Sermon: ”5 Lessons from the Magi for Our Pursuit of God” by Rev. Will Burhans on 1/08/23

Throughout the Advent and Christmas seasons we’ve talking about God coming to us, the prophet promising it, the people preparing for it, and then God’s arrival in a manger on a silent night and holy night.  Mary and Joseph, Elizabeth and Zechariah, Anna and Simeon, the shepherds, to all of them God came – in the form of an angel, in a dream, in bright light and song, God to them and we say here 2000 years later God in fact came to the whole world.

            And the Christmas season ends here in the new year at the feast of Epiphany, which was officially Friday, January 6, but we are celebrating Epiphany today as a community with this service and a meal tonight in the Tucker Room and a walk through the darkened church to the manger.  And it’s good and right to end this way because at the end of the season of God’s coming, we move into the new year and through Epiphany we remember that also we must GO TO GOD.  Like the wise men who journeyed from Persia to Israel, it’s now time for us to consider in this new year how if we want a healthy, strong, dynamic relationship with God, it’s going to take some work on our part, it’s going to take our pursuing it, it’s going to take in many instances a journey, either an inward one or an outward one or a both-and but a willingness to journey towards God.  And using the Matthew story of the magi as our guide I want to lift up 5 lessons from their journey to the Christ Child that might inform us in our own pursuit of God. So let’s get to it!