ADVENT 2017: Declaring the Coming of Messiah Magi Came to Worship Matthew 2:1-12 Layne Lebo December 24, 2017 Have you ever thought about how exclusive religion typically is? When it comes to our faith, we generally congregate with people like us. Who we worship with is often dictated by where we live, our level of wealth, our political beliefs and our ethnicity. The result is that our congregations are usually very homogenous. Someone has said that 10 o clock Sunday morning is the most segregated time of the week. I grew up in a church environment where regular church attendance was expected and there were very clear lines about right and wrong behavior. Church services were held Sunday mornings, Sunday evenings and Wednesday nights, along with 1 to 2 week revival services in the spring and fall, and it was assumed that the faithful would be there. Smoking cigarettes or cigars or anything else was taboo, as was drinking alcohol and using foul language. I was skeptical of the Christianity of neighbors and friends of mine who attended other churches, but didn t hold to the same strict set of rules and holy living I was taught good Christians were supposed to adhere to and who went to church much less frequently than I did. The specific rules vary from denomination to denomination and from church to church, but the understanding that some are in and others are out is usually very clear. And this isn t just true for us in 21 st Century America; it s pretty much always been the case in every culture. When it comes to religion, people are usually adamant about the fact that there are insiders and there are outsiders. We see this clearly among the Jewish people God s chosen ones in the Old and New Testament. The Jews were called and set apart by God. God gave them specific laws and religious rituals they were to follow. Throughout history, God s people were very distinct from those around them. And yet, the entire Bible God clearly communicates that his love and grace and favor (the word we focused on last week) are available to all people they weren t limited to Jews alone. When God called Abraham to follow Him and set him apart as the father of his people God said, I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, 1
and you will be a blessing and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. (Genesis 12:2 & 3) Later, when the nation of Israel rose to great prosperity and influence under David s son, King Solomon, leaders came from all over the world to observe Solomon s court and kingdom and they gave praise to God for what they saw. And while the primary message of God s prophets was to the Israelites, they frequently spoke of God s love for all people and of his desire for the people of all nations to follow Him. But the Jewish people were no different from any of us, they believed God s love was exclusive to them, or they at least believed that if anyone was going to have access to God s love they had to think, act, dress, eat and worship like they did. And then, as God s message of love for all people continued to unfold, God did the unthinkable, He became human; He sent his Son, Jesus, as a baby in an out-of-the-way corner of the world to a town called Bethlehem. And to make sure He had our attention God used all kinds of unlikely people people who weren t insiders to bring his Son into the world and to communicate to everyone that He had come. Last week I preached on the shepherds and emphasized what unlikely messengers they were, as people working at a job that received little respect. But the shepherds weren t the only unlikely people involved in the Christmas story: there was Mary, a young, unmarried virgin and Zechariah and Elizabeth the parents of John the Baptist an elderly couple who had been barren their entire married lives. And there were also the Magi or wise men. While the Jewish religious leaders and the politicians and the wealthy elite went about their lives as usual, unaware that anything significant had happened, pagan foreigners from the east followed a star to Jerusalem searching for The King of the Jews. verses 1-12 I invite you to follow along as I read the account of the Magi from Matthew chapter 2 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. In Bethlehem in Judea, they replied, for this is what the prophet has written: 2
But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him. After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose 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 worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route. Matthew 2:1-12 Of all the characters surrounding Jesus birth, the Magi are the most mysterious and intriguing. We have very little background about them; they simply show up in the Christmas story. And since we re told so little about them, all kinds of questions surround them. Questions like: Who were these guys wise men, kings, magicians, astrologers? Where exactly did they come from from the east doesn t really tell us a lot? When did they visit Jesus based on Herod s instruction to kill all the baby boys 2 years and younger, some have speculated that they may have arrived as long as 2 years after Jesus birth? What was the nature of the star they followed was it Venus, a comet, the North Star or some heavenly body that miraculously appeared out of nowhere to guide them to the Christ child? And what about their gifts gold, frankincense and myrrh what were their significance? The information attempting to answer each of those questions is voluminous and if you re so inclined, you could spend much of your Christmas break researching answers to these questions and others, but I m not going to focus much on answering these questions today, with one exception. I want to briefly address the question When did the Magi visit Jesus? Common thinking is that Jesus may have been as old as 2 years when the magi arrived, because the scripture states that Jesus was in a house with his family (v. 11) and after King Herod was tricked by the Magi he decreed that all of the boys 2 years old and young should be killed. But several of the articles I read last week challenged that assumption based on the historical information the Bible gives us about Herod being king and how the visit of the Magi coincides with Joseph and Mary s escape to Egypt. The most compelling explanation I read was that the magi s arrival may have occurred 40 days or so after Jesus birth following Mary s time of 3
ceremonial cleansing required for any Jewish woman after giving birth when the couple and the baby would have been situated in the house of a relative or in their own home. We could explore many questions related to the Magi, but like the shepherds, who were unlikely messengers, I d like us to focus on the magi as unlikely worshipers. I see a profound message for us in the unlikelihood of foreign, pagans traveling a great distance to worship Jesus. All the explanation we re given about the Magi s search for the child is found in verses 1 & 2: Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. The question that begs to be answered is, How did these guys learn about the star and its connection with the king of the Jews? How did foreigners living somewhere east of Jerusalem (possibly in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan or India) have any information about a coming king of the Jews? Any answer to that question is pure speculation, but an idea I find intriguing is that perhaps these foreigners and others from the east knew about prophecies of a Jewish Messiah through Daniel or Esther two prominent Jewish Old Testament figures who had been transported at a young from their homes in Jerusalem to Babylon and Persia and eventually rose to positions of great influence in foreign nations to the east of Israel, while holding steadfast to their faith in God. However the Magi became aware of the star and its connection to the prophecy of a Jewish Messiah, the Bible portrays them as going to great lengths to find and worship Jesus. I don t think we can make this point strongly enough the Jews who were wealthy, elite, in power and in positions of religious leadership were seemingly unaware that Jesus had been born, while foreign, pagan worshipers learned of Jesus birth and traveled a great distance to find Him. And the Bible doesn t portray these guys just as curiosity seekers. They specifically said, We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. And later, after consulting with Herod and his scholars and then finding the house where Jesus was, the Magi had a dream in which God warned them not to go back to Herod and tell him where Jesus was. God communicated to these men in a dream just as He had earlier with Jesus father, Joseph and the Magi were in tune with God enough, not only to receive the dream, but also to respond in obedience to it. 4
While we re quick (especially in our religious beliefs) to designate some as in and others as out, the entire Bible is clear that God s love and grace and forgiveness and favor are for everyone. And God made this especially clear in the events surrounding the birth of his Son, Jesus. Our Heavenly Father wanted to make it crystal clear to us that his love isn t reserved for a special few; it s available to everyone of us. Today is the day of God s favor. So, how about you? Do you struggle with the sense that you re not part of God s in crowd? Have you believed that your past or struggles you re currently walking through are keeping you from God s love? God s message to you and to each of us which is confirmed throughout the Christmas story is that his love and grace and forgiveness and salvation aren t reserved for a select few; they re available to every one of us. Listen to these familiar words of Jesus from John s Gospel: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Jesus came to save us, not to condemn us. If you re feeling disconnected from Jesus this morning, my hope is that you ll sense his heart of love for you in a fresh way. And if you ve never invited Jesus into your life and committed yourself to worshiping and following Him, today would be a great day for that to happen. 5