Close Encounter of the Spiritual Kind

Early First United Methodist Church

Zephyr United Methodist Church

January 7, 2006

Rev. Eddie Smart

Matthew 2:1-12 (NIV)

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem ²and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him."

³When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. ⁴When he had called together all the people's chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. ⁵"In Bethlehem in Judea," they replied, "for this is what the prophet has written:

⁶" 'But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.'"

⁷Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. ⁸He sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him."

⁹After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. ¹⁰When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. ¹¹On 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 and of incense and of myrrh. ¹²And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

            Yesterday was a day of the year we Christians call Epiphany. Today is the Sunday we have chosen to celebrate Epiphany this year. Did you know that the Christian church has celebrated Epiphany longer than it has celebrated Christmas. Originally it focused on the nativity, incarnation and baptism of Christ. Today we celebrate the coming of the Christ to the gentiles as the three magi came to visit Jesus in Bethlehem.

       So what is Epiphany. We have most recently heard that term in connection with a Christian prison ministry to adolescents. It must be connected to these magi. The three magi came. They bowed down to worship the Christ child. They experienced the presence of the living God. They came with plans to return to Herod. They had their epiphany. God became manifest to them. They turned and went a new way.

      Moses encountered God on Mount Horeb and went a new way. Isaiah encountered God in a majestic vision and went a new way. The magi encountered God and went a new way. Saul encountered God on the road to Damascus, and Paul went a new way. They all went God’s way.

Epiphany - an encounter with God, a life changing manifestation of Almighty God. Epiphany. Something that happened only in Biblical days?

      It was October of 1988 that I experienced God calling me to ordained ministry. My immediate response was to say I can’t afford to go to seminary. That response turned into one of questioning the reality of the experience. The question became, “Did God really call me?” We struggled with that question for 20 months.

      It was June of 1990 that my epiphany began with an encounter with God in scripture. During my morning quiet time, my eyes fell on the words of Romans 11:29, “the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” I knew in that moment that God’s call was real.

      When I told Diana, she showed me an entry on a blank page in her Bible. It read, “April 24, 90 – My confirmation of Eddie’s call to ministry. 1 Peter 5:2, ‘Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care serving as overseers–not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve.’” She wrote that 44 days earlier. There was no longer any doubt for either of us. God became manifest to us in that moment and we turned to go a new way.

      This week the life of President Gerald Ford was celebrated. People remembered how he was propelled into the Presidency by the events of Watergate. I heard several people express the idea that Ford was the right person for that time and his route to the Presidency was providential.

      One of the architects of Watergate was the chief counsel to the President, Charles Colson. Colson once told this epiphany story in an address at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi:

      I love the illustration about a man named Jack Eckerd. A few years ago I was on the Bill Buckley television program, talking about restitution (one of my favorite subjects) and criminal justice. Bill Buckley agreed with me. A few days later I got a call from Jack Eckerd, a businessman from Florida, the founder of the Eckerd Drug chain, the second largest drug chain in America. He saw me on television and asked me to come to Florida. He agreed Florida had a criminal justice crisis, would I come down and do something about it? And we did. We got the attorney general of the state, the president of the senate; we got on Jack Eckerd's Lear jet; we went around the State of Florida advocating criminal justice reforms, and everywhere we would go Jack Eckerd would introduce me to the crowds and say, "This is Chuck Colson, my friend; I met him on Bill Buckley's television program. He's born again, I'm not. I wish I were." And then he'd sit down. We'd get on the airplane and I'd tell him about Jesus. We'd get off at the next stop, he'd repeat it, we'd do the same thing again, and I'd talk to him about Jesus. When we left I gave him some of R. C. Sproul's books and I gave him C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity, which had such an impact on me. I sent him my books. About a year went by and I kept pestering Jack Eckerd. And eventually one day he read some things including the story of Watergate and the Resurrection out of my book, Loving God, and decided that Jesus was, in fact, resurrected from the dead. He called me up to tell me he believed that, and I asked him some other things. When he got through telling me what he believed I said, "You're born again!" He said, "No, I'm not, I haven't felt anything." I said, "Yes, you are! Pray with me right now." After we prayed he said, "I am? Marvelous!" The first thing he did was to walk into one of his drugstores and walked down through the book shelves and he saw Playboy and Penthouse. And he'd seen it there many times before, but it never bothered him before. Now he saw them with new eyes. He'd become a Christian.

      He went back to his office. He called in his president. He said, "Take Playboy and Penthouse out of my stores. The president said, "You can't mean that, Mr. Eckerd. We make three million dollars a year on those books." He said, "Take 'em out of my stores." And in 1,700 stores across America, by one man's decision, those magazines and smut were removed from the shelves because a man had given his life to Christ. I called Jack Eckerd up. I said, "I want to use that story. Did you do that because of your commitment to Christ?" He said, "Why else would I give away three million dollars? The Lord wouldn't let me off the hook."

      Isn't that marvelous? God wouldn't let me off the hook. I don't know any theologian who's better defined the Lordship of Christ than that. And what happened after that is a wonderful sequel and a wonderful demonstration of what happens in our culture today.

      We are caught up with this idea that we've got to have big political institutions and big structures and big movements and big organizations in order to change things in our society. And that's an illusion and a fraud. Jack Eckerd wrote a letter to all the other drugstore operators, all the other chains, and he said, "I've taken it out of my store. Why don't you take it out of yours?" Not a one answered him. Of course not--he'd put them under conviction. So he wrote them some more letters. But then Eckerd's Drugs began to get floods of people coming in to buy things at Eckerd's because they'd taken Playboy and Penthouse out. And so People's removed the magazines from their shelves and then Dart Drug removed them from their shelves and then Revco removed them from their shelves. And over the period of twelve months while the pornography commission in Washington was debating over what to do about pornography, and while they're trying to come up with some recommendations for the president about what to do which will result in laws which if Congress ever passes them will be sued by the ACLU and will be tied up in the courts for 10 years--meanwhile, across America, one by one, stores are removing them. And the 7-11 chairman, who sits on Jack Eckerd's board, finally gave in two weeks ago and 5,000 7-11 stores removed it. And in a period of twelve months, 11,000 retail outlets in America removed Playboy and Penthouse, not because somebody passed a law, but because God wouldn't let one of his men off the hook. That's what brings change.

      As we move into Holy Communion, I hope and I pray that you will have a close encounter of the spiritual kind.