2 Christmas, Yr A (2026) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
2 Christmas, Yr A (2026) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-19a St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
Matthew 2:1-15, 19-23
In the name of the one, holy, and loving God:
who was, and is, and is to come. Amen.
“Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?”
What a curious question to come from a group of star-gazers from far away Persia!
And what an irritant to King Herod’s quest for unabated power!
“Where is the child…
for we observed his star at its rising,
and have come to pay him homage.” (Mt 2:2)
The story, as told, is remarkable in many ways….
These magi,
these “wise men,”
have not only taken notice of some grand event in the heavens…
but they have traveled great distances to find this
“child who has been born king of the Jews.”
They took notice of cosmic events
and somehow understood the meaning enough to uproot themselves
and undertake what must have been an expensive and perilous journey.
In order for them to understand the significance of the event,
they had apparently not only studied the stars
but were also well aware of the cultures around them,
knowing the history of the people of Israel
and what was foretold of the coming of the Messiah.
These “wise men” were well attuned to their whole environment:
their cosmos,
their earthly cultural history
and their interior yearnings.
So, when they saw the brilliance of the heavenly lights,
they knew –
or in the words of Paul: “the eyes of [their] hearts [were] enlightened” –
and they took off on a journey in search of the Christ-child.
When the wise men arrived at Herod’s court seeking direction to find the Christ-child,
Herod was taken aback.
Star?
What star?
King?
KING?!
I am king.
Herod gathered together all the chief priests and the scribes who,
after consultation,
informed him that the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem.
I wonder:
How had the chief priests and the scribes
missed an event that was so obvious to these Persians?
The wise men went on their way,
following the star until it stopped over the place where the child was.
And listen to this:
“When they saw that the star had stopped,
they were overwhelmed with joy.”
When they entered the house and saw Jesus,
they knelt down before him and honored him
with gifts of gold,
frankincense,
and myrrh…
gifts befitting a king, a priest, and a prophet.
Now,
as we all know,
King Herod was frightened and was thrown into a violent rage
because not only foreigners,
but foreigners from the Persian superpower,
had shown up looking for a child born “king.”
Not on his turf was that going to happen.
So Herod gathered together his armies
to search high and low for this child
so that he could remove this child’s threat to his own power and control.
Then an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream,
telling him to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt until further notice.
So, under the cover of darkness the holy family escaped….
and to Egypt, no less.
The last time the Israelites were in Egypt, they were trying to escape…
escape from bondage and slavery.
Now the escape is to Egypt….to freedom.
Freedom in Egypt sounds strange,
but then again,
the last Joseph sojourning in Egypt had also escaped there to evade death.
An interesting paradox, isn’t it?
It makes me wonder:
Can places of wilderness…
places of trial and tribulation…
also be places of opportunity for freedom?
Can places of pain, anger, and resentment
also offer opportunities for forgiveness, release, and redemption?
In the words of Herbert O’Driscoll:
“In the inner geography which we all inhabit,
we encounter fortifications of our own construction.
“Walls and battlements of fear, anxiety, alienation, depression,
stand to keep out what we see as enemy.
“Ironically our enemies can very often bring about
our changing, our freedom, and our growth.
“As aging, internal tyrants
they stand within us,
determined to crush the child of possibility trying to come to birth in each of us.” (from “The Dark Fortress” in Portrait of a Woman: Meditations on the Mother of our Lord, The Anglican Book Centre, 1982, p. 48)
The magi,
from far away Persia,
through cosmic signs and internal yearnings…
recognized the in-breaking Power of new life in the world
and used their resources to seek him out.
Herod, however,
closed in on himself as he sought to extinguish any possible threat
to his own power and control,
missed an opportunity to free himself
and find new and abundant life.
Instead, he only buried himself deeper into the mire of his own misery.
This is the season of Christmas…
the season of God-incarnate,
the season of God-enfleshed in many places and faces in our world…
…if only we will allow God to enlighten the eyes of our hearts,
so that we may grow in wisdom and revelation…
knowing the hope to which God has called us,
even in the midst of our Egypt wilderness.
O’Driscoll says:
“Where is the child who is born to be king of the Jews?
“This question,
asked long ago in a particular situation,
is of course universal and timeless.
“The travelling philosopher who asked it inhabits each of us,
whether or not we are aware of him behind our external busyness.
“The question we ask concerns the whereabouts of the child
who is somewhere in the tangles and troubled terrain
of our own souls and personalities.
“The child we seek is,
in history and in time,
the Christ;
“…but in our personal experience he is the light of God,
always struggling for birth within us.
“ ‘Where is the child?’
we ask the kings and tyrants of… cynicism and weariness
that rule our inmost hearts.
“And we ask for this child because we are instinctively aware
that if only we can find him
we will discover a king who will draw us and lead us to new life.” (Ibid, p. 49)
So, “where is this child?”
we may ask.
This child is everywhere around us…
and even within us.
Take a look and see…
new life awaits!
Amen.
