Creekside Church Sermon of January 6, 2002 "Got Light?" Isaiah 60:1-6 Matthew 2:1-12	Rev. David Bibbee
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Weekend auto mechanics sometimes get the urge to disassemble engines. There may be no mechanical need to do it, but the challenge of putting the engine back together in working order is alluring. The task is tedious and time consuming, but the satisfaction of completing it is worth the toil. But the mood of the moment quickly collapses when the mechanic finds a part left over. To make matters worse, he doesn't know what the part is or where it goes.

I feel the same once Christmas is over. When the worship and special observances are complete, we're done till next Advent. I always feel something is left over. There is so much to be said and sung about God's great love which came down at Christmas that we forget the wise men and the hymns that tell their story. They are left overs pushed to the back of the fridge. We could say it was their own fault. They didn't come the night Jesus was born. They arrived two years after his birth. They didn't find Jesus in the manger, but at home with Mary and Joseph. He was no newborn, he was now a toddler.

Rather than cram the wise men into the Christmas story, the early church gave them a season of their own called, "Epiphany." The questions of Epiphany are, "Where can we find Jesus? Where is he who is born king of the Jews? How can we hear and see him?" By the radiant light of a star, or, if you are astronomically literate, by the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter, the wise men looked for him. They were Persian astrologers. They were outside God's covenant with Israel. But these strange visitors were the first to worship Jesus.

The significance of their visit wasn't confined to that moment. Matthew says that after they saw Jesus, they left their gifts and went back home another way. There is a double meaning here. Going back another way means they took a different route, doing a bypass around Herod. It also means they went back changed men. Having seen God make a baby of himself, their lives would not be the same. They came. They saw. They returned another way. Jesus came and gave us a good look at God's love, and we gather each week to worship Him. But even though we come to look and listen and experience Him, something else is necessary.

The Native American Indians had a tradition that was present long before the arrival of the pilgrims. A sacred peace pipe was circulated among the tribes. After awhile it would be given to another tribe which passed it to another. When the English arrived, they too were asked to share the pipe. One settler put the peace pipe on the mantle above his fireplace. It remained on that mantle a long time. One day, members of the local tribe came to visit the settler who sensed they wanted something. A translator explained that his guests wanted to smoke the pipe and give it to another tribe. The Englishman was offended. He claimed the pipe as his own, not knowing the Indians had no concept of private property. According to legend, it was this man who coined the derogatory term, "Indian-giver."

God's gift of Jesus is not private property. He didn't come for our benefit only. The light which God gave us in Jesus Christ is not ours to sit around like a campfire. It is a light we carry with us and share with others.

While in exile, Israel became acquainted with the dark. It was a struggle to hold fast to the faith. The future was precarious. But Isaiah prophesied that Israel's languishing was about to end. A new day was dawning:

Arise, shine, your light has come; and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
For the darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples;
But the Lord will rise upon you: nations shall come to your light.

Israel would rediscover the steadfast goodness and love of the Lord. But Israel wasn't the only recipient. God appointed them to be a beacon to other nations. The meaning of Christmas is not that God came to us in the birth of Jesus and stopped there. The message is that everything has changed since he has come, and now the church has been chosen to carry the light so that those who go through life groping in the darkness will be drawn to Jesus through the likes of you and me.

The question I ask myself, and the question I ask you is this: How are we doing? How much light is radiating from us?

For nearly ten years now, I have made hundreds of visits at Elkhart General Hospital. Until two weeks ago I had always gone as a visitor, not the visited. What a change of perspective. Every morning at 4:45 a.m. I "felt" the alarm as a lab vampire drew blood. Every day I was pressed, probed, and poked. I was told, "Swallow this. Fill that. Give us a sample of this", and every two hours I was asked to rate my pain on a continuum between, "I can live with it," to "please put me out of my misery."

A verse from Matthew 25 became significant for me during my stay. "I was sick and you visited me." Though I wasn't up to seeing visitors, the presence of my wife and children and the visits of other pastors and the deacons who anointed me were cherished. And I noticed something. Everyone that entered my room… they were not themselves. They were Jesus to me. They all carried the light of Christ. I was sick and they came to me and cared for me.

I was struck by something while confined to bed and tethered to I.V. lines. People will not come to us, our church, or to Jesus Christ until we go to them. We are fooling ourselves if we think that putting up a building in a growing area will grow the church. People will not come to us unless we go to them. People enveloped by the world's darkness will not be drawn to Christ unless they see the light of Christ in us. We may be nice, friendly, hospitable people, but it is not enough to just be attractive. It takes the light that drew the wise men to Bethlehem… the light of the glory of God which they saw in the face of Jesus. We are not just the recipients of his light, but we radiate it in tangible, caring, and credible ways if people are to be drawn to him. The light left over after Christmas must be incorporated and made visible in our lives.

Not every article in the Wall Street Journal is about making money. Earlier this year there was a story about making a difference. Sandy Koufax, the renowned pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers, was a devout Jew. Thirty years ago he announced he would not play a child's game on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year. The Dodger's management reminded him that this child's game was the first game of the 1965 World Series. "Give us just a few of your best pitches, then stroll over to the synagogue," But his, "No!" was firm. Don Driesdale pitched the first game…and the Dodgers lost. A spiritually refreshed Koufax pitched the second game, and the Dodgers lost. Then he pitched shutouts in games five and seven and the Dodger's won the series.

Though of a different faith, Koufax would love Eli Herring, a 6' 7", 340-pound offensive tackle for Brigham Young University. He carried a 3.5 grade point average and was judged to be one of the best senior offensive linemen in the draft. Eli, a devout Mormon, turned down a multi-million dollar contract with the Oakland Raiders because he would not play on Sunday. Most national football games are played on Sunday.

Eli had to choose between signing up, playing on Sunday, having a Rolls Royce and a suburban Taj Mahal, or he could make $25,000 a year teaching math, honoring the Sabbath, and wearing chino pants and Wal-Mart shirts. He announced that if drafted, he would not serve. The Raiders called, but Eli said he had decided to teach. He could have used the NFL as a pulpit to express his faith and values, but he figured he could have a good enough pulpit teaching math, coaching high school football, and telling others of the choice he had made. He said, "A blessing from God is better than a bulging bank account. Eternity is so long and life is so short, and you can't be a beacon if you're light don't shine."

The reporter concluded the story saying, "Eli Herring is one of the best offensive tackles in America with a 3.5 GPA, but he doesn't know anything about materialism."

Let's ask ourselves a question. How are we doing? How much light is radiating from us? It's easy to take the pipe meant to be shared and put it on the mantle. But no one lights a lamp and hides it under a basket. They put it on a stand where it gives light to everyone in the house.

The days are numbered for churches which stand on the promises of God and wait for people to come. We can wait and pray all we want, but people won't be drawn to the church until we go to them. They will not give Jesus a second thought until we give the light of Jesus access to our own hearts, and then let it shine in others lives. Our ministry over the next two years will grow from our vision statement. It begins with rooting ourselves in the reality of God and growing in the likeness of Jesus, but the vision will only be complete when we bear fruit, directing the light of the Lord toward those who do not know him. You can't be a beacon if your light don't shine.

Now I want you to meditate upon a story which is a parable of the assignment given to us. John Westerhoff is a Christian educator at Duke University. He was called to a western state to do an assessment of a problem in a school system and offer recommendations to fix it. The schools had a large population of Navaho Indian children. When he asked the teachers how they saw the problem, they said, "The Navaho's are chronic cheaters. No matter how often we warn them, they defy us and continue to cheat. How will they ever learn if they can't solve problems for themselves?"

Westerhoff then asked the children's perception of the situation. "Your teachers tell me you cheat on tests." "We do not cheat. We can't get our teachers to understand." "So why do you give each other test answers?" They replied, "We have been taught that it is the responsibility of those who know, to share with those who don't."

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