… they (the wise men) went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. (Matt 2:9-11)

I know what you are thinking. Philip, it’s not Christmas, it’s not epiphany, have you lost your mind? Well, perhaps, but that’s another issue. There is method in this madness. That reading is from the beginning of Matthew’s gospel and the reading for today’s service comes from the very end.

Matthew is the gospel which most emphasises the Jewishness of Jesus and of Christianity, and yet the gospel begins with gentiles, the wise men. The story of the magi should really come with a spoiler alert. It completely gives away the ending. The child born in Bethlehem is revealed as not just for the Jews but for all the nations. The wise men bring their gifts which reveal Jesus as King and God and Sacrifice as the famous carol puts it. They recognise that in the presence of Jesus they are in the presence of God and they duly bow down and worship.

Then as the magi leave it is as if a veil comes down on all of this, but at the very end of the gospel the veil is lifted and all is plain to see once again.

The full quote from the carol is: Glorious now behold Him arise, King and God and Sacrifice and this is what the disciples now see

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.

Why the hesitation? The wise men worshipped without hesitation and with uninhibited joy, so why do the Jesus own disciples doubt. Since, unlike the wise men, they were all devout Jews much of the cause of hesitation will be the following scripture.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord:

And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. (Deut 6:4-5)

And not just that scripture but most of the rest of what we call the OT, they just called it the scripture of course. There is one God and only he is to worshipped. For the disciples and for all Jews to worship anything else or anyone else was complete anathema, beyond the pale, inconceivable, a deal breaker, a line in the sand, you can think up your own expression for totally unacceptable.

No human is to be worshipped only the one God and yet on this mountain in Galilee, in the presence of the risen and exalted Christ, the disciples find themselves in the presence of that same one God and so they worship, although understandably at first with the most cautious and hesitant of steps.

Jesus is the one sent by God, who speaks as God, the one to whom all authority in heaven and earth belongs. As Jesus is sent so he sends his disciples.

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.

Make disciples of all nations. Not an easy task. Author Nick Pollard, whom I met many years ago, was inspired, or rather reverse inspired, by those books which are called ‘such and such a thing made easy’ for example ‘concert piano playing made easy’ or ‘Michelin star cookery made easy’, or ‘quantum mechanical time independent small perturbation theory made easy’. All such titles are lying of course - nothing worth doing is easy. He didn’t want to lie so he called his book Evangelism made slightly less difficult with the subtitle How to Interest People Who Aren't Interested.

He laments, in a humorous way, the lack interest in Christianity he found back the in 1997 and indeed the occasional outright hostility and mockery that existed then. Although mockery of the faith is hardly something new. As always with ancient artifacts it’s hard to be sure but there is some Roman graffiti from around the AD200 mocking a Christian called Alexamenos. It shows an image of a young man raising his hand to a donkey being crucified. In Greek the graffiti reads: Alexamenos worships his god. Ironically it may well be the earliest extant depiction of Christ in existence.

Apparently, this was a thing back in the second and third century. Christians were accused of and mocked for the worship of donkeys. And I tell you, I learned a new word this week. The word for worshipping something other than God is of course idolatry but the word for worshipping donkeys is onolatry. I think that you could happily make your way through life not knowing the meaning of that word, but anyway now you do. I don’t know if people followed Christians around making ee aw noises but maybe. But if you do see Christ or Christianity being mocked you can remember Alexamenos and think to yourself well it’s not exactly original is it?

After 1997 when the book was published things got worse for a while and the gentle satire of comedians like Dave Allen, which was genuinely funny and actually pretty fair, was replaced by a kind of playground thuggery which was neither and actually gave the lie to the claim of some of the detractors of Christianity to be more rational than thou.

But about 5 years ago something rather extraordinary happened. Lots of people have noticed it. They are calling it the quiet revival. A modest but real revival interest in Christianity and a dying away of the hostility that has existed amongst some people for so long. No one is saying that evangelism has now suddenly become easy after all, but something in the air has changed. The assumption that Nick Pollard made in 1997, probably justifiably, that people are not interested no longer applies, at least not with everyone. We should stop making that assumption. Some people at least are interested and old hands may be pleasantly surprised by the reaction they now might get.

So how shall we share our faith in the one in whose presence we find ourselves in the presence of God. Certainly not with ridicule, hostility, contempt or dismissiveness. Those are the weapons of the enemy and all you can do with them serve the cause of the enemy.

So how. Some advice from the usual suspects.

“Always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks you… [about your faith] yet do it with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience.” (1 Peter 3:15–16)

“The Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patient when wronged, correcting opponents with gentleness…” (2 Timothy 2:24–25)

“…to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarrelling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people.” (Titus 3:1–2)

It’s time to end this sermon now but with the words: to be continued. See sermon: Reasons 2.