Author: Robert Keefer

Open Your Treasures Daily
Epiphany; January 2, 2022
Matthew 2:1-12

These guys are amazing. Let’s start by being clear about what we know, what we don’t know, and what we can reasonably surmise. Matthew calls them “magi,” who were Persian priests. Although the word is the root of our word “magic,” they were not magicians; they used fire in their rituals and burned incense as part of their worship of Ahura Mazda, the great God of the Zoroastrians. One aspect of Zoroastrian faith was the expectation of the coming of a Savior.

So these men were priests from Persia who followed a new star. The star may have been a nova, or a comet, or a conjunction… or something entirely supernatural. We know there were at least two of them, since the word is plural, but we don’t know how many. We in the West have traditionally said there were three of them, since they brought three kinds of gifts, but in the East they have traditionally said there were twelve of them, to coincide with the Twelve Patriarchs and the Twelve Apostles.

They were probably not kings, despite the hymn we sang at the beginning (“We Three Kings of Orient Are”), but the idea that they were kings probably comes from Isaiah 60:3. These men were priests and scholars, recognizing that this new star heralded the coming of a new order, and they were probably inspired to follow it to Judea because of the prophecy of Balaam:

I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near –
A star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel. (Numbers 24:17)

And what moves me most about them is the strength of their conviction. They had faith in the prophecy and they had faith in their interpretation of the prophecy and in where the star led them. Not only did they follow it on a long journey from Persia but – and this is what really moves me – they believed that this child they met was the King they were seeking. It makes sense they would have gone first to Jerusalem, to the palace of Herod the Great, to look for the scepter that would rise out of Israel. But there they didn’t find the King they sought; they went to Bethlehem and found a peasant child. And they believed. They believed this was the answer to their quest, this was the King they sought, and they opened their treasures: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

When did they arrive? We ordinarily include them in our Nativity scenes, as though they arrived the night Jesus was born. Given what Herod did next, we can be sure they arrived sometime within two years of Jesus’ birth. In the West, we usually associate their arrival with Epiphany, which is January 6, twelve days after Christmas. That works as well as anything.

So yes, twelve days of Christmas: December 25 to January 5. In our British-oriented cultural history, Christmas Day was a quiet day of going to church and being with your family. Gifts were exchanged on January 1. The eleven days of December 26 to January 5 were for parties, open houses, games, and general merriment. Ask me someday about wassailing and about the Lord of Misrule.

In some cultures – Spain, Mexico, and other Spanish-oriented places – gifts are usually exchanged on January 6, Epiphany, and instead of being brought by Santa Claus they are brought by the Magi.

I have heard of families in our country that give twelve gifts – smaller ones, of course – one each day of Christmas. One may be, for example, a coupon to spend a day at the park of one’s choice. Instead of a blow-out on December 25, a twelve-day observance that isn’t over as soon as the retail calendar is done with it. That leads me to the thought of opening a treasure every day.

The Magi brought treasures – gold, frankincense, and myrrh – and opened them for the Child. I think that their greatest treasure, however, was the faith that kept them on the road and that led them to rejoice when they saw not a royal prince but a peasant child with his Mother. You too have treasures that you can offer the Child, because of the faith you have in Him.

2022 will be a year of great change for us. Although I will retire from the pastorate in May, I will not retire from being a minister of the Gospel. My task will be to identify what treasures I have to offer Jesus when I am no longer a pastor. Your task as a Church will be to identify what particular treasures you have to offer Jesus that make you unique as a congregation. And this is my challenge to you as individuals: spend some time this year identifying what treasures you have. You may have gold, frankincense, or myrrh. You may have a gift for tutoring young people. You may have insight into how mechanical or electronic things work. You may be great with numbers, or with paints and pastels. What treasure do you carry?

Identify your treasure and in 2022 commit yourself to opening that treasure for Christ every day. It will be a wonder to see what Christ will do with the treasure you open.

Robert A. Keefer
Presbyterian Church of the Master
Omaha, Nebraska

“All its occasions shall dance for joy.”
Christmas I; December 26, 2021
Revelation 19:1-9

Although there are still three chapters of Revelation to go, for you who have persisted through our Year of the Bible, it is fitting during this Christmastide to finish with the angel’s blessing: “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” On the one hand, when you’re talking about a baby born only two nights ago, it’s a little early to speak of his wedding. On the other hand, one way to think about the uniqueness of that baby is to see him as a sort of marriage in his own flesh: the marriage of heaven and earth, of flesh and spirit, the union of God and Holy Mary.

Why celebrate Christmas at all? Because it marks the birth of God’s redemption of sinful humanity, because it is a sort of wedding day. Goodness, for you who read the Bible this year I hope you’re hearing echoes of Hosea in your head, and the promises of Isaiah. Perhaps you can think of Christmas poetry that could easily be read at a wedding; when I began contemplating today’s sermon a few weeks ago right away John Milton’s Ode: On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity came to mind. This is an old thing – nearly 400 years old – so you may not grasp all the words cognitively; how do they make you feel? Here are a few stanzas:

Ring out, ye crystal spheres,
Once bless our human ears
(If ye have power to touch our senses so),
And let your silver chime
Move in melodious time,
And let the bass of heaven’s deep organ blow;
And with your ninefold harmony
Make up full consort to the angelic symphony.

For if such holy song
Enwrap our fancy long,
Time will run back and fetch the age of gold,
And speckled Vanity
Will sicken soon and die,
And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mould,
And hell itself will pass away,
And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day.

Yea, Truth and Justice then
Will down return to men,
Orbed in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing,
Mercy will sit between,
Throned in celestial sheen,
With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering;
And heaven as at some festival
Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall.

There is a wonderful, unique dissonance in John’s Revelation when it comes to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, a dissonance that I thrill to ponder. The angel pronounces blessing on all who are invited to that supper, and I am sure it will be grand. What great feast did you have or are you having for your Christmas dinner? No matter how sumptuous or how delicious, it is nothing compared to that feast with Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. But back to the dissonance. At the marriage supper, the Lamb is the Groom; no question about that. But who is the Bride? Well, the New Jerusalem, it says. But who is the New Jerusalem? You and I are; the Church of Jesus Christ is the New Jerusalem, is the Bride. But who are the guests? Well, once again: you and I are; the people of God are the guests. We are the Bride; we are the guests. We get to dance with the Groom and with all the other guests.

At Christmastime I am moved to suspect that the guest list includes not only redeemed humanity, but all Creation. John’s Gospel says not that the Word was made “human,” but that the Word was made “flesh.” Isaiah said that “all flesh shall see the glory of God” (40:5)[1] So who else may be on the guest list? A Christmas poem I recite every year just before dinner says that even British songbirds – spinks and ouzles – have a Savior; he has come for everyone. Here are the last four stanzas of Christopher Smart’s The Nativity of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ:

Nature’s decorations glisten
Far above their usual trim;
Birds on box and laurels listen,
As so near the cherubs hymn.

Boreas now no longer winters
On the desolated coast;
Oaks no more are riv’n in splinters
By the whirlwind and his host.

Spinks and ouzles sing sublimely,
‘We too have a Saviour born;’
Whiter blossoms burst untimely
On the blest Mosaic thorn.

God all-bounteous, all-creative,
Whom no ills from good dissuade,
Is incarnate, and a native
Of the very world he made.

I think Smart has captured perfectly this sense of Christmas as a marriage between heaven and earth in that last stanza. God is incarnate, “and a native/Of the very world he made.” God is born into the world that God made; at Christmastime God and God’s world are joined in a way that can barely be grasped, can only be celebrated. And so our songs and our feasts, and our dancing and our delightful Christmas television specials. And the many customs that seem to have so little to do with the birth of a peasant child in a corner of the Roman Empire, but which capture our joy at this wedding, the wedding between the Holy Lamb and the Redeemed Bride.

Now to conclude this ramble with one other piece of poetry, from the middle of the twentieth century, the conclusion of W. H. Auden’s massive Christmas oratorio, For the Time Being. I read it every year during the twelve days of Christmas sometime – this year, probably tomorrow – and I love how Auden takes us across the bleak landscape of the world and the sudden intrusion of Gabriel into Mary’s life, the struggle of Joseph and the summoning of the Magi, the vision of the shepherds, and then Mary’s quiet singing at the manger. He continues to the Temple where Simeon waits, the horror of Herod’s massacre, and the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt. Then, at the end, he looks back at the Christmas celebration and sighs that we all have to get back to work or school or scrubbing the kitchen table, while sensing that Good Friday cannot now be far away.

Yet, since Christ has come among us, the Time Being has been forever redeemed. Every wedding is a glimpse of the Lamb’s Wedding Day. Every feast is a sample of the Marriage Feast of the Lamb. Every communion is a foretaste of the great Table on the Day of the Lord. And so Auden concludes his oratorio with this invitation; and I conclude my sermon with it too:

He is the Way.
Follow Him through the Land of Unlikeness;
You will see rare beasts, and have unique adventures.

He is the Truth.
Seek Him in the Kingdom of Anxiety;
You will come to a great city that has expected your return for years.

He is the Life.
Love Him in the World of the Flesh;
And at your marriage all its occasions shall dance for joy.

Robert A. Keefer
Presbyterian Church of the Master
Omaha, Nebraska

[1] Some translations say “people,” but the word is bashar, which means “flesh,” not only human flesh but any kind of flesh.

On Christmas Eve 2021 I preached two different sermons; here are both of them.

“I want a simple Christmas” (7:00 pm)
Luke 2:1-20

I wonder what Mary was like the next morning. She’s a little frazzled; she says to Joseph, “I didn’t get a wink of sleep. First all those shepherds came with their story, and then there was that star shining right over us. And just as I was getting Jesus to sleep, some kid showed up and started banging a drum! I have to nurse the baby now; can you get me something to eat?”

If there was a little drummer boy crowded in among the sheep and cattle, I hope he played softly. I wonder who else was there who doesn’t show up in the Gospel. St. Nicholas wasn’t born yet. Even though the Magi in our Nativity set have arrived, they actually probably didn’t show up for some months yet. Any of you women who have given birth understand what Mary went through and any of you men who have been present at a birth can sympathize with Joseph. Would they have wanted all those visitors right away?

I’m glad you and I are here. Every year we stop and focus on this simple story for an evening, and then get on with our lives. Last year was unique; Christmas wasn’t so much a pause as it was another moment in a long series of pauses, but things have gotten crazy again. We went to hear Camille Metoyer-Moten’s program Christmas in My Heart and she sang an original song, “A Simpler Christmas.” It stuck with me, because you and I have allowed Christmas to become so complicated. From the child of Mary snoozing in a manger while his Mother and her husband listen to shepherds tell a wild tale of angels singing, to a donkey and a drummer boy and a big dinner with relatives you may not like all that much or perhaps spending too much time in the car trying to make everyone in the family happy and hoping that Aunt Margaret will actually like the present you got her and did someone remember to buy eggnog?

Camille’s song wished for a simple Christmas of celebrating that the Light of God has come into the world, “just the two of us” enjoying being together and not worrying about presents. And at Christmas I often find myself asking, “Do we have to do all that?” and wanting a simple celebration in the Church. Well, for that matter, I not only want a simple Christmas, I want a simple Christianity. During the height of the pandemic, things got very simple in our personal lives, in the Church, in work and school and family. We stopped doing a lot of things. Before gearing up to do it all again, can we ask ourselves how much we really need to do? I’m sure we don’t want to be as isolated as we were, but if we stopped doing something at church or school or work or home can we ask the simple question, “Do we have to do that?” before we start doing it again? Or is it already too late? No; it’s never too late to stop and ask the question, “Does it have to be that complicated?”

As the preacher who wants a simple Christmas and a simple Christianity I seek to lay no burden on you or me but this: if you want to be a Christian, then do what you can to live as a follower of Christ. My head immediately fills with implications and consequences, but let’s keep them quiet. We celebrate the birth of someone special, and we celebrate because he means something special to us. For this evening, that means holding a candle and singing, “Silent Night.” What will that mean a week from Sunday? What will it mean next August?

I want a simple Christmas. A Christmas in which we remember what it’s about. One more story, and then I’ll stop. A Christian lady was talking with me and telling me about her struggles with her abusive and controlling family. And one issue was their demand that she be present with them at Christmas when didn’t want to be. She said to me, “Christmas is a religious holiday, isn’t it? Can’t I go to Church or do I have to be with my family?”

You and I make our choices about how we observe Christmas and the rest of the year, too. I want a simple Christmas, a Christmas that is about Christ. I want a Church that is about Christ. I want a life that is about Christ.

Mary, Did You Know? (11:00 pm)
Luke 2:1-20 and Revelation 17-18

At some point in the last few weeks you have probably heard that lovely song from 1991, “Mary, Did You Know?” It asks Mary if she knew that the child she delivered would deliver her, if she knew that the face she kissed was the face of God. Some folks have spoken for Mary and said, “I sure did know! I sang about it months before he was born!”

Well, yes. And no. Yes, that night in Bethlehem she was aware the child was a gift from God; the angel had told her he would be the heir of David and would be called the Son of the Most High. But did she have a clear picture of the entire road? I don’t think so; as she held him and nursed him and sang to him, she didn’t see the Cross.

But she saw more than you and I often do. Those of you keeping up with the Year of the Bible have noticed that the readings for today and tomorrow are about the Fall of Babylon the Great, the collapse of its merchant empire, the judgment of God upon it for its oppressions of others. Mary did sing about that; she sang:

God has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
And lifted up the lowly;
Having filled the hungry with good things,
And sent the rich away empty. (Luke 1:52-53)

In seeing the Son of David, the Messiah, promised to a peasant woman from Nazareth, Mary saw God overthrowing empires and world-class economies to redeem the weak and the humble.

That’s a lot of expectation for a baby who spends his first night in a manger. But that baby is up to all the expectation we have of him: Mary sees him overthrowing nations; Simeon sees him piercing her soul with grief and revealing the secret plans of the powerful; Anna sees him bringing about redemption. What expectations do you have of him?

One year, early in Advent, I had a very strange thought. All of a sudden I was overwhelmed with this desire: “I don’t want Jesus to be born this year.” As I thought of Christmas to come, I saw close behind it Ash Wednesday and Good Friday; I saw Jesus tempted in the desert, beaten with whips, and nailed to the Cross. When it happens to him, we who love him experience it too. And I wasn’t ready for that, not that year.

But Christmas came, and so did Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. And Easter too, of course. I don’t imagine Mary knew all that when she kissed Jesus’ forehead, wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in the manger. But she was there for it all. She saw it. And on the Day of Pentecost, when those who stayed true to Jesus were gathered in hope, Mary was with them. When the crisis came, Mary was there; she knew. And she treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. That is what truly matters.

Robert A. Keefer
Presbyterian Church of the Master
Omaha, Nebraska

O Hear the Angels Sing
Advent IV; December 19, 2021
Revelation 14:1-8

Yet with the woes of sin and strife the world has suffered long;
Beneath the heavenly hymn have rolled two thousand years of wrong;
And we at war on earth hear not the tidings that they bring;
O, hush the noise and cease the strife to hear the angels sing.[1]

If you’re not a little torn this time of year then I suspect either you haven’t taken the season seriously enough or you’ve been taking it too seriously. I mean the season of Advent, of course, the season when we look straight into the darkness and pray, “Come, Lord Jesus.” If you’ve not been taking it seriously enough, then you’ve headed straight from Thanksgiving to Christmas and skipped Advent completely. If you’ve been taking it too seriously, then you’ve given in to the darkness and forgotten what John said in his Gospel: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Although it is almost certain that Jesus wasn’t born in December, it is no accident that we celebrate his birth in December. The date was chosen intentionally to coincide with the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere. The date of the solstice has drifted on the calendar, but it’s still close enough to December 25 to make the point. The night of the winter solstice is the longest night of the year; it is the night when there are more hours of darkness than any other. Our northern hemisphere ancestors observed the sun rising later, setting earlier, and peaking lower every day from June until December; it was as if the sun was dying. Then at the night of the solstice, they knew the sun was closest to “death” and that the next day it would be reborn: daily it would rise a little earlier, set a little later, and climb a little higher in the sky. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

So is that not the perfect time to celebrate the birth of the Light of the World? As the northern hemisphere is wrapped in its deepest darkness, we look into the sky for the angels to sing Gloria in excelsis Deo! We pause to hear them sing. And we follow the shepherds to Bethlehem to look for the child of promise.

In Advent we remember the darkness before Christ came, so that we are ready to celebrate his coming when Christmas arrives. But we also look at our present darkness, so that we do not fail to pray, “Come, Lord Jesus.” The present darkness is so deep, isn’t it? A global pandemic that has now assaulted us for two years… the excitement of finally acknowledging the systemic racism that plagues our society but the backlash from those powerful people who demand that we deny its reality… the threats to democratic self-government throughout the world, including in our own country… the widening gap between the rich and the poor, between those who can jet off to Cozumel whenever they want and those who have to choose between diapers and dinner… and the increasingly obvious effects of climate change… One of my colleagues suggested the other day that it feels like the Apocalypse. I agree; it does.

And in the midst of John’s Apocalypse the Lamb appears with his 144,000 singing praise, and an angel announces that God’s Day of Judgment has arrived while another angel follows after, announcing the fall of Babylon the Great. Keep reading to see more of the fall of Babylon, but just as we pause on Christmas night to hear the angels sing Gloria in excelsis Deo let’s pause a moment to hear the angels announce the judgment of God and the fall of Babylon.

When we pray, “Come, Lord Jesus” we are praying not only for a child to snooze in a manger; we are praying for the Lord’s Day of Judgment to come and for the fall of Babylon. And that’s why I’m a little torn, at least, and I suspect you are too if you’re paying attention. In chapter 18 you will see that Babylon is the home of prosperity, the focus of commerce, the source of all that makes merchants happy and wealthy. In saving God’s people, God destroys commerce. And I like my comfortable living, even if most of the rest of the world is unable to share it. And I don’t know how eager I am to face the Lord Jesus in judgment. I think most of us are happier with little Lord Jesus, asleep in the hay, than we are with the avenging King of John’s Revelation.

And yet… that avenging King is a Lamb, a Lamb who was slaughtered. The 144,000 who are the Lamb’s army do not strap on swords and stride off to kill bad people; they sing a song of praise that only they are qualified to learn, for they were martyred. They died rather than desert the Lamb or kill in the Lamb’s name. The light that shines in the darkness is not a targeting laser, but a candle that glows softly but steadily in the night.

What I am stumbling to say to you is that the feeling of being torn is real and appropriate. Judgment Day looms before us: when Babylon is cast down and the New Jerusalem replaces her, when the meek inherit the earth, when devotion to stuff is thrown away and replaced by devotion to the God who loves us and to the people we love. Yet Judgment Day has already come: it started when a young Mother wrapped her baby in bands of cloth and laid him in a feed-trough, and shepherds came to visit. It reached its climax when that baby, a man of thirty-three, was nailed to a Cross because a world of darkness cannot bear his light, and it concluded when a puzzled angel said to some women, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen, as he said.” Judgment Day – all thirty-three years of it – came some 2022 years ago and the world has been denying it and rejecting it and ignoring it ever since, because we human beings prefer the ways of Babylon the Great. Yet, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” As the song says, take a break and hear the angels sing.

Yet with the woes of sin and strife the world has suffered long;
Beneath the heavenly hymn have rolled two thousand years of wrong;
And we at war on earth hear not the tidings that they bring;
O, hush the noise and cease the strife to hear the angels sing.

Robert A. Keefer
Presbyterian Church of the Master
Omaha, Nebraska

[1] Edmund Hamilton Sears, “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear,” verse 3; #123 in Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal (Copyright 2013 Westminster John Knox Press).