I’m spoiled. Rotten. And I know it. Every Christmas I find the things that I have asked for under the tree. Santa does an amazingly thorough job of getting the things that I need and provides them generously. The sizes are usually even right!! I hope your Santa is as smart as mine. Underwear, socks, two shirts!! I’m set for a whole year. But usually Santa is predictable. Not boring, but predictable.

But not this year!! After what we assumed was a successful unveiling of the gifts our daughter said, “Wait, there is one more gift. Maybe it got lost. Check under the skirt of the tree.” Gift card, right? Had to be, what else would fit under the tree? But we didn’t locate it. We would make sure to be careful when we took the wrapping paper out to the trash. But just at that moment the strong boys in the household were carrying in a huge flat screen TV. 40 inches across with high definition. Now I can really enjoy all those football games!!

I wonder what will our age be remembered for? Flat screen TV’s? Computer’s? Technology? Improvements in medical care? What will future generations say about this time that we live in? I wonder if they might say that we have lived in the Dark Ages. Not the Dark Ages commonly known as the years between 476 and 1000, when little cultural achievements were made, but our own Dark Ages.

During our age we have witnessed the atrocities of the Holocaust, the killing fields in Cambodia and Rwanda, the unrest in Africa and terrorism in every country. The newspapers gave the year end reports of the thousands of people that have been murdered by the drug cartels just south of El Paso, Texas in Juarez, Mexico. And then we, on our flat screen TV’s, can play games that depict some of that violence. Maybe when historians look at our place in history they may see that we had our own Dark Ages.

But we aren’t the first to live in the Dark Ages. Every generation, because of the evil of sin, has their own dark Ages. Our reading from Matthew, the account of the Magi, the Wise Men, the astrologers who followed the star to find the King of Jew and Gentile is a dark account. The star appeared in the sky the night when Jesus was born. And a group then followed that star until they arrived in Bethlehem. It may have taken them a year, maybe a little more, to get to Bethlehem. Jesus was no longer an infant, He now was a child. He no longer was in the manger, the cattle stall, He was in a house. Evidently Mary and Joseph who had come to be counted in the census stayed and had made Bethlehem their home, temporarily.

But what darkness grew in the heart of this King. After the Magi came to Jerusalem and asked Herod about the birth of the King of the Jews, Herod asked the chief priest’s and the teacher’s of the law where the Christ would be born – they were the experts, they should know. And they offered the quote from the prophet Micah that the ruler would come from Bethlehem.

Wouldn’t that be good news for the Jewish people? God kept His promise and sent a Savior, the Christ, one who would shepherd His people. But it was the Dark Ages, at least in Herod’s heart. It says in our reading that after Herod heard the news of the birth of Christ, “He was disturbed and all Jerusalem with him.” (Matthew 2:3) Herod had a dark heart. He murdered anyone who was a risk to him losing his power. His favorite wife, his mother-in-law, a brother-in-law, an uncle and three of his own sons were all assassinated by him.

He had asked the Magi to come back to him when they had found the King of the Jews so he could come and worship Him. But the Magi never returned to Herod to tell him about the child. Later in Matthew 2 we read, “When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and younger, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.” (Verse 16) Dark Ages. Christmas is to be joy, but it certainly wasn’t during those days.

I see the Dark Ages in the hatred and brutality of Herod, but I also see it in the indifference of the chief priests and teachers of the law. We read nothing about others going to look for the Christ child. The Magi go but they go alone. Indifference to the place of Christ in our lives truly makes our hearts dark.

This past year was actually a sad one in the history of our congregation – our congregation shrunk by nearly 20%. Over 100 people who were contacted in various ways, asking them to become regular in their worship and the reception of the Lord’s Supper told us that they were not interested in returning to Ascension Lutheran Church. Maybe some are going to worship elsewhere but many simply go nowhere.

I know that sometimes members in the church are bothered when the church is filled at Christmas and Easter and not during the other days of the year. We had nearly 600 on Christmas Eve, a little fewer than that today!! I am not bothered that so many people come on Christmas Eve, though I would love to see them more often than some come, but I am bothered that some of the folks that hold membership here didn’t come even on that day. I looked for them, I wanted to see them, but many of them did not come.

That is the Dark Ages. Indifference to Christ, coldness of faith, a following of God only occasionally is darkness. I believe that every age that mankind has lived has been a Dark Age. Then and now. But the joy of the Epiphany, the twelfth day of Christmas, is that the light of Christ comes to dispel our darkness. What led the Wise Men to the Child? Light. God’s specially chosen light would lead them to the Light of the World, Jesus Christ.

In John’s opening words to his gospel he says, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not overcome it…The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him. But to all who received Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but born of God.” (John 1:4-5, 10-13)

In the sermon hymn, “Thy Strong Word”, one of the verses sang, “Lo, on those who dwelt in darkness, Dark as night and deep as death. Broke the light of Thy salvation, Breathed Thine own life-breathing breath.” (LSB 578, Verse 2) We have our own Dark Ages, in our battles against evil and Satan and the sin that would take our life. But Jesus, the light of our soul in His great work for us, has breathed into us life-giving breath!! Paul writes, “For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of the light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true)”. (Ephesians 5:8-9)

The week before Christmas James Bain walked out of prison in Bartow, Florida after spending the last 35 years of his life there. He was convicted to a life sentence when he was 19 and now at 54 he was finally released. But the reason that this became such a big story is that James Bain never committed that terrible crime. DNA evidence, not available then, but available now, proved his innocence. When he was set free he spoke about his deep faith and that he does not harbor any anger. He said, “No, I’m not angry because I’ve got God.” Wow!! There would be ever opportunity for bitterness and anger and a lot of darkness. But he gives the brilliance of light.

In our account of the Epiphany we see the darkness of hatred in Herod and the darkness of indifference in the religious leaders, but we see the brilliance of light in the response of the Wise Men. They travel many miles and for a number of months and finally see the child. “The star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with His mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped Him. Then they opened their treasures and presented Him with gifts of gold and incense and of myrrh.” (Matthew 2:9-11)

That is our heart. Jesus came for us. He is our Savior. We have life in Him and strength and an everlasting kingdom. Our gifts to Him, our praise, our hearts, our wills are willingly offered to Him. He has taken us from our Dark Ages to His brilliant light. Enjoy this light, live in this light, reflect this light today and always!! Amen!!