Second Choice

As we travel from Advent, to Christmas, to Epiphany, to Lent, I have been thinking about how easy it is to think of ourselves as being the second choice.  We hear much of how the Jewish tribes were God’s chosen people.  We even hear how Jesus came to the Jews to save them first.  All this could give some one an inferiority complex.  His first choice wouldn’t have Him so He came to us. His second choice, makes you feel special doesn’t it. How did you feel when, as a child, you were not picked first for a team?  Myself I must admit with my athletic prowess I was just happy to be picked and delighted if I was not the last one left.  But that is my problem; there were many other disappointments in other areas where I was second choice and not first.

That however is not the case with God.  We were not His second choice!  I am not sure why Jesus was born to a middle class Jewish girl and not to middle class Roman or Celtic girl.  My guess would be because they had been most open to Him over the last centuries.  They recognized Him as the one and only God.  This was fertile ground for His message.  These were a people that should have been the most ready to listen to Him.  These were the people who should have been the natural born leaders for Him.  And fourteen were.  Judas, one of the original twelve, did what he had to do to fulfill scripture.  He was a man who was willing to give up his life for a cause he had doubts about to complete God’s will.  After the resurrection they had to replace him, “and the lot fell on Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.” (Acts 1: 26)  Hence 13 apostles. 

Then the 14th, a zealot was persecuting these new Christians, as heretics, and one day as Saul, a Pharisee and tent maker, was riding along, BAM, bright light, knocked off his high horse, blinded, and hears voice.  Suddenly he is Paul and becomes one of the most important evangelists of his and all time.  It is with him that this new religion takes off big time.  And by rights he wasn’t even Jewish.  His father was Roman. Yes, one of the despised Romans.  His mother was Jewish which made him Jewish by religion but his nationality was actually Roman.  He was the one who was most instrumental in carrying this new religion to the gentiles.

You know it started well before that, the call to the gentiles that is.  Jesus reached out to us gentiles early in His ministry.  Remember the woman at the well.  Remember the Roman Centurion and the hemorrhaging woman.  Jesus did reach out to gentiles.  His main concern was teaching His core group because when He was gone their mission was with "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations...." (Matthew 28:18,19)  He was clearly developing a base of operations to reach out to the world.

This started well before Jesus even started His ministry.  Do the names: Gaspar, Balthasar, and Melchior  mean anything to you?  We don’t know that much about them.  Tradition has it that they were from the East, the Orient.  Some place in Persia, India, Arabia or Babylon. Persian is the modern day Iraq and Iran area.  They may have been from three different places. They may have worked together, been neighbors, or corresponded as members of the same profession.  They were supposedly magicians but not in today’s sense.  They were learned men, leaders, confidants, and advisors to kings or kings themselves. They were astronomers or astrologers.  They studied the heavens and ancient text not only of their own land but those of their neighbors and other great nations.  They knew what was what and could make things happen.  On the day Jesus was born a great light developed in the sky and because they had studied the Greek and Hebrew scriptures they knew what it meant.  God was calling them to travel and find this child who would be king.  They might have set out together or they might have met on the way.  They most likely traveled in caravan and shared the story with many of their fellow travelers preparing them for what was about to happen.  It took them up to two years to find the child.  One thing is certain; they were gentiles who God called to witness the birth of the Christ, the one who would redeem them.  So with one great light, God called both the poor Jewish shepherds and the gentiles at the same time.

We were not second choice.  Even before the birth of Christ, God told us that the Messiah was to come for us also.  In Isaiah  God told us: “all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.” (Isaiah 52:10) and "And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all mankind shall see it together for the mouth of the Lord has spoken." (Isaiah 40:5) and “Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.” (Isaiah 42:1; cf. vs. 2-9) 

Back in the time of the prophets God told of sending the messiah to all nations, plural.  Not just to a few.  Not just to the Jews but all nations.  We were His chosen from the beginning.  During our Ash Wednesday  service we are reminded of Christ’s mission to redeem us with pardon and absolution and we are called to the observance of a holy Lent by self-examination and repentance;…and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.  Let us rejoice in being chosen first by following this call.