[preached at Emmanuel, Hastings this year]
I guess we’re all familiar
with this story of the visit of the wise men, which we just read.
We’ve seen them on enough
Christmas cards.
And we’ve watched the
slightly baffled children being shoved on to the stage in their nativity plays,
dressed as the teachers’ images of oriental kings.
It’s a familiar story, so
we might miss just how extraordinary this whole episode is.
These are surprising
visitors
Who make a surprising
journey
On a surprising search
Bringing surprising gifts.
Let’s look at some of these
surprises together.
First, these are surprising visitors.
They sweep into our story
and they sweep out again.
We know next to nothing
about them.
Our passage calls them
Magi, from which we get our word magicians.
They are maybe priest
philosophers.
Wise men probably isn’t a
bad description.
Certainly they are
astrologers.
And astrology gets a bad
press in the Bible.
In the Bible’s terms,
these are not religiously orthodox people.
They’ve got some funny
ideas.
Yet God invites them to
the birth of his son.
And they’re foreigners.
They’re not part of God’s
special chosen people, Israel.
The visit of these wise
men, is a hint who God invites to himself.
They’re outsiders.
They’re slightly dodgey.
But God welcomes them.
They show us that Jesus is
of worldwide, global significance.
He’s come for all the
nations.
For all people.
In fact, the star is a
sign that Jesus is of cosmic importance.
They are surprising
visitors.
And,
They’ve made a surprising journey.
Our passage tells us
simply that they came from the East.
We don’t know where there
from exactly.
The best guess is probably
that they come from Babylon, present day Iraq, where God’s people had once been
in exile.
If you go straight across
the desert, it’s 540 miles from Babylon to Jerusalem.
Despite the spoof version
of the carol, of course, they didn’t come “one in a taxi, one in a car, [and]
one in a scooter sounder his hooter.”
They had to walk or ride.
The journey would have
taken at least a month, probably much longer.
By the time the wise men
get to Jesus he’s not in the manger any more – he’s been able to upgrade to a
house.
By now Jesus is called “a
child” rather than “a baby”.
Later on it turns out that
the star might have appeared up to 2 years earlier.
A journey like this would
have been an expensive, difficult business.
The wise men end up risking
their lives for Jesus’ sake, by defying the murderous king Herod.
They tell us it’s worth
taking the time and effort to find out who Jesus really is, whatever it takes.
It’s worth crossing a continent to find out
about Jesus!
Thankfully, we don’t have
to journey across deserts on camels, but we do need to investigate Jesus’
claims for ourselves.
For us, it’s relatively
easy.
Like those at Herod’s
court, we have the Bible readily available.
We only have to make it as
far as the church here to find out more about Jesus.
There’s a corny old car
bumper sticker which says, “Wise men sought Jesus – they still do”.
They are on a surprising search.
We sometimes talk about these
wise men as the 3 kings.
This passage doesn’t tell
us they were kings.
And it doesn’t tell us
there were 3 of them.
This is actually a passage
about 2 kings – King Herod and King Jesus.
The wise men ask Herod,
“Where is the one who has been born to be king of the Jews?”
Now, Herod, of course, is
the king of the Jews.
When they ask for the King
of the Jews, Herod thinks well, that’s me!
And he doesn’t welcome the
idea of a vacancy!
Herod knows that the wise
men must be seeking the Christ – that is, the long-awaited rescuer king, whom
God had promised.
The one who would bring in
God’s kingdom in all its fullness and put everything right.
He is going to be the
ruler who will shepherd the people of Israel.
Jesus will be a totally
different sort of king from Herod.
He will provide for and
protect his people.
In the very next section
of Matthew’s gospel, Herod sends in his soldiers to kill all the baby boys in
Bethlehem.
Herod kills his people.
In contrast, Jesus will
die for them.
This is a search for the
true and ultimate king, the Saviour of the world.
Lastly, these wise men
bring surprising gifts.
They give Jesus gold.
It’s a present fit for a
king.
And remember Jesus is an
ordinary peasant boy.
After all, he was born in
the outbuilding of a one star-hotel!
(Joke!)
Frankinsense / incense
In the Old Testament
incense was offered to God as a symbol of prayer
The wise men bow down and
worship Jesus.
It seems they recognise
him as more than a mere human being.
Jesus is God come in the
flesh, who deserves our worship.
Myrrh
Spice used in embalming
the dead
We’ve got 4 children and
they’ve received all sorts of gifts over the years, but they’ve never been
given a toy hearse or a cuddly undertaker.
Jesus was born to die.
He had come to die in the
place of all who would trust in him, that they might be forgiven.
Jesus remains a surprising
king.
This Christmas I want to
encourage you to seriously investigate for yourself who he is.
You might find that he
surprises you.
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