Sermon 01/06/08 (Matthew 2:1-12)

“The Magi in the Midst of the Terrible Twos”
Matthew 2:1-12
Rev. Désirée H. Gold
St. Mark’s United Church of Christ, Baltimore, MD
Sunday, 6 January, 2008
Epiphany Sunday

When my cousin Konnor was two, he looked like an angel. He still has the blond curls that frame his pink cheeks, and he has a smile that will absolutely melt your heart. One would not be surprised to see little wings pushing forth from his shoulders. But... at the age of two he could throw tantrums with the best of them! I once saw him head-butt his sturdily-built father so hard that his dad stumbled backwards a few steps. ... And the perceptible grin on my baby cousin’s face surely gave “the terrible twos” their name. He was (and is) full of love, folding his little hands with his mother to say his bedtime prayers. He was (and is) full of joy. But he was also full of the mischief, the temper tantrums, and the hard work that every two year old creates.

Konnor’s little sister is now two, and it seems she is every bit as precocious as her big brother. I haven’t seen her since she was a baby, but I’ve been told she is absolutely beautiful. Those same blonde curls frame her chubby, rosy, cheeks, and just like her brother, one wouldn’t be surprised to see angel’s wings poking out from her shoulders. That said, she is still two. Over the Christmas holiday, my parents visited our cousins, and the phone was passed around to everyone so they could talk to me. While I was talking with my mother, little Samantha apparently walked up to her and showed her a book she had. My mother interrupted our conversation briefly to say, “Oh, you have a book, Samantha,” then “Would you like to say hi to your cousin on the phone?” Samantha answered with an audible, two-year-old “No!”

Now, as you play with those sweet, and messy, and temperamental images in your head -- as you remember all the two-year-olds you have known -- let me remind you of something. In this morning’s scripture lesson we find a seemingly solemn story about the wise men encountering Jesus for the first time. We call today the celebration of the Epiphany, when Jesus was revealed as someone truly holy, as the Light of the World, as God. We know this story well, from all of the solemn nativity scenes we have seen, from the songs we sing about those wise men, and from our own roaming imaginations, and our continued faith that Jesus is the Holy One, our Lord.

But do you know how old Jesus was at the time of the Epiphany, at the time the wise men visited and saw him as Lord? Despite the appearance of those wise men beside the manger in many nativity scenes, scholars estimate that Jesus was approximately how old?! Two! He was around two years old! He was the same age as my rambunctious, adorable, temperamental, joyful, head-butting little cousins!

If you believe every piece of art ever made showing Jesus as a young child, you will believe that he certainly looked angelic. Although it is very unlikely that he had the blond curls of my two Scandinavian cousins, his face looked just as sweet, and one would not be surprised to see little wings poking from his shoulders, just like I have imagined with Konnor and Samantha. That said, nearly every piece of art I have ever seen depicting the young Jesus shows a solemn child with a serious, adult-like face. Nothing of the giggling, spaghetti-sauce covered face, or the curious, but occasionally screaming face of my young cousins. Jesus’ face has undoubtedly been pictured in such a serious light out of an insistence that someone as holy as God surely would not make a mess with his food or throw two-year-old temper tantrums!

But is this the truth? Would the wise men who visited Jesus as a toddler have found a serious, grown-up man who was two years old only in age?! I don’t think such a belief is necessary or even helpful in our faith that Jesus and God are One.

So, what does it mean if we believe that the wise men really did find themselves in the presence of a two-year-old that day? What does it mean if we believe that God was revealed in the person of a two-year-old child, going through everything that normal two-year-olds do?

We are taught that Jesus was without sin, so perhaps he never head-butted Joseph then grinned about it, and perhaps he never used the word “No!” in quite the same way that other two-year-olds do. But we are also taught that Jesus was both God and human, and that he was human in every other way aside from the capacity to commit sin. This means that, as a two-year-old child, he likely had just as many temper tantrums, made every bit as many messes, caused his parents to giggle, and probably get exasperated with him, every bit as much as every other two-year-old does. You may believe that Jesus was without sin, but are the foibles of a two-year-old -- the tantrums, the messes, etc. -- really sin? The child is just learning how to be a person! And if those “terrible twos” are not sin, then we can believe that Jesus, the truly divine but also truly human One, went through them just like every other child.

What does it mean that the wise men saw God in the presence of those “Terrible Twos”? It means, first-off, that children, who are so often taught to be “seen but not heard” in church, should be the honored ones in our congregations. We are told that later in his life, Jesus welcomed young children when the adults wanted to shoo them away. This story of the wise men finding God in the presence of a two-year-old reinforces that lesson: children are holy, and should be welcomed in our midst.

We might not have many children around at St. Mark’s right now, but in a few months Melissa will have a baby. That baby should be welcomed here, screams and all. When they are able, Marie and Susie bring Sean. He should be welcomed with open arms. Our doors should be open to any other children who pass our way as well.

The wise men experiencing the Epiphany in the midst of a “terrible two-year-old” teaches us also that God is about joy, is about laughter, is about sweetness and love. It teaches us that God will be present in the middle of the messes, the temper tantrums, the silliness that we all do. And, perhaps most importantly, the belief that God was revealed in the body of a two-year-old teaches us that God is not an über-holy adult-like parent who lives at the top of a pedestal. Our God is not an unreachable, unavailable, unknowable god. Rather, God is at our level. God is truly human. God is that two-year-old. God is knowable, because God took human form -- even the human form of a silly, messy, two-year-old.

The next time you giggle, or sigh in exasperation, at the antics of a two-year-old, remember that it was in such a person that God was revealed to those wise men. Now let us pray.