- Sermon - Mickey Anders

Text: Matthew 2:1-12

Doesn't it seem like a long time since Christmas? It's only been twelve days, but it seems that Christmas is long gone. The holiday music is now hushed. The Advent candles have been put away. The Christmas trees are ready for the landfill. The decorations have been stored for another year. The family gatherings already seem like memories from a distant past. Once we pass the New Year's Eve parties and New Year's Day football games, it's time to get back to start looking forward to basketball, unless your team is not doing so well. It's time to get back to the business of the work-a-day world. December 25 seems like a long time ago. We have moved on.

But we can't leave the Christmas theme without dealing with one other important part of the story. The Magi came from the east and started asking questions. "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? We have followed his rising star, and we have come to honor him."

We cannot help but be intrigued by these strangers. We don't really know much about them and can only speculate about the details of their journey. They were not really called kings, and we are not told that there were three of them. We don't really know their names. We don't really know where they came from. We don't really know how long it was before they arrived. We only know that they came from the East.

Many scholars have suggested that they were Zoroastrian priests or Median astrologers. They were apparently well-off financially and highly educated since they could afford to travel such a long distance and were important enough to have a hearing with the king. They brought expensive gifts to present to the Christ child.

Today I want to focus on one simple fact about the magi – they took a journey. It was a journey from the East seeking the Christ child. We do not know why they made this journey. They set off because they felt compelled to do so. They did not know where they were going, but were guided by the star of God's providence to the right place.

Today I want to use the journey of the wise men as a comparison for the journey that South Elkhorn Christian Church has taken. In 1983, when Richard Pope wrote his book about the history of our church, he chose the title, "The Journey." Our church has been known for over 200 years as the Traveling Church.

This Sunday is the first Sunday of our 225th year in this location on the banks of South Elkhorn Creek. The Traveling Church settled here in the same year the Revolutionary War officially ended, nine years before Kentucky became a state and just one year after Lexington was founded. When our ancestors arrived here in 1783, Annapolis, Maryland, was the capitol of the United States. It was the same year Johnny Appleseed was born! We are one of the oldest continuously operating institutions of any kind in the Central Kentucky area.

Though we are celebrating 225 years in this place, we should remember that our church is actually 240 years old. We trace our roots back to the founding of the Upper Spottsylvania Baptist Church near Fredicksburg, Virginia in 1767! We were a church before America became an independent country in the famous year of 1776! What an amazing history we have.

The first pastor, Lewis Craig had visited Kentucky a couple of times and gave glowing reports of the beauty of the land there. He convinced the whole church to move from Virginia to Kentucky. The upper Spotsylvania Baptist Church took the 600 mile trip to Kentucky.

On a Sunday morning in September, 1781, the entire congregation of about 200 members made the decision to leave and was joined by about 400 others, forming a long wagon train. Following the farewell service they brought the pulpit Bible, Communion Service and the church record books. There were men, women, children, slaves, packhorses, cattle, dogs, livestock, loaded wagons and carts. Captain William Ellis, a military leader directed the process that would cover nearly 600 miles of wilderness.

They withstood many trials of the day, including Indian attacks, inclement weather, poor or no roads and the rigors of day-to-day existence. They crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains, came to Moccasin Gap where they turned off on Boone’s Trace or the Wilderness Road, which they followed to “Kentucke.” By December they were in Central Kentucky near Stanford where they decided to spend the rest of the winter at Gilbert’s Creek about 2.5 miles southeast of what is now Lancaster.

Lewis Craig preached at many other settlements and he kept looking for a likely place for his people to settle permanently. He found it in an area with rich soil and flowing springs a few miles southwest of the tiny fortified hamlet of Lexington, the focal point being the spot where an old buffalo trail crossed South Elkhorn Creek. In the fall of 1783 most of his people moved here, and the group reconstituted itself as the South Elkhorn Baptist Church. This was the first worshipping assembly of any kind north of the Kentucky River, and there has been a worshipping congregation here since that time.

It has been a story of many church structures. The first church meetinghouse was a log cabin built around 1784. Colonel Abraham Bowman, a Revolutionary War soldier, owned Helm Place and gave the land on which the church was built. Another meetinghouse was built in 1840 - some say it was frame and some say it was brick. Then in 1870, our Historic Sanctuary was built that still stands on the other end of our property. Since that time, there have been a number of physical improvements to the property resulting in the large and lovely facility we enjoy today.

We have moved from a log cabin to modern architecture. We have moved from wood stoves to central heat, from funeral home fans to the air-conditioning, from the outhouse to indoor plumbing. One of the great stories we will tell is about the day the outhouse burned. We have moved from being a country church to a suburban church. We have moved from the stability of the old country days to the hustle and bustle of city life. What a journey it has been!

That brief synopsis represents the physical story of our journey from the East. It is a fascinating one that we will tell many times in our celebration of 225 years in this location.

But I want to suggest to you that it has been more than just a physical relocation. It is more than a story of the buildings that have been constructed. The same was true for the wise men. It was not just a physical journey from the East for them either. There is was a theological journey. They were on a mission to see the Christ child.

And it was not without controversy. Remember that King Herod wanted to find this child who was born to become king. He wanted to kill him. The slaughter of the innocents was one of the tragic stories that surrounds the birth of Jesus. Controversy came with the wise men.

In the same way, the Traveling Church has known controversy. In fact, we were formed in controversy. We have been shaped by historic controversies that have also formed our nation.

In 1767, the state of Virginia had an official church - the Church of England, now known as the Episcopal or Anglican church. That church was supported by taxes, and there were even laws that required citizens to attend that church.

But Lewis Craig and others of our ancestors wanted to worship God the way they felt called. In time, other churches came to be tolerated. Dissenting ministers were required to secure licenses from the state, but only with the approval of the Anglican priest. Our ancestors generally refused to obtain licenses, believing that they needed only the authority of God. So they stood up for religious freedom. Our ancestors were at the forefront of the movement for religious freedom in our country.

Our first pastor, Lewis Craig, was thrown in jail several times for preaching the Gospel. In 1768, he spent 43 days in jail, charged with unlawful preaching. Because of courageous men and women like him, we ultimately won the battle for freedom.

In 1776, the Virginia Convention approved a constitution which set forth the right of all men to religious freedom. Finally, the struggle involving our church led to the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." We are grounded in that controversy.

The second major controversy came in the 1830s when our church split. In the 1830s our church was embroiled in a theological controversy. This controversy really began with the Cane Ridge Revival in 1801. A new movement came about through Barton Stone and Alexander Campbell, from Bethany, Virginia, the other shining light of the movement. These two men had a different understanding of the Gospel. It is very likely that both of these men preached at our church. Even if they did not, we can be quite sure that the majority of the church members came under the influence of their theology.

The Baptists had adopted the Philadelphia Confession of Faith and required churches and church members to adopt it. Notice that they called it a "confession of faith;" but it functioned like a creed. Barton Stone and Alexander Campbell had a deep aversion to creeds. Their motto was "No creed but Christ." They said, "No book but the Bible. We want to get back to the Bible. We want to be a people of the Book." Alexander Campbell said, "Where the Scriptures speak; we speak. Where the Scriptures are silent; we are silent."

Our ancestors loved the other watchwords of the Stone-Campbell movement, like these:

"In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things charity." "We are not the only Christians, but we are Christians only." "The Church of Christ on earth is essentially, intentionally, and constitutionally one." The lay people in the South Elkhorn Baptist Church were persuaded by Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone.

But the biggest problem with the Philadelphia Confession of Faith was its doctrine of predestination. Though both Stone and Campbell had roots in the Presbyterian Church, neither liked the doctrine of predestination. One paragraph in the Philadelphia Confession stated that "some men are predestinated, or foreordained to eternal life through Jesus Christ..., others being left to act in their sin to their just condemnation" Our church chose the side of free will over predestination.

There were several occasions when the local Baptist association questioned our church about our theological positions. In the end, the association dismissed our church as they had done with churches at Providence and Versailles the year before. After thirty years of theological controversy, our church made a firm commitment to the ways of Barton Stone and Alexander Campbell and became the South Elkhorn Christian Church. The minority of the members who still wanted to maintain their Baptist ways moved down the creek and kept the name of South Elkhorn Baptist Church.

These two major controversies make clear that our church was not only on a physical journey. It is not only a history of where we have been or what we have built. We have been on a theological journey as well.

Much has changed in the theology of our church from 1783 until today. Our theology has changed and grown. We have become a denomination and a church that has a respect for reverent scholarship, a concern for an educated ministry, a conviction concerning the centrality of the Lord’s Supper, and a high regard for the place of the elder in the life of the church. Yet we have maintained a love of freedom, a belief in congregational polity, the concept of baptism as meaning immersion, a rejection of the necessity of infant baptism, and a belief in the separation of church and state and the authority of scripture in our lives.

It has been a grand theological journey for our congregation. During this year, we will talk much about these events – from the humorous events to the theological struggles that have brought us to this place.

I would remind you that we are still like the Magi of old. Our journey is ultimately one to find the Messiah. This is a congregation that is seeking Jesus. We are looking for Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, as Hebrews says. We are a congregation on a spiritual journey.

As we look back, we recognize that the journey has been a heroic and historic one. But we are now at the edge of our future, and we invite all to join us on the journey. We are moving forward to find Jesus Christ and make him Lord. The journey, indeed, continues!

Let us pray: Lord, as we look back, we are so proud of our long heritage of faith. We are awed by all those who have come before us and have made this the wonderful church that it is. We thank you for our heritage; we thank you for the journey. But now we pray that we will be the kind of people who will step up and take the torch and make a wonderful future for our church. Help us to understand our past and to build a future based on the best of our heritage. Help each of us to be on the spiritual journey to find Christ and make him Lord. Help each of us to find our place in building the heritage of the Traveling Church, for we pray it in Jesus name. Amen.