The Only Threat We Face from Jesus: Greater Peace and Love.

The Rev. Brad Sullivan

Lord of the Streets, Houston

January 5, 2025

2 Christmas, C

Isaiah 61:10-62:3

Psalm 84

Matthew 2:1-12

King Herod feared that his power was going to be taken from him. He was king over Israel, but he was not accepted as much of a king by many because his Jewishness was in doubt by some. His family had been forcibly converted decades before, so there were questions. Was he truly Jewish in his heart, or was he just claiming to be Jewish because by doing so he got to remain as king. We don’t really know his heart, but we do know that his kingship was in question by some and his kingdom was under Roman rule, so his hold on power was not as strong as he would have liked. 

With this challenging political atmosphere, there suddenly arrived these foreign, mystic, astrologer type folks, these magi from the east, who came to Herod claiming the birth of a new Jewish king. Ok, it’s one thing if some of Herod’s subject claim a new king was born. He could just imprison them or kill them, but for people from another country to come to him claiming a new Jewish king has been born, well that means that potentially an entire other nation believes that Herod is no longer king of Israel, but that this new baby is now the Jewish king instead of Herod. 

Now, Herod was at least Jewish enough to know that the prophets had foretold the birth of a Messiah, one who would be the forever king to replace all other kings. Herod knew that this baby, whom foreigners were claiming to be King of the Jews, might have been this God-anointed forever-king, and rather than figure, “Cool, that’s God’s will; let’s go with this,” Herod wanted to keep his power and therefore wanted to kill Jesus. 

He lied to the Magi, telling them he wanted to pay homage to Jesus, and as we find just after the portion of the Gospel we heard today, Herod indeed tried to kill Jesus. Fear had a tight grip on Herod.

“Keep my power,” Herod thought. Even if it goes against God’s will. Even if I have to kill a baby to do it. “Keep my power.” 

Herod is, of course, not the only person to live in fear and do terrible things to try to keep his power. On new year’s day, a man killed at least 14 people in New Orleans, and he was trying to kill a whole lot more. We’re not sure what power he wanted to keep, but we can bet there was some kind of power he felt he or others no longer had. Terrorists kill to try to get power back from those they feel have taken it from them.

Look at our political elections where people routinely lie and intentionally just make stuff up in order to win elections and keep power. People in business spend countless millions of dollars to influence laws and regulations so that their businesses get to keep their power, their market share, their profit. People who are angry at another will fight, steal from, and even kill to keep or reclaim their power. 

Like Herod, when it comes to keeping our power, there seems no limit to what we humans are willing to do. “We wouldn’t kill babies, of course,” we tell ourselves, “not like Herod.” Well, if we lived in Herod’s day, raised by Herod’s parents, and in that precarious kingship like Herod, we may well have tried to kill Jesus just like Herod did.

For those who are still sure that they wouldn’t have done that, the point is not whose sin is worse than whose. The point is, all of us are in the grip of fear, and all of us fight against God’s will in order to keep our power. Every single person in this world fights against God’s will in order to keep their power, and even more importantly, this is the world, and we are the people God chose to save. 

There must be something pretty darn fantastic about us if God chose to save us in this world, as this world is, and as we are, constantly fighting God’s will to keep our power, God chose to save us, and to do so, God became one of us. 

Amidst all of our crud, and we’ve got a lot of crud, we must, at our core, be pretty fantastic indeed if God chose to become one of us. We lie, we cheat, we steal, and yet God sees something in us that is astoundingly beautiful. God sees something in us far more beautiful than we can know or see. I daresay, if we saw what God sees, then we might wouldn’t be so terrible to one another. 

Perhaps, if we saw what God sees in one another, then we wouldn’t be so keen to hold onto power or to wrest power away from others. We might forgive a little easier, be a little slower to anger, assume something better than the worst in others, if we could see just how wonderful God sees us all being. 

I have a feeling that if we could see what God sees, we’d be blown away by how much bigger and more beautiful this world is, how much bigger and more beautiful this life is than we can know and see. Our hearts would be filled with the love and peace of God, and we would no longer be afraid. Seeing this world and this life as God sees it, we would no longer be afraid of losing our power, because we’d see that all of our power is contained within God’s power. We would no longer be afraid even of losing our lives, because we would see that our lives are all contained within God’s life. 

That is the love and peace Jesus had as he lost all earthly power and as he lost his life on the cross. Jesus could see his power and his life bound up together within God’s power and life, and so Jesus was at peace. He wasn’t happy about being killed; he didn’t love it, but he was at peace. 

The times when we find Jesus seemingly not at peace are not the times when people tried to take his power, but the times when Jesus saw us taking one another’s power, treating one another terribly. That’s when Jesus wasn’t at peace, when he saw people harming one another. That’s because he sees us as we truly are. He sees the life and beauty within us that we are so often too blinded by fear to see. Where Jesus sees a beautiful and beloved brother or sister, we often see a threat, like Herod did.

A beautiful baby was born, the beauty of scripture was fulfilled, and a life of hope and promise was brought into this wonderful world, and all Herod saw was a threat. 

Jesus, of course, wasn’t a threat. He wasn’t a threat to Herod, to his rule, or to his power. Jesus wasn’t trying take any of that way from Herod. No, the only threat Jesus posed to Herod was that if he had still been alive when Jesus began his ministry, Herod might have heard Jesus’ teachings, seen Jesus’ miracles, believed in Jesus’ and changed his ways to follow the way, the truth, and the life of Jesus. I daresay, Herod would have found a great deal of peace and love if he had done that. 

Finding greater peace and love, that’s the only threat we face from Jesus as well. If we choose to believe in him, if we choose to follow him as the way, the truth, and the life, then we just might find greater peace and love within ourselves. Doing so will change our lives, change our ways. We may give up or give away some of our power for the sake of others. We may find peace enough not to constantly try to wrest power from others. 

Our lives do indeed change when we choose to believe in Jesus and follow Jesus. We begin to see others as he sees us. We begin to see the world as he sees it. Fear begins to lose its hold on us, and we fall instead into the arms of peace and love. That’s the threat that Jesus poses to us. No taking our place, no taking our power, just falling into the arms of peace and love.

Flawed Dreams and Unexpected Love

Brad Sullivan

The Epiphany, Year C

January 6, 2019

Emmanuel, Houston

Isaiah 60:1-6

Matthew 2:1-12

Flawed Dreams and Unexpected Love

Happy Epiphany y’all.  Christmas ended yesterday, and the joy of Christmas now continues on in the Epiphany, the revelation of Jesus, of the God-baby to the nations through the Magi, and if I’m being honest, I feel the joy of Christmas continued on into Epiphany, and at the same time, I’m having a hard time feeling the joy right now.  Over the first five to six days of Christmas, I really got to feel the joy of Christmas and let everything else fade into the background.  I was at Camp Allen with my family on a clergy family retreat the weekend after Christmas, and other clergy were concerned about Emmanuel after Andy’s death, and they kept asking me, “How are you?”, not just to say “hi” but actually wondering how I was, with the knowing expression in their voices, expecting a sad response. 

My answer shocked several folks because I said, “I’m doing great.”  One friend seemed a little confused by my answer and said, “I’m sorry, I thought you were working with Andy at Emmanuel.”  “No,” I told him, “I was, I am.  It’s just that for right now, I’m enjoying time with my family.  For right now, it’s a great Christmas and I get to just be with my family through New Year’s.  For right now,” I told him, “Andy hasn’t died.  When I get back, he’ll have died again, and I’ll begin mourning again.”  He got that.

So now, it’s like the regular post-Christmas blues, but magnified, and I want to acknowledge that because I’m guessing I might not be alone in that grief and struggle with joy right now.  That’s ok.  For those who are joyful, we get to be joyful.  For those struggling with joy, we get to struggle with joy.  The reality of the post-Christmas blues is, I believe, in the realization that the dream of Christmas has not fully been realized.  We celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace, the birth of Jesus, the Messiah, and then we find that as before, there isn’t yet peace on Earth. 

I heard an interview on Fresh Air with Terry Gross a few days ago with Israeli author and peace activist Amos Oz.  He had just died and they were rebroadcasting previous interviews, and in the one I heard, he was talking about one of his books, Black Box, and he said it was ultimately “a novel about great dreams, about great expectations, about bigger-than-life visions and, indeed, about the morning after and the sad realization that every dream come true is bound to be flawed by coming true.”

He went on to talk about the modern nation of Israel, about Israel itself being a flawed dream come true.  There was such hope, such Messianic hope, in the re-creation of the nation of Israel, that it would be an idyllic, egalitarian country, that nations would flock to it and they would be a light to bring peace on Earth.  With all of the good that Israel is, the reality has of course fallen short of that dream.  The same could be said of the United States, of the city on a hill and light to the nations that we strive to be, and the reality that falls short of that dream, and the same can be said of the Church and every other dream we have.  That’s life. 

“Every dream come true is bound to be flawed by coming true.”  That struck a chord with me regarding Christmas and the Epiphany.  The dream of the Messiah and of peace on Earth.  Did the Magi, after seeing Jesus, feel “the sad realization that every dream come true is bound to be flawed by coming true?”

Who were these guys and maybe galls, these Magi from the east?  Ultimately, we don’t exactly know, but from the text, we know they weren’t kings.  They were more like astrologer, pagan, mystic, tarot card-type folks who were decidedly not Jewish.  So, star guiding them or not, why were they looking for or expecting some Jewish king or messiah?  Israel had a king, and they went to Israel’s king to ask about this newborn king/messiah guy, so this obviously wasn’t a geopolitical greeting and first summit around a new world leader.  So what was going on?

Again, we don’t exactly know, but my guess is this.  These magi had heard stories from Jewish people they had lived with or encountered.  My guess is further that the stories they heard included stories from the prophets about a messianic figure, about the restoration of Israel, and about the peace on Earth of God’s kingdom fully realized that such a Messiah was thought to bring about. 

Perhaps they’d heard stories from Isaiah 2 about nations streaming to Israel and people beating “their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; [when] nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”  Maybe they had also heard stories from Isaiah 60 about the light of God coming upon Israel, of the good fortune for all through that promise, culminating with “they shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.”  Maybe the Magi had heard that verse and therefore brought gold and frankincense to proclaim the praise of the Lord…except for poor dumb Steve who thought Myrrh would be a good idea.  Poor Steve the Magi.

We don’t know how the non-Jewish, pagan Magi came to know about a baby king born in Israel and spoken of in the prophets, but my guess is that they had heard these stories of Messiah and had heard the hopes Jewish people whom they had encountered that the Messiah would be born and bring peace on Earth. 

So, were the Magi then disappointed with “the morning after and the sad realization that every dream come true is bound to be flawed by coming true.”  Were the Magi the first to experience what we call the post-Christmas blues because, of course, there was not peace on earth after the birth of this Jewish Messiah.

Not even when God became human, even Messiah, the Christ, came into the world was there peace on Earth.  There was not perfect peace on Earth, because God still left the earth in our care.  Of course life is still going to be imperfect and flawed even with Messiah, even with the Christ.  Perfection was never the point of the Christ.  Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, came; God became human to show us how to be human, and to join with us fully in our broken and flawed humanity.  There is love.

Love is the Epiphany.  Not perfection.  Love, with its life, its beauty, and its pain is the Epiphany that the Magi saw.  These pagan, astrologer, tarot card reading type folks who were the antithesis of Jewish devotion to God were the ones to whom God gave this Epiphany of love.  They were pagan, gentile, totally other than the people of Israel.  In the eyes of the religious elite, they would have been totally unworthy of any kind of blessing or love from God, and yet the Epiphany of God’s love was given to them.  Pagan, Gentile, they were loved by God. 

They may have had some disappointment after seeing Jesus that the messianic hopes and fervor of peace on Earth had not been realized, but I’m guessing the Epiphany of love stuck with them.  During the post Christmas blues, God’s Epiphany is love.  No matter who you are.  No matter your religious devotion or non-devotion.  No matter where you are from or what you have done.  You are loved.  You are so loved.  That is the Epiphany of Jesus.  That is how Christ heals us, how Christ helps us to become fully human, that we know, in our hearts, that we are loved.  That is God’s Epiphany of love.  You are loved.  You are so loved.