Bible Passage: Matthew 2:1-12
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: January 4, 2026

Bulletin – January 4, 2026

In the name of, and to the eternal glory of, Jesus,

The historic lesson for this festival and our text for this evening is from the Gospel of Matthew.  Matthew has been called the most “Jewish” of the Gospels.  Matthew begins right away in chapter 1 with a genealogy of Jesus that traces Jesus as a descendant of father Abraham, through the proud tribe of Judah, right on through Israel’s great King David.  From the outset Matthew wants to present a thoroughly Jewish Messiah!

Matthew more than any of the other Gospel writers will break into the narrative to tell his readers, This happened to fulfill what was written by the prophet… In this way Matthew was driving home to the Jewish people that they had a prequel of Jesus’ story in their Old Testament scrolls.

This strong “Jewish” connection led some of the Jews to be very stingy with Messiah.  They thought that since the Messiah was coming FROM them, Messiah was coming only FOR them as well.  They felt about the Messiah the way a two-year old feels about a toy.  “Mine!  This is MY Messiah!  You get your own!”

That’s why it’s also very interesting to notice that Matthew shows Jesus doing “world mission work” and “cross-cultural outreach.”  Matthew records Jesus commending the faith of a Roman centurion.  He also records Jesus commending the faith of the Canaanite woman.   Both of these people were not Jewish!  They were “Gentile sinners”!

And of course it is Matthew who records for us the story of the Wise Men who come to worship the Christ.  They come from the east.  Not the east side of Jerusalem.  Not the east side of the country or the eastern shore of Galilee.  They came from further east, the far east.  Perhaps Babylon, hundreds of miles away.  But they came!  These “Gentiles,” these non-Jews – They Came for Christ, because Christ had Come for Them.

Why did they come anyway?  Because God invited them to come.  I like what the Magi say when they arrive in Jerusalem looking for the Messiah.  We have seen his star. (v. 2).   This is Messiah’s star!  God gave the Christ his own star!  It announced his birth.  God put it there because he wanted some sky-watchers in the far east to see it and follow it to find the Messiah-King.

Think about this.  If all we had was the story of the angels coming to the Jewish shepherds on the night Jesus was born, we might conclude that this was all “a Jewish thing.”  The Messiah who came from David’s line was born in David’s city and this news was shared with some Jewish shepherds.  But the Epiphany star shows us God’s full intentions.  He wants the nations to see and to stream to the Light of the world in Jesus!  Our God is no racist.  God our Savior…wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2:4)

Boy, do we need this lesson, don’t we?  We live in a world that is obsessed and fixated with “racism.”  The sloganeering is everywhere!  You watch an NFL football game and there it is, printed across the back of the endzone:  “End Racism.”  We see the slogans in our own community.  Yard signs proclaim:  Black Lives Matter.  But here’s the dirty little secret and the sad irony in all of this:  all the sloganeering doesn’t help.  For all the talk of wanting to be a color-blind society, our society now sees color more than ever!

Did you know that there is a tradition that says one of the wise men was black?  I don’t know how that tradition started.  Here is what I do know.  I DO know what color the wise men were – they were the same color as you and me.  Brown.  You see, there is this thing in your skin that gives you your color.  It is called melanin.  And it’s one color, brown.  Some of us have a little melanin in our skin and so we are light brown.  Some have more melanin and are a darker brown.  And there are all kinds of shades in between.  So there really is no difference between people when you get right down to it.  We are all the same color!  Just different shades!

There is another way that there are no differences between the races.  The Bible says:  There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23).  There is no difference!  If you are a wise man from the east, or a dim-wit from the west, you have sinned and have fallen short of God’s high and holy standard.  We all, no matter our race or skin pigmentation, are sinners in need of a Savior!

Here is the way that passage goes on:  There is no difference, all have sinned…and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:24)  There’s the good news of Epiphany!  The love God has for sinners is completely color-blind!  God so loved the world. (John 3:16) That holy, precious, ransoming blood of Jesus shed on the cross does not care about the amount or shade of melanin in a body.   When God applies the completed work of Christ to the sinner and declares him or her to be “not guilty,” he does not first collect a DNA sample and check if a person is made of the “right stuff.”  No!  One common sin corrupts and condemns us all; and one common Savior has come for all!

Picture that scene in the house when the magi finally found Jesus.  These dignified men in their ornamented robes get down on their knees to worship the little Jesus, the little Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, theirs too.   Those non-Jews on their knees before a Jewish baby.  This is just a prelude of what is to come.  The book of Revelation transports us to the final scene in the story.  There the aged apostle John sees the throneroom of heaven:  After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. (Rev. 7:9)  This is God’s grand plan!  People from all nations populating heaven!  This is the place where finally and forever all the sinful pride and prejudice that divide individuals and nations in this world will be gone.  There BECAUSE of Jesus, there IN FRONT OF Jesus, the elect from every nation will gather and join in the most beautiful, most wonderfully-blended chorus ever!

I don’t know what ever happened to the Epiphany star.  But I do know God still uses light to lead people to Jesus.  He uses the light of his Word.  We have that Word!  And that Word brings light to a very dark world.  Paul wrote to the Philippians:  You shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life. (Philippians 2:15-16)  Let us, then, without pride or prejudice, be God’s new Epiphany stars, holding out that Word, holding out that Light, holding out the Christ for all to see!

Amen.