“Who Do You Say I Am?”

Scripture: Exodus 3:13-15; Matthew 2:1-12

What defines our lives and our identity? Is it our name? Our parents? Our DNA? Our heritage? Or is it in who we were created to be? The worldly way always seems so much easier to understand, so much easier to determine, but is it really who we are?

The truth is that we are who God has planned and created us to be, and not who we want to be, or who we think we should be, or who we are by the world’s standards. There’s an old saying, that if we don’t know who we are, then the world will tell us who we must be.

Identity is important in our lives, so that we can know who we are, and where we are going. And if you don’t believe that, just ask a person who has amnesia! You will never feel more lost and alone than when you have lost your identity.
But it is also important for others to know who we are as a basis for our relationship with them. Our individual identities set the standard for how we interact with other people.

And identity is important in our relationship with our Almighty God. If we don’t know who he is, if we don’t know what he stands for, if we try to make the Lord out to be something and someone who is totally different than who he is, what kind of relationship is going to develop between us? Certainly not one in truth!
And this has been a problem for humanity since the beginning of time!

Read Exodus 3:13-15

Moses has experienced the Burning Bush, and now he is in the process of discovering who this Presence is, and what is being expected of him. Moses is a fugitive from Egypt – he murdered a man, and he has lived in exile for the past 40 years. And now he is being told to go back to Egypt to lead the enslaved people of Israel into a new life.

Moses had grown up in the royal family, and had little contact with his own people. So it’s understandable that he is a bit reluctant to return to convince them to trust him, and follow him to some unknown place. And even worse, he isn’t even comfortable with who the One is who is telling him to do these things.

Moses didn’t have a relationship with either the One who was sending him, or the ones he was being sent to! It’s no wonder that he is a bit hesitant to go, that he is afraid of the testing that the people will certainly put him through. They, too, would need to be sure of this new relationship if they are to trust this person who had never been one of them in the past.

So Moses begins an attempt to understand who this God is, so that when he is tested by Israel, he will be able to give at least a credible explanation of why he is there and who has sent him.
The first identity that the Lord gives to his reluctant servant is “I AM who I am.” Now I don’t know about you, but at first glance, this seems to be a pretty lame answer – to say that your identity exists just because you exist! But think about it – God has no ancestors, no DNA, no beginning or end – there is nothing about him that any human could relate to. God’s identity, simply put, IS!

But the Lord doesn’t end there. He also reveals that he has been their God since the origins of their people. The Hebrews identity is in the relationship they had with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – these were the earliest people they could relate to, and they all knew who they were in that relationship. And now they were to know the God who their ancestors worshipped and trusted, and that he would be there for them, too.

And the third identification that God gives is that he is eternal, and his name is one that they must remember. We don’t need to remember a person’s name if the importance that they play in our life is gone, but we do if we are to be blessed by that name.

And this is who we must know our God as – that he IS since the beginning of time, and is also our beginning. He has been the God of creation for all time, and will never exclude anyone who will come to him. And our God is eternal – worthy of praise and worship throughout time.

Read Matthew 2:1-4

We now move ahead by over 1,000 years, and the Reminder of just who this eternal God is has just arrived. Moses had been charged to reintroduce the great God Jehovah to his people. The first ones to know about this precious birth were descendants of those Hebrew slaves, but the ones who have now come in our text for today were, in all probability, alien from that family. But they had heard of the day when God would reenter his creation, and they had been watching for a sign that this day had finally come.

Today is celebrated as Epiphany – the day of God’s revealing, a day of understanding. It is the day when we acknowledge, not only God’s coming into this place, but the reality of his existence. It’s the day when we come to the truth that the Lord has opened for our life.

On Christmas, we celebrate the Lord’s “revealing” to shepherds. These were part of the family of Israel, even though they were, for all practical purposes, outcasts. It wasn’t because of anything that they had done, but simply because of their job – it was a dirty job, a smelly job, a bloody job, and they were considered to be “contaminated” by the world – they were “unclean” - and would never be allowed to enter the temple for worship.
Today, we celebrate the Lord’s revealing to gentiles. Even though these would have been learned men, wealthy men, respected men, they were not Jews, and as such, they were unworthy to receive insight into Jehovah’s presence. And yet, God knew otherwise.

All who will “come to worship him” are welcome. Being unworthy by the world’s standards has never been God’s plan. In Matthew 15:16-20 we read that it isn’t what goes into our mouth, or what clings to our clothing, or who our ancestors were that makes us unworthy, it is the evil that lives within our hearts that marks us as sinful. And even then, we can still come to the Lord, acknowledging our unworthiness, to ask for his healing in the divine relationship that we have damaged. When the shepherds came, when the magi came, they came in celebration for the vision of God that had been granted to them. In spite of what men may think, God had a totally different plan.

And as we read further, we discover that the jealousy and fear of earth had created a major obstacle for the world’s rulers.

Read Matthew 2:5-8

It is in the hearts and lives of the least of earth that the fullness of God’s presence will rest. The least will know the Lord, and the mighty will fight against his truth. And in the day of Christ’s revealing – both this first one, as well as in the one to come – those who love the Lord and his ways will be exposed to constant opposition and conflict from those who love the world and choose to live in those ways.

In this passage, even the foreigners know the words of the prophets, in this instance Micah 5:1-5a, who had proclaimed the Lord’s coming centuries before, while the king of Israel had no recollection of the prophecy. But even though Herod was ignorant of this illumination, he could still plan the elimination of this perceived threat to his throne by lies and subterfuge. He, and others in the centuries to come, thought that God’s plan could be thwarted through the schemes of earth. The truth is that Satan can’t, and the world can’t – their only hope is to surrender to the power and truth of the Lord.

Read Matthew 2:9-12

And not only couldn’t Herod know where the Christ Child was, the magi, the foreigners, the unworthy would be led by God’s own hand to the very place they had been searching for. They came in worship, not in apprehension, they came in hope, not in doubt, they came seeking the presence of Almighty God, and they wouldn’t be disappointed.

They rejoiced at this glorious discovery, and they presented the King of Glory with gifts that they had been carrying for many months. The gold that they gave was a gift that was fitting for a king; the frankincense was an aromatic resin that was used as incense in the temple; the myrrh was also an aromatic oil that was used in the washing of bodies, along with frankincense, before they were placed in a tomb for burial.

A royal gift, a religious gift, and a gift for his death. They had seen the Truth of God for themselves, they had presented him with gifts that would reflect the glory and reality of this Child of God, and now, by the Lord’s will, they would not have to reveal the location of this Gift to the king who had nothing but hatred and loathing as his planned gift to God.

The love, the hope, the presence of Almighty God has been revealed to the people of earth, and as with any true gift, the only string that is attached is that it has to be accepted. No expectations, no demands, no caveats – only the hope that it will be received.

The shepherds came to see with hope; the magi traveled many miles to experience their joy – the question for us today is whether we come the Lord’s presence with the expectation of seeing him through our worldly eyes, or with a heart filled with hope?
Who will we let the Christ be for each of us?