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NATIONAL BISHOP'S TURN

True Allegiance

How do you demonstrate your ongoing devotion and homage to Christ?

By the time you read this, you will probably not be thinking about Epiphany anymore. But I’ve been dwelling with the gospel for Epiphany and pondering the question: what does it mean for us to search for the child and pay him homage? An im-portant question at any time of the year.

What does it mean for us to search for the child? Sometimes I think we confuse our search for the child with other searches. Herod wanted to co-opt the wise men’s search for Jesus for his own purposes—to have them identify this potential rival for pow-er so the threat could be eliminated and Herod’s power secured.

We can start out looking for Jesus but become diverted by focusing on our churches in any one of their levels of expressions. Or we start out looking for Jesus but end up looking at questions of theology, morality, or orthodoxy. And it’s not to say that Jesus can’t be found in the church, or in these other ques-tions, but they are not the same things. What we need to do, and encourage others to do, is to keep the focus on the search for Jesus.

What does it mean for us to pay Jesus homage? Homage means to honour, but it can also be a prom-ise and sign of devotion and allegiance. In our slow drift toward “Christianity Lite,” the kind of homage we pay to Jesus can end up looking more and more like lip service and tokenism. In all of the competing loyalties of our lives, where does Jesus rank, and how are we showing this in the homage we offer?

This leads me to ask, what gifts are you willing to give the Christ child? How will you demonstrate your ongoing homage? I ask this because I am feeling called, more and more, to encourage myself and our church to move away from “Christianity Lite” and toward the more costly discipleship to which Jesus calls us.

Over 100 years ago, Henry Van Dyke wrote a story called The Other Wise Man. It’s about a man named Artaban who desires to find the Christ child and present him with three precious jewels. But he misses connecting with his three friends Caspar, Mel-chior, and Balthazar and sets off on his own, search-ing diligently for the Christ child for the next 33 years.

Along the way, he encounters a dying beggar and then a frightened mother. Aiding them ends up using two of his three jewels.

The last scene of the story takes place in Jeru-salem. Artaban, now an old man, investigates a com-motion and is told that people are going to Golgotha to see a man called Jesus of Nazareth, who claims to be the Son of God, hanged on a cross.

Instinctively, Artaban knows that this is the King he has been searching for, so he rushes to the scene. On his way, he meets a young girl who is being sold into slavery. She falls at his feet pleading for him to rescue her. His heart is moved, and he gives away his third and final jewel for her ransom.

Just then, darkness falls over the land and the earth shakes violently. Great stones fall into the streets, one of which strikes Artaban and mortally wounds him. As he lies dying in the arms of the girl he has just redeemed, he cries out weakly, “For three and 30 years I looked for thee Lord … but I have never seen thy face nor ministered to thee.” And in response, a voice from heaven says, “inasmuch as you did it to the least of my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.” Artaban’s face grows calm and peaceful. His long search has ended. At last, he had found his King.

What does it mean to search for the child? What does it mean to pay Jesus homage? And what are the gifts we are prepared to give the Christ child? I pray, for you and for me, that like Artaban, we may continue to grow and deepen in our own discipleship and encourage others to do the same.

Canada Lutheran, Jan/Feb 2010

Rev. Susan C. Johnson, National Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada writes a regular column for each issue of Canada Lutheran.

The complete texts are available online.