EASTER MAKES SENSE OF CHRISTMAS
On Palm Sunday, I
told my congregation that the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus is the mountaintop
of the Christian faith. And from that
mountaintop we can see clearly the landscape behind us and the landscape ahead
of us. When we stand on the mountaintop of the Resurrection, we can look back
on Christmas and understand why God came to earth in human form. Yes, I believe
it is Easter that makes sense of Christmas.
Let’s look briefly
at these two epochal events and the king they portray.
In the Christmas
story, the Gospel of Matthew 2 states that
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 when it rose and have come to worship him.”
9 After
they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen
when it rose 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,
frankincense and myrrh.
Gold,
frankincense, and myrrh. These were standard gifts to honor a king in the
ancient world. However, in the years following this extraordinary visit by the
Magi, there was no indication in Jesus’ life that He was a king! At least not
the kind of king we would expect. He grew up the son of a carpenter. For the
last three years of His young life He worked as a traveling teacher. He had no
palace to live in; in fact, He Himself said that “Foxes have dens and birds
have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20).
So what kind of king, if any, was Jesus? I believe Easter gives us the answer.
For in the story of the last week of Jesus’ life leading to His crucifixion,
these royal gifts show up again.
Frankincense
According to
Matthew 26, two days before He was crucified, Jesus was dining in Bethany at
the house of Simon the leper when
7 a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very
expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the
table.
8 When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. “Why
this waste?” they asked. 9 “This perfume could have
been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor.”
10 Aware of this, Jesus said to them, “Why are you
bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. 11 The
poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me. 12 When
she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial.
The alabaster jar
likely contained something like frankincense, a very expensive oil used as
perfume. Jesus said that this woman’s act prepared His body for burial. And He
was right. When His body was taken off the cross the evening of His crucifixion,
there was no time to anoint it to prepare it for burial as was the custom. The sabbath
was approaching, so Joseph of Arimathea just wrapped Jesus’ body in clean linen
and laid it in his tomb (Matthew 27:57-61). At the crack of dawn on the third
day, Mary Magdalen and others went with spices to the tomb to anoint Jesus’
body, but He was not there. He was risen!
Gold
Judas, one of
Jesus’ disciples, schemed with the chief priests and other religious leaders to
betray Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. Whereas the Magi had brought Jesus
gold as a precious metal, Judas turned Him in for silver, a cheaper metal. In
addition to silver being a lesser metal than gold, the price of thirty pieces
of silver was a cheap price. According to Exodus 21:32, this was the amount of
money you would compensate someone if your ox killed their slave. In other
words, to Judas and the religious leaders, Jesus was worth no more than a slave.
Nonetheless, His death and resurrection set us free! We are no longer in
bondage to Satan and to sin. We are free to worship God without fear! We are
free to live holy and righteous in His sight all the days of our lives!
Myrrh
According to the Gospel
of Matthew (15:22-23), when the soldiers brought Jesus to Golgotha, they gave
Him wine drugged with myrrh to drink. He tasted it and refused to drink it.
Then they crucified Him.
Myrrh was an
expensive anointing oil that the Egyptians also used in embalming and as a
painkiller. The soldiers may have offered Jesus myrrh to numb Him to the
excruciating pain He would suffer before death. He rejected the drink and
experienced the full spectrum of suffering before His pain was eased in death.
We have a God, a Savior, a King, a Lord, a High Priest, a Brother, a Friend who
is intimately familiar with human suffering. When we call to Him, He
will answer; He understands.
Conclusion
At Christmas,
gold, frankincense and myrrh. Gifts fit for a king!
At Easter, thirty
pieces of silver, an alabaster box of frankincense, and wine spiked with myrrh.
Gifts fit for a king? Yes, God’s King.
Jesus said His
kingdom is not of this world. And, indeed, it is not. He is not a king like the
kings in our world. He is the King of Easter: Humble, yet victorious over
death. The apostle Paul intreats us, in Philippians 2, to take on the attitude
of our King:
6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery
to be equal with God:
7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him
the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled
himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given
him a name which is above every name:
10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of
things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;
11 And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ
is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
From the
mountaintop of the Resurrection we can see the King of Christmas! Jesus lives!
Comments
Post a Comment