So if
you’re not aware of our current sermon series, you probably wonder what in the
world that pastor is up to. We’re almost a month after Christmas, and
here we are talking about the wise men. What’s up with that?
Well, our sermon series is “Beyond
the Manger”, looking at the early life of Jesus, to the extent we know about
it. We talked about the circumcision of Jesus and his presentation at the
temple when he was forty days old. So this is the next thing we know
about--the visit of the wise men to Mary, Joseph, and Jesus.
We usually talk about this story in
the context of the nativity scene, with Mary and Joseph still at the stable and
Jesus still a baby in the manger. But as some of you know, that’s not the
way most people think it actually happened. After the wise men saw the
star, it took them a while to figure out where they were headed, and then to
get to Jerusalem and talk to Herod, and then to get to Bethlehem and find Jesus.
The generally accepted view is that Jesus might have been as much as two
years old when the wise men finally got to Bethlehem.
That, of course, means that Mary and
Joseph and Jesus all stayed in Bethlehem for as many as two years. We
don’t know why they stayed there that long. After all, the reason they
went from Nazareth to Bethlehem was because of the census. Did the census
really take two years? Or was there some other reason they stayed
that long? And when they left Nazareth, did they know they were going to
be gone for two years? Or did they think they’d be coming back soon?
There are all kinds of questions we can think of about all this, and we
don’t have any answers to them.
What we do know is an interesting story. We have these wise
men, or magi as our verses call them. They want to worship the new king,
whose star they’ve seen. They go to Jerusalem and tell King Herod about
it. The king was worried, he asked his advisers where the Messiah would
be born and found out it would be Bethlehem. So, the king sent the Magi
to Bethlehem to find the new king and report back to him. They found the
king, they worshiped him, they gave him gifts. Then they were warned in a
dream not to go back to Herod, and they went home.
And that’s it for the wise men.
We know nothing more about them. They don’t show up anywhere else
in the Bible. They’re not even in any of the other gospels. What’s
in these twelve verses are everything we know about the wise men.
And again, we have all kinds of
questions. We don’t know where the wise men came from, other than “the
east”. We don’t know how they knew the star they saw was a sign of the
coming of the king of the Jews. We don’t know how they found the house
Jesus was in. I mean, yes, the star stopped over the place where the
child was, but a star, up in the sky, would not lead you to a specific house.
There are so many things about this story that we just don’t know.
But of course, that’s true of lots
of stories in the Bible. As we’ll see in this sermon series, it’s true of
the life of Jesus. There are all kinds of things about Jesus’ life on
earth that we’d like to know and we don’t know. The Bible, as the
inspired word of God, tells us the things God decided we need to know, not the
things we’d like to know. And we don’t have much choice but to be
satisfied with that.
But that raises the question:
why did God decide we needed to know about this story? I mean, yes,
it sets up the story of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus going to Egypt, and we’re going
to talk about that next week, but it seems like there has to be more to it than
that. So, as we often ask, what is it that we’re supposed to learn from
this story?
Well, one thing it gives us, as we
talked about a few weeks ago, is that it’s a confirmation of an Old Testament
prophecy. Micah had said that the Savior would be born in Bethlehem.
That’s what the king’s advisers were quoting. It’s how Herod knew
to send the wise men to Bethlehem. It seems a little surprising that the
wise men did not know it, since they were, after all, supposed to be wise.
But then, as we’ve already said, we don’t know where they came from, so
maybe the prophecy of Micah was not known where they lived.
It’s not a small thing to have
confirmation of the Old Testament prophecy. It would’ve been really
important to people at the time. But I think there’s more to this story
than that.
Look at what the wise men asked.
“Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?” Think
about what that says. It’s present tense. Jesus was born king of
the Jews. In other words, Jesus was the king of the Jews from the moment
he was born. They did not ask about the one who is going to be king of
the Jews. They did not ask about the one who someday will be the king of
the Jews. They asked about the one who has been born as the king of the
Jews. The one who is the king of the Jews right now, today. The one
who, therefore, is the Savior right now, today.
And the wise men confirmed that view
with their behavior. When they saw Jesus, they bowed down and worshiped
him. Even though Jesus was two years old or less, these wise men, these
people who we sometimes refer to as having been kings themselves, bowed down
and worshiped this little kid.
We take that for granted, but it’s
an amazing thing. Think of some little kid you know who’s like one or two
years old. Can you imagine bowing down before him and worshiping him or
her? Can you imagine treating that little kid like a king? And yet,
that’s what these wise men did. They treated Jesus with all the respect a
king should have, even when he was just a little kid. And the reason they
did that, again, is that they knew Jesus actually was the king already.
He was not a little kid who was going to be the king. He was already
the king right at that moment, and had been since his birth.
And the gifts they gave Jesus, the
gold, frankincense, and myrrh, showed that, too. Now, some people find a
lot of symbolic importance to the gifts they gave, and that may very well be
right. But Matthew does not mention any symbolic importance to them.
Matthew’s point is that these are expensive gifts. They are the
kind of gifts you’d give to a king. And again, the fact that the wise men
gave these gifts to Jesus showed that they were treating him as a king right at
that moment, because that’s what Jesus was.
So why’s that important? Why
is it important to know that Jesus was the king right from birth, and that the
wise men treated him that way?
What’s important about it is that it
shows Jesus was not like any earthly king. An earthly king would not take
over until the old king was disposed of. If you were the son of an
earthly king, you could not become king until your father had died. If
you were not in the royal line, you might become a king by conquest, by war,
but you still had to get rid of the old king somehow. There could only be
one king at a time.
But Jesus did not have to wait to
become king. Jesus did not have to wait until his father died, because
his father was God the Father. Jesus did not have to dispose of the old
king, because he was not taking over for some other king. That’s what
Herod was afraid of, and we’ll talk about that more next week, but Jesus did
not want to dispose of Herod. He had no interest in Herod’s kingdom.
Jesus’ kingdom, as he himself said, was not an earthly kingdom.
Jesus did not care about earthly kingdoms. Jesus cared about the
kingdom of God coming to earth.
And Jesus was not like an earthly
king in another way. Earthly kingdoms end. Just as an earthly king
has to wait to become king, an earthly king has to give up his kingdom some
time. Even if he has no enemies, he will die at some point. And at
that point, his reign as king is over.
Jesus’ kingdom does not end.
Just as Jesus did not have to wait to become king--he simply was the
king--Jesus did not have to give up his kingdom, and he did not. Jesus’
kingdom continues now, today. And it will continue tomorrow, and the next
day, and the next week, and on and on and on. Jesus’ kingdom will continue
forever.
What the story of the wise men tells
us is that Jesus is the king. Think about the truth of that statement.
Jesus is the king. That’s a statement that has been true for over
two thousand years. Jesus is the king. That statement was true when
Jesus was born. Jesus is the king. It was true when the wise men
saw Jesus. Jesus is the king. It was true all through Jesus’ life.
Jesus is the king. It was true when Jesus was killed and when he
rose again. Jesus is the king. It’s a statement that is still true
today, and it’s a statement that always will be true. Jesus is the king.
There’s a lot of scary stuff going
on in the world. Some of us have scary stuff going on in our own lives,
too. And sometimes it seems like that scary stuff can overwhelm us.
If it feels like it’s going to overwhelm you, remember this statement:
Jesus is the king. No matter how scary life gets, Jesus is the
king. And Jesus will prevail, because his kingdom lasts forever.
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