Matthew 2:1-12

&nb= sp;

All of life can announce God’s worth.=

A sermon preached by

Rev. William O. (Bud) = Reeves

First United Methodist Church

Hot= Springs, Arkansas

January 6, 2008

On June 3, 2006, Michael Emmanuel, Jr., celebrated his sixth birthday. Friends and family gathered at the= local Chuck E. Cheese in Boca Raton<= /st1:City>, Florida, for the party. The party itself went just fine—pizza, games, live theater, the works. The problem came when it was over.= All the children and adults climbed into three different vehicles and headed ho= me. Everyone, that is, except Michael Emmanuel, Jr.

Apparently, the 6-year-old returned to the play area without anyone noticing, and when = the party-goers departed, he was left behind. Employees found Michael wandering around the restaurant at 10 p.m. and called the police. Michael's mother had assumed that h= er son was staying with his grandmother, and didn't even realize he was missing un= til the next morning. =

Unfortunately, it is possible to have a joyful celebration and still forget the guest of honor. I am not making this u= p: they forgot Emmanuel![1]

There is a danger that we can go right through the Christmas celebration and forg= et Emmanuel—to leave Jesus out of the party. And there is a danger, as we begin= the New Year, to let the celebration of Christ’s birth fade into memory a= nd not let it have any relevance for our real lives in the real world in 2008.=

For that reason, I want to remind you of the Wise Men. They are the final act of the Chri= stmas drama. They arrive late for t= he party; after all, they had to come a very long way. It may have been as much as two ye= ars after the birth of Jesus. But= when they arrived, they worshipped him. And so they remind us, finally, of what the Christmas story is all about.

Human beings are wired= for worship. Every person worships. Every person has a god—a person, thing, or event that is the ultimate in life. That’s the way we work; we worship. The trick is to wors= hip the right God, the real God, not one of those little false, fake, fickle gods—handmade, human, and temporary.= No, we want the big-G God, the One who will give us life abundant and eternal.

If you want to worship= this God, then look at the Wise Men. They provide a great model for us.&= nbsp; This is how you worship; this is how you respond to the Christmas ev= ent; this is how you remember Jesus. Matthew says the Wise Men “opened their treasure chests, and offe= red him gifts.”[2] Let’s look at the gifts today= and see if we can figure out the best way to worship.<= /p>

= First, we WORSHIP CHRIST MATERIALLY. This is what the first gift me= ans, the gift of gold. I don’= ;t have to explain that gift, except to say that a natural response of devotio= n to God is to give of our wealth to him. He doesn’t need the gift, but we need to give it. The Bible knows no separation of physical and spiritual; it’s all part of the fabric of life. When we have a spiritual relations= hip with God, it’s going to show in material ways.

= Did you read your Upper Room this week? Patricia Summey, a schoolteacher in Texas, wrote about a canned-food drive they did in her inner-city school. Just before Thanksgiving, they bega= n to collect food for the needy. E= ach class had a decorated box, and the kids would bring their cans to add to the growing number.

= The last day of the drive, Patricia saw one of her first graders smiling broadl= y as he proudly brought a big can to place in the box. She noticed the can had a white lab= el, so she secretly looked to see what the black letters said: "Commodity Bon= ed Chicken." The kid had br= ought food from a government food program. He had no way of knowing that his family had been chosen to receive = some of the food collected. He just brought an offering from his family’s meager pantry. He wanted to share in the act of g= iving to someone in need. It was a material act of worship.[3]

= God knows we are physical beings in a material world. He made us this way. So he gives us resources that we c= an use to worship him—our time, our energy, our wealth, our talents. He gives us physical reminders like bread and wine, real evidence of his grace and mercy, so we don’t for= get he is Emmanuel—God with us. If we’re going to worship Christ, we will worship materially.<= b>

= Second, we WORSHIP CHRIST SPIRITUALLY.= The heart of worship is a deep spi= ritual encounter between a child of God and our heavenly Father. That what the Wise Men meant when = they gave the gift of frankincense. Frankincense is an aromatic sap from a plant in the Middle East that was burned in worship services. Frankincense was the essence of divinity, the smell of God. It brought worshippers into the holy Presence.

= How does your worship smell? How = does it taste? Like bread and grape juice? What does it feel like= ? Can you touch the presence of God = when you worship? Is there an atmo= sphere of the Spirit all around when you come into his house? One of the best compliments I rece= ive on our worship is when somebody says, “I could just feel the presence of= God in your church.”

= The late Rich Mullins, a pioneering Christian musician who was tragically kille= d in a car wreck, was always attentive to the spiritual atmosphere of worship. He chose which church to attend no= t on the basis of the quality of the leadership or the music, but on the devotio= n of the people. Eric Hauck, a clo= se friend of Rich Mullins, recalled being in a worship service just a few days before Rich died. A group of = people had come together, and anyone who could play an instrument was invited to p= lay and sing praise to God. Music= ally it was chaos—out of tune, fourteen different rhythms—it sounded awful. Finally they asked Ric= h and Eric to lead the singing to give the noise some order. Mullins took the microphone and sa= id, “I love to be in the church. I love to listen to people sing and play with their hearts. In my profession (contemporary Chr= istian music) we worry about being in tune and sounding good. But this music is the music that i= s the most pleasing to God, because it is so real, and it comes from the hearts o= f the children of God.”[4] As he spoke, Rich got choked up; i= t was the last time his friend Eric saw him cry.

= Spiritual worship is the cry of the heart for fellowship with God. It doesn’t have to be perfec= t, any more than we have to be perfect to be in communion with him. It just has to be real. Is your worship spiritual? Are you being real with Jesus?

= Third, we WORSHIP CHRIST SACRIFICIALLY. The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross= is foreshadowed when the Wise Men give the gift of myrrh, a burial spice used to anoint the dead. Not your typical baby gift! How much embalming flui= d do you see at baby showers? But = from the very beginning, the shadow of Calvary fell across the path of Jesus. And= there is no way we can worship him in spirit and in truth without taking seriously the sacrificial part. Worship= can fill us up in many ways, but worship also takes something out of us. Worship cleanses us of the ideas a= nd actions and attitudes that separate us from God. When we really worship, we cannot = be content any more to live with hatred and resentment and guilt and prejudice= and lust in our hearts. We have t= o take the garbage out.

= Another Upper Room devotional from seve= ral years ago: Robert J. Eckert from California wrote about the wonderful activities he enjoys on Sundays—worship in = the church, prayer, nature walks, rest, and conversations with loved ones. Then, the last thing he does on Su= nday is to roll the garbage can out to the curb, because his trash service picks= up on Monday morning. He did not choose Monday mornings as trash pick-up day, but that act of taking out the garbage has become a meaningful part of his Sabbath experience. It reminds him that worship includ= es recognition of changes that need to be made and confession of sin and recep= tion of forgiveness and resolution to behave better. After worship, we ought to enter t= he new week with all our trash emptied![5]

Then, with our trash hauled away, we are free = to give of ourselves to others. = This is the sacrificial part. Jesus had a date with the cross from the day he was born. When we follow him, how= can we think that our spiritual path will be easy—without risk or commitm= ent or a need for courage? = True worship leads to service. Encountering Christ commands a response from us—not just on Sunday, but every day of the week. Worship happens, not just inside the walls of the church, but in the offices and the schools and the stores and the restaurants and anywhere we = have a chance to put our faith into action.&nbs= p; That’s where we come face to face with God.

There is a splendid moment in the movie Jurassic Park, when world-class paleontologist Allen Grant, who has devoted his life to the study of dinosaurs, suddenly comes face-to-face with real, live prehistoric creatures. He falls to the gr= ound, dumbstruck. The reason is obvious. <= /span>It is one thing to piece together an informed but nonetheless imperfect image = of dinosaurs by picking through fossils and bones. But to encounter an actual dinosaur—there is no comparison.[6]

For many people, spirituality amounts to picki= ng through the artifacts of faith that survive from long ago and far away. Maybe in ancient times, people saw = God, heard his voice, and experienced his awesome power. But that was then. What about now? What if we came face to face with = God today? What if you had such a gripping, c= lose, personal encounter with the living God that you could smell, taste, touch, = feel his presence? Wouldn’t = that be awesome? Wouldn’t th= at be worship?

Worship is not just for Sundays—or even Wednesdays! Real worship is w= hole life worship. All of life can announce the worth of God. That’s what the word “worship” means: giving worth= to God. However and whenever we = can declare him worthy, however and whenever we can give glory to God, thatR= 17;s worship. That’s life!

= Christian Wiman, editor of Poetry magazin= e, got the news on the afternoon of his 39^th birthday that he had a rar= e, mysterious form of cancer in his blood.&nb= sp; Trying to make sense of his life, even in his illness, especially in his illness, he was = driven to worship. He wrote, “One morning we found ourselves going to church. Found ourselves. That's exactly= what it felt like, in both senses of the phrase, as if some impulse in each of us had finally been catalyzed into action, so that we were casting aside the Sunday paper and moving toward the door with barely a word between us; and = as if, once inside the church, we were discovering exactly where and who we we= re meant to be. That first servi= ce was excruciating, in that it seemed to tear all wounds wide open, and it was profoundly comforting, in that it seemed to offer the only possible balm. …

= “So now I bow my head and try to pray in the mornings, …because to once f= eel the presence of God is to feel his absence all the more acutely. …I g= o to church on Sundays …because faith is not a state of mind but an action= in the world, a movement toward the world. How charged this one hour of the we= ek is for me, and how I cherish it…”[7]

= Bottom line: life is worship. Do you= want to remember the bi= rthday Boy, to respond to the gift of Christmas, to start off the New Year in a spiritual way? Then worship C= hrist materially, worship Christ spiritually, worship Christ sacrificially. Then all of your life will give God glory; every day will be an encounter with Emmanuel. It will all be worship. Amen!