A Place of Return Matthew 2:1-12 Rev. Dr. Rhonda Abbott Blevins December 28, 2025
In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, 2 asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” 3 When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; 4 and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:
6 ’And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.’”
7 Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. 8 Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” 9 When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. 11 On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.
It is so good to be with you on this, the first Sunday after Christmas. In the “pastor business,” we call this Sunday, as well as the Sunday after Easter, “Low Sunday.” Playfully, only the most devout worshippers show up on a “Low Sunday,” so congratulations! An extra star in your heavenly crown for being here today!
If you’ve been with us throughout Advent, you’ve joined us on a journey through some of the most important geographical locations in the Christmas story:
· We started the journey in Rome, the seat of power and authority. The place where the decree emanated from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed, sending Joseph and Mary and the unborn Jesus on a 100-mile journey on foot toward Bethlehem.
· Then we stopped in Jerusalem, where Zechariah was serving God in the Temple when the angel Gabriel appeared, telling him that his wife Elizabeth would have a son in her old age. His name would be John; he would be the forerunner to the Messiah.
· Heading north, we went up to Nazareth, a little “nowhere” town in Galilee where Jesus grew up.
· Then down to the hill country outside Jerusalem to the little town of Bethlehem where prophets foretold Messiah would be born.
· Then on Christmas Eve, we zoomed in on our Google map, from the region around Jerusalem, to the little town of Bethlehem, to a particular inn, and even closer, to the stable there at the inn. And with x-ray vision, we zoomed even further to a place called “The Manger,” in which the Christ Child lay because there was no room for them in the inn.
Today we consider the last stop—the last geographical spot we’ll consider in our journey through the places important to the Christmas narrative. The place? Persia. Possibly in what we know as modern-day Iraq.
So in today’s scripture lesson, we read the story of wise men who, after traveling a great distance from Persia to find the Christ child, went “home by another way.” We sing about “Three Kings,” but they weren’t kings—they were probably Zoroastrian priests, given their study of the stars. And we don’t really know how many men made the journey. We get the number “three” from the three items the wise men brought as gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. These weren’t terribly practical gifts. You’ve probably heard the old joke about this:
The three wise men brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh. If it had been three wise WOMEN, they would have brought diapers, wipes and formula, and a casserole to boot!
Much has been made out of the three gifts; some suggest the gold represents royalty, the frankincense represents divinity, the myrrh (used at the time for burial rites) represents humanity. Others comment about how expensive all three items were, especially the myrrh at the time. Still others wonder if these expensive items might have helped fund the holy family’s escape to Egypt upon learning of Herod’s plan to kill all the newborn males.
But what I want to focus on is the end of the pericope today—the part where the wise men were warned in a dream not to return to Herod. The scripture tells us that “they left for their own country by another road.”
They made the long journey to Bethlehem. They encountered the Christ child. They delivered their gifts. And now? They must return home. But they cannot return home the same way they traveled to Bethlehem. No, that path is no longer available to them. In fact, death likely awaits them should they attempt it. They must return home, but they must chart a new course for their return.
The wise men met the Christ child. They carried that experience of meeting Christ with them on their long return home. I wonder: how were they changed? Was their load lighter, having left their gifts behind? Who would they become upon their arrival home?
But what’s interesting about this story—about their story—is that we don’t know when or if they arrived home. Because their story is unresolved in our scriptures, the wise men are forever traveling home—forever returning.
And what a fitting metaphor for us, for our lives. We are forever traveling home. Like the wise men, our work is to be forever returning.
Mark Nepo, one of my favorite authors, describes this work so beautifully:
Being human is to always be in return: to sacredness, to wakefulness, to the fact that we’re on the same journey, alone and together. We’re safe, then afraid. We’re calm, then agitated.
We’re clear, then confused. We’re enthusiastic, then numb. We long for the moments of lift, and run from the moments that weigh us down. But the inescapable rhythm of life lifts us and weighs us down by turns, just as the ocean swells and dips with each wave. When we lose our way, each of us is challenged to discern and embody a very personal practice of return—to what matters and to what has heart.1
In his Book of Awakenings, Nepo shares a powerful dream that the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung once had—a dream that speaks directly to this work of returning home.
In Jung’s dream, he found himself walking through a dense, dark forest. The way was difficult, obscured. He had to cut a path through the undergrowth, pushing aside branches, clearing the way step by step. It was hard work, this journey through the wilderness.
Finally, after much effort, Jung came upon a small clearing. There, in that quiet space he had labored to reach, stood a simple cabin. Jung approached the cabin and stepped inside.
And there, waiting for him in that humble dwelling, was himself.
Not a stranger. Not a guide or a teacher or an angel. But himself—perhaps an older, wiser version of himself. Perhaps his truest self. The self that had been waiting there all along.
What a stunning image of the spiritual journey! We labor and struggle, cutting our way through the thick undergrowth of life—through our fears and our doubts, through our busyness and our distractions, through all the tangled complications we create. We work so hard to find our way.
And when we finally arrive at that place of clarity, that sacred space we’ve been seeking, we discover that we’ve been there all along. That who we truly are—who we were created to be—has been waiting patiently for us to complete the journey home.
Like the wise men, we cannot return home by the same road we left. The encounter with the Christ child—the encounter with the Divine—changes us. It charts a new course. We must cut a new path through the forest.
But here’s the beautiful truth Jung’s dream reveals: home isn’t just a destination we’re traveling toward. Home is also where we began. Home is who we’ve always been beneath
1 Mark Nepo, “The Practice of Return,” https://www.patheos.com/blogs/fieldnotesonliving/2017/06/12/the-practice-of-return/
all the layers we’ve accumulated. Home is that truest self, waiting patiently in the clearing, ready to welcome us when we finally arrive.
You see, home is that deep place within each of us where the Holy Spirit resides. When Christ came, Christ came as “Emmanuel,” God with us. We spend our days out in the dark forest, wielding our machetes, clearing our paths, when all along the Spirit within us awaits our return.
That return, I am learning in my own spiritual journey, feels less and less like living into expectations of culture, even of religion, and more and more like a return to my true self—the most authentic version of who God created me to be.
Again, in the words of Mark Nepo:
We are born with only one obligation—to be completely who we are.
The returning home to who we are . . . this is our life’s journey. So what’s the best way home?
Four or five years ago, my youngest son noticed after church one day that I was taking a different way home. By then, I’d lived in Pinellas County long enough to know the traffic patterns. On a sunny December day, it’s best to avoid the roads that lead to the beach at certain times of day. And even though there was a shorter route home that sunny day after church, I knew it would not be the quickest way home.
As I was explaining all of this to him, he asked, “So are there only two ways home?” “Not at all!” I replied. “There are countless ways home. We could drive to Alaska on our way home if we wanted to, but that wouldn’t be very smart, would it?” He laughed, and the conversation went on to more important matters, like whether we could eat ice cream for lunch.
The wise men had undoubtedly planned to go home the quickest way. They had called up AAA and gotten their “TripTik.” Since they appeared to have been wealthy, certainly some 5-Star accommodations in Jerusalem were a part of their itinerary. But a dream prompted them to change course. A nudge from God—a whisper from on high. The way they were planning was most convenient, but it was not the way of wisdom.
You see, had they gone through Jerusalem and reported back to Herod the Christ child’s location, would we have ever heard the name of Jesus? Would Herod have killed Jesus before Jesus was even weaned from Mary’s breast? What might have been the outcome if the wise men had ignored the whispers of God? If they had discounted their dream? If they soldiered on with their plans, dreams be damned? How is the world different because the wise men went “home by another way?”
As we stand here in these final days of 2025, on the threshold of a new year, we too are being invited to go home by another way. We are being invited to return—to return to our truest selves, to return to what matters, to return to what has heart.
But here’s what I want to suggest today: what if, this year, instead of making New Year’s resolutions, we considered New Year’s aspirations?
You see, resolutions seem to me to be about fixing what’s broken. They’re about forcing ourselves to become something we’re not. They’re about willpower and discipline and white-knuckling our way through January until we inevitably fail and give up by February.
But aspirations? Aspirations are about returning home to who we already are. Aspirations are about clearing the path to that cabin in the woods where our truest self is waiting.
Aspirations are about listening to the dreams, the whispers, the nudges from God that invite us to go home by another way.
Resolutions say: “I will lose twenty pounds. I will go to the gym every day. I will be more productive.”
Aspirations say: “I aspire to treat my body with reverence, as the temple of the Holy Spirit. I aspire to move in ways that bring me joy. I aspire to honor the rhythm of my own soul, which needs rest as much as it needs work.”
Do you see the difference? Resolutions are about becoming someone else. Aspirations are about becoming more fully who we already are.
So as we enter this new year, what are you being called to aspire to? What path is God inviting you to take home? What old road—convenient though it may be—is no longer available to you? What new course must you chart?
· Perhaps you’re being called to aspire to deeper authenticity in your relationships—to risk being truly seen rather than performing who you think others want you to be.
· Perhaps you’re being called to aspire to greater courage—to finally pursue that calling that’s been whispering to you for years.
· Perhaps you’re being called to aspire to more spaciousness in your days—to create margins for prayer, for rest, for wonder, for joy.
· Perhaps you’re being called to aspire to forgiveness—of others, yes, but also of yourself.
Whatever your aspiration, remember this: you’re not trying to become someone new. You’re returning to who you’ve always been. That truest self is already waiting for you in the clearing, at the end of labor, striving, cutting through the dense forest.
And friends, that work is not easy. The journey home by another way is rarely the convenient path. Again, more wisdom from Mark Nepo:
To journey without being changed, is to be a nomad. To change without journeying is to be a chameleon.
To journey and to be transformed by the journeying is to be a pilgrim.
This pilgrim path is the path of wisdom. It is the path that leads to life.
As we close this morning, I want to leave you with the words of Amanda Gorman, our nation’s youngest inaugural poet. In her poem “New Day’s Lyric,” she captures this beautiful tension of returning and beginning, of carrying what was into what will be, of aspiring toward home:
May this be the day We come together
Mourning, we come to mend, Withered, we come to weather, Torn, we come to tend, Battered, we come to better.
Tethered by this year of yearning, We are learning
That though we weren’t ready for this, We have been readied by it.
We steadily vow that no matter How we are weighed down,
We must always pave a way forward.
This is our door, our portal.
Even if we never get back to normal, Someday we can venture beyond it,
To leave the known and take the first steps. So let us not return to what was normal, But reach toward what is next.
What was cursed, we will cure.
What was plagued, we will prove pure.
Where we tend to argue, we will try to agree, Those fortunes we forswore, now the future we foresee,
Where we weren’t aware, we’re now awake; Those moments we missed
Are now these moments we make,
The moments we meet,
And our hearts, once all together beaten, Now all together beat.
Come, look up with kindness yet,
For even solace can be sourced from sorrow. We remember, not just for the sake of yesterday,
But to take on tomorrow.
We heed this old spirit, In a new day’s lyric,
In our hearts, we hear it: For auld lang syne, my dear, For auld lang syne.
Be bold, sang Time this year, Be bold, sang Time,
For when you honor yesterday, Tomorrow ye will find.
Know what we’ve fought Need not be forgotten nor for none.
It defines us, binds us as one, Come over, join this day just begun.
For wherever we come together, We will forever overcome.