Although our advent season is complete, one final story remains in this journey. The story you know comes last: the Magi. For today we read their story, and we consider they mystery of how they have come a great distance following a star that was visible to everyone, but a star that only they seemed to recognize as sent by God.
In that revelation we could have a message to consider today. But it is not the message for today.
Today before we come to the Table of the Lord, I want to take the two texts that we read (Isaiah and Matthew) and hold them up together. Isaiah is the theology/teaching and Matthew is the illustration.
For God calls the church to do two things: arise and be ready for the work of gathering that God is doing in us. And the Magi demonstrate this to us in their story.
Move 1- Gathering Language
The very first word that the prophet gives us in this new year is: Arise. And whether the act of rising comes from something as simple as ‘getting out of bed in the morning,’ or as dramatic as ‘being called by the Lord to service in His name,’ Isaiah calls the dispersed people of God to move. They/we are called to move from one position of inactivity into, or toward, another. Isaiah 60 begins with a word of commissioning which is not always what the church wants to hear, but it is the most applicable word to start our new year.
In 2026, I wonder where can you already feel God commissioning you forward into a new station as a Christian? A new position? I wonder where can you sense of call that is deeper than what it was last week?
Arise… This is the word that Isaiah begins with.
Telling exiled people to Arise would be particularly hard for the exiled Israelites to repeatedly hear for not only have they struggled with the reality of exile and the deep memories of what they entailed, but now as Isaiah ends, and the prophet in chapters 60-66 offers words of restoration and hope, these people will have to content with stronger call language.
Isaiah starts with Arise, but he is about to give them more. Call them to more. Arise mixed with a responsibility in that call for as we Arise, Isaiah says something else will happen.
People will be coming to the Israelites. Specifically, the Lord says that the nations will be gathered around them by God’s choice and God’s call. That’s a hard idea to wrestle with. Not only does Isaiah say that the exiled Israelites must arise, but they must be ready for those who will be coming to them—as must we.
For the prophet will repeat the gathering language from a different perspective in verse 3-6. Over and over in these verses God tells us that although we might not feel ready for what is to come, or who is to come, they are being gathered to us. Six times in those four verse God says this.
For the people are a light—verse 3.
The leaders of those people will see that the people who Arise are light to others—verse 3 still.
In verse 4 families, sons and daughters, come from a far. They come to the people of the Lord.
And in verse 5 the gathering continues as the radiance of our relationship with the Lord brings others to the Lord. It is all there.
Just as the Magi are experiencing as they come to the Holy Land following the star in verse 6 as the arrival of the Magi is prophesied. Arise and be ready… for the gathering work of God is going to be done with us.
Move 2- the Magi
Now without knowing it, I suspect, the Magi follow the format of Isaiah’s message. They arise and they submit to the call of the Lord. We know that they follow the star a great distance. They wander into the Holy City, and they speak with Herod and cause all sorts of fear and tension to erupt around Jerusalem. And as you have probably heard before they likely traveled from modern day Iran or Iraq all the way to Israel seeking the child who was just a few miles away in his home.
But it is what the Magi plan to do when the find Jesus that links Isaiah 60 with the Matthew 2 text that we just read. The Magi come to pay Jesus homage… perhaps your translation rendered the word worship.
Regardless of which word you read with me in your Bible, the word signifies a deep truth that Matthew’s hearers, and us today, must remember and take with us from this service. The worship the Magi have come to Jerusalem to enact, belongs solely and totally to God. And every act of worship is to be done for God’s glory alone.
Whether you believe these Magi knew that Jesus was the Son of God or not as they travelled this great distance, this does not matter in this moment as they come before his family and offer their historic gifts.
They have come to find him, and they have come worship him as we today are here to worship him. They were faithful in their journey and consistent in their work—both hard tasks in this day and age. We come, as they came, to acknowledge his full divinity as the Son of God sent for us.
They arose. They were gathered by God. And that act of gathering lead them into a place, a posture if you prefer, of worship.
Move 3- stopping a star
And because of this choice, because of this posture, either from the Magi, or the exiled Israelites, or you and I, miracles can happen. God has the space in each of our lives to do extraordinary things if allow the Lord the space and room in us. For like the Magi every step that we take in faithful practice leads us closer to God.
In Matthew’s gospel, God will move in the lives of His people a number of times through dreams when God saw that their lives were open and ready to receive him. This is one of the defining aspects of the Matthew 1 and 2 and it will help to reinforce the power of God’s Spirit with his people. Listen again to the larger narrative.
In 1:20, Joseph will be told to take Mary as his wife and not to be afraid of what is to come. A hard task, but Joseph did it. And the story continued.
In today’s text, 2:12, the Magi will be warned not to return to Herod in a dream. Have you ever wondered why or how they trusted this voice from heaven that came in a dream when they might not have known who God was or is?
God will again speak to Jospeh in dreams in 2:13, 2:19, 2:22. All three of these occurrences serve as both assurances and forms of protection. But in all five accounts of a dream, God gathered the people that He was using and continued His mission to redeem the world through Jesus.
I wonder if that would have been possible if those very same people would not have arisen and been ready to be gathered by God in their own way? They responded and God found willing servants who could carry his message, both literally and figuratively, onward.
While I doubt that God will ask us to live and work in the same fashion, I do believe that God does call us to be ready in this new year to trust him. And in trusting him, miracles can happen that seemed impossible as the story began.
Conclusion
I do not commit to New Year’s resolution because as you know they do not stick. So do not call this a resolution. But together, as we come to the Table, let us resolve to arise, to be ready for those whom God will gather around us, and let us pay God homage. Let us worship God. Who knows a miracle might just happen around us…
DM
❤️✝️
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