Christmas 2, Year C
January 4, 2004
Christ Church, Covington

It is the virtue of different Gospels that they tell the story of Jesus differently. So it is by the wisdom of the prophets cited here and by the genius of Matthew the Gospel writer himself that we are given at Christmas the birth of a king. It is Matthew who gives us the star that guides the wise men to Bethlehem, bearing gifts fit for a king; it is Matthew who gives Jesus the “royal genealogy” including several kings of Judah among his ancestors; it is Matthew who tells the story of the confrontation with wicked King Herod that accompanies Jesus’ birth (part of which forms our gospel today). Jesus, according to Matthew, has been a king from the very day of his birth, acknowledged by envoys from the East and opposed by the tyrant who occupies his throne; a king who must flee from the country for his life before coming into the inheritance of royal power that is rightfully his own.

Did any of you, I wonder, catch the echo of this Gospel story in the recently released third installment of the “Lord of the Rings” film, entitled (appropriately enough), “The Return of the King”? Everyone should know these stories of Middle Earth by J.R.R. Tolkien, wonderful and imaginative and deeply permeated not only by ancient legend (his subject) but also by the Gospel itself. The King who returns to his kingdom is the Ranger Aragorn, an obscure knight errant; a wanderer whose ancestors were driven from their kingdom by the evil Lord Sauron long ago, and whose people have waged a defensive war against evil ever since.

The throne has been vacant since the decline of Aragorn’s family; but now, through the agency of the hobbits, a humble and obscure folk, the ring that is the source of Sauron’s evil power has come into the possession of the free peoples of Middle Earth, and the moment has come for the return of the king. The old alliance which once confounded Sauron is re-forged, and it is now Aragorn’s moment to lead. Yet the spell of evil can only be broken through sacrifice and love, by the hobbits Frodo and Sam who bear the ring of power through a long journey and many trials. Before the end, all humanity will be tempted to despair.

This possibility of despair, of the failure of the world of men, is a recurring theme. Many believe that cooperation with Sauron is humanity’s only hope; that “the old allies and policies will not avail us at all” (Fellowship of the Ring, p. 340). Here is Tolkien, in the voice of the hobbit Bilbo (p. 325), replying to human doubt that the King could ever come again “out of the shadows of the past” in the person of Aragorn:

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken:
The crownless again shall be king.

Notice that Matthew tells a story much like this when he tells us about the Messiah, the king. Tolkien, in telling his story, is drawing from truths that we know on a very profound level, not least of all from the Gospel tradition. They strike a note with us and we recognize them in Tolkien’s work. Jesus himself is born of a humble family, yet he is the inheritor of the kingdom. He is a wanderer, but the wandering is intentional and not purposeless. Jesus is the full flowering of an ancient stock, descended from Abraham and David and a wisdom as old as the world, and older. When evil had discounted the possibility of the promise made by God ever being fulfilled, and had begun its rule with Herod, the old alliance between God and humanity was renewed in Jesus’ own person. The deep roots of God’s promise had not been withered by the power of sin. The crowns that were taken away from Adam and Eve have been given again to Jesus, and to his brothers and sisters who share the royal inheritance.

I think that we too doubt whether the old alliance can ever be re-forged; whether the ancient blade can be recast and the noble truth emerge from the shadow of the past. Even more menacing is the power of evil, the power of sin, within us and without. We too are tempted to despair in the face of its reality. So we ask ourselves, “Can it really be true that the triumph of the good that we long for and can recognize in stories like Tolkien’s could ever really enter the world of history, the world of our reality, and be fulfilled? The joy of the Gospel is realizing that, for this once, the promise that we hardly dared hope for has been kept. There is salvation, there is healing at the hands of the King; we can depend on the old loyalty and the old faith of human kind. The joy of the Gospel promise at Christmas is in realizing that the King has truly returned.

The Rev’d John Bauerschmidt is Rector of Christ Church, Covington.

Return to Recent Sermons