sermon text below.

Two weeks without a sermon series (Bicentennial themed sermon this Sunday and then the Annual meeting service the next Sunday), but then I begin a lengthy series entitled: "Jesus 101" or "Jesus Is the One Who..."

Here's the sermon.

“Gifts You Can't Buy at the Store: A New Direction” January 6, 2013; Epiphany Sunday; FPC, Troy; Matthew 2: 1-12;

Introduction: Texas A&M Nutcracker; as you can guess, a Christmas gift for my wife; order the second week of December and due to arrive by Dec. 21, then Dec. 22, then the 24^th, then, without explanation, due to arrive on January 2; if finally arrived on January 4;

I didn't even wrap it. I took it out of the package, Leslie looked at it, and then it went straight into the storage box; straight from the mailing box to the storage box on its way to the attic.

Christmas gifts that arrive late are a bit anti-climactic.

This last gift you can't buy in the store, the gift of a new direction, arrives late in the Christmas story. God de3livers it to the wise men, who have arrived to see Christ long after the excitement of his birth, long after the angels have sung in the night, long after the shepherds have come and gone.

But this last gift delivers life-saving, life-changing opportunities.

Move 1: The gift of new direction saves.

a. Danger is in the air at this point in the story as told by the Gospel of Matthew.

1. The wise men have had to ask King Herod for directions, and when King Herod hears they are going to find the newborn King of the Jews, he recognizes a threat to his power and plots to kill.
2. He invites the wise men to stop by on their way home and tell them about this baby they seek.
3. We do not know if Herod planned to kill the wise men, but his actions indicate that is what he planned for baby Jesus.
4. But like a GPS that reroutes drivers to avoid problems in the route ahead, the wise men are warned in a dream to take a different route home.
5. That buys enough time for Joseph and Mary to flee with baby Jesus to Egypt to escape King Herod's wrath and it keep the wise men out of the clutches of an angry King Herod.
6. The new direction God gave the wise men new direction to protect them. How do new directions protect/save us? I'm thinking about interactive GPS that reroute us around traffic accidents.

b. The new direction God gives the wise men reveals again God persistent desire to save.

1. King Herod represents the ways of the world that threaten us.
2. The desire for power; the desire to control; the worldview that has no room for others and sees everyone and everything as a threat.
3. God offers us a new direction, one that saves us from the King Herod's of the world.

Move 2: The gift of new direction saves us, but also invites us to follow a new path.

a. The wise men go home a different way.

1. I have driven from Troy to Texas enough times that the route unfolds like an old friend. I know the Burger King in OKC that is a great place to stop when we've left before dawn from my mother's house; then there's the exit in Tulsa that is the last gas stop before the Turnpike begins; there's a place on I-44 where I had a 1:00 am conversation with my sister in Spokane one summer as my girls slept in the van and I took advantage of the three hour time difference; downtown Indianapolis means we are almost home (or just getting started depending on which direction we're headed). There is comfort in the familiar route.

2. The wise men will find no landmarks that they had passed on the way to Bethlehem because they are returning a different path

3. Every unfamiliar turn is a reminder that their lives have been radically changed by meeting this baby born in Bethlehem.

b. That's the way it should be, shouldn't it? Meet the Christ-child and suddenly the world looks different.

1. that's what happened to the Apostle Paul.

2. He starts down the road to Damascus as Saul, the persecutor of Christian; he meets the Risen Christ; and then finishes the journey as Paul, who will become the great evangelizer of Christians.

3. No wonder he writes to the Corinthians the words we read this morning.

4. Everyone who is in Christ is a new creation.

5. We no longer regard the world from a human point of view.
   
   
   c. “The Journey of the Magi,” T. S. Eliot writes:

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

Full poem can be found at http://allpoetry.com/poem/8453741-The_Journey_Of_The_Magi-by-T_S__Elio

1. Eliot envisions the world of magi after they have met Christ and sees world that appears different to the magi.

2. Has the world changed? No, but they have been changed by Christ coming into the world?

3. What does it mean on your life that you have met God in flesh?

Conclusion: gift of a compass; I suppose you might have preferred gold, frankincense, or myrrh from the story in Matthew.

The compass is a small gift (admittedly purchased in a store), but a reminder of the God who meets you in Christ and sends you in new directions.