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In the name of Jesus, amen.
Dear saints, we, you and I, we Christians, we worship Jesus. This is what sets us apart from the world. It’s what sets us apart even from our own sin, from death, from the devil. This is what gives us hope. It’s what gives us peace in the world. We worship Jesus.
Yesterday I was visiting with someone. Then they were talking about friends who were Jehovah’s Witnesses, and they were in a conversation with them, trying to sort out the critical question. I said, this is the question to ask them: Do you worship Jesus? Because I do. And I think it’s bigger than that, though. It’s not just when we talk to our friends who are Jehovah’s Witnesses or who are Mormons or who are Jewish or Muslim or whatever. It’s bigger than that. And this is what it means to be a Christian, a Christian.
We’ll consider this tonight with a gospel lesson. As the Magi come and they find Jesus, what do they do? They fall down and they worship Him. I want you to note, and we’re not going to really come back to this, but just to keep this in mind whenever you’re reading the Gospel of Matthew, that He both begins and ends with this worship of Jesus.
Matthew chapter 2, that’s what we’re going to look at tonight, but at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 28, when the disciples come and find Jesus on the mountain in Galilee, what do they do? They fall down and they worship Him. And so the gospel is begun and ended with this truth, the worship of Jesus.
But to the text from Matthew chapter 2, the visit of the wise men to the baby Jesus and His family in Bethlehem, we’re now finished the 12 days of Christmas; we’ve come to Epiphany. The word “epiphany” means to manifest, and in the season of Epiphany, we consider that Jesus manifests Himself to the Gentiles and to all the world, and that He shows Himself to be the Christ.
Verse 1: Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem saying, “Where is he who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him.”
Now who are these wise men? And why do they know that a star rising is indicating the birth of the King of the Jews? We don’t know. Here’s the best guess, and I’m going to give you a couple of my best guesses on this text tonight, but I hope you’ll receive them that way as pastor’s best guess. If you hear someone else guess better, then you should listen to them.
But here’s my best guess: that these wise men came from the school of the prophet Daniel. That Daniel, when he was in Babylon and was given prophecies by the angels and by the Spirit of God and who wrote down those prophecies, would also have established a school there; a synagogue for the Jews, but also a school for the Babylonians, setting up sort of a university of Babylon with a Hebrew school in it.
That Daniel must have received a particular promise or prophecy indicating that the rise of the star in the east meant that the Messiah, the Christ, had come. And so there were generations of people waiting for that promise to be kept. Finally, that star does rise, miraculously by the Lord, indicating that Jesus had been born. And so they leave the east, probably Babylon, and head straight to the capital of Israel, which is Jerusalem. They go straight to the castle in the middle of the city, which is where Herod lived. That’s where you’d go if you were expecting a king of the Jews to be born; you would go to the castle.
But Herod had not had any children recently, and that was a particular problem. We’ll remember that Herod was called by the Romans the king of the Jews. And so you can imagine, and Herod was just a wicked man. A little bit more on this later, but you can imagine Herod’s distress when these wise men come.
Imagine them on their camels, but also their attendants, their soldiers, their servants, and the people who were with them. This big, huge group, a crowd that was traveling with so much wealth and riches. When they come into Jerusalem, the stir that it caused there, but the stir that it would have caused for Herod to see this and how troubled he would have been, that someone was looking. Hey, that’s my name, the King of the Jews.
Verse 3 says, “When Herod the king heard it, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.” We would have been troubled if we were there too, seeing all these wise men and soldiers and everyone else there. But it’s this particular jealousy that’s stirred up in Herod, and we’re going to hear, or we heard already in fact, what happens when that jealousy is stirred up. He sends his soldiers to kill all the children, but that’s not even…
So here’s a little bit about Herod. He was a particularly jealous man, and he guarded his throne with ferocity. He had ten wives, fifteen children. Most of those wives did not survive. Many of them were killed by their deaths which were arranged by Herod himself, and their children were arranged as soon as he had the idea that they were after the throne; he would have them murdered.
He even murdered some of his in-laws, some of the fathers and mothers of his wives. Herod was this kind of guy. He was traveling one time, and he gave his soldiers the command that if something were to happen to him on his travels, if he didn’t make it back, that they were to kill his wives so that they wouldn’t be married to anyone else. Or he gave instructions that upon his death, they were to gather all of the wise men, all of the nobles in Jerusalem into the Colosseum, the theater there, and to kill them all—the Sanhedrin and all the ruling Jews—so that the city would mourn, because Herod knew that they wouldn’t mourn his death.
So he wanted to have the people that were loved dying also, so that there would be mourning when he died. He was a ruthless kind of ruler. He was an amazing man in other ways, building and everything else like this, but his ruthlessness was so profound that Josephus, who spends two books describing the rule and life of Herod, doesn’t even mention the slaughter of the infants in Bethlehem because it doesn’t even rise to like the top 20 list of wicked things that he did.
So Herod, you’ve got to think about this, he was given this office of king of the Jews by the Romans, and he was there in place, keeping everything down tight. Here come these wise men from a territory that he had just recently finished winning a war with, and they come and say, “Hey, where’s the newborn king of the Jews?”
So, Herod in his jealousy and his plotting calls together the chief priests and the scribes to figure out where they should go and look. This is verse 4, “When he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.” So they said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet, Malachi chapter 5, verse 2: ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are not the least among the rulers of Judah, for out of you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’”
The prophets had, the Lord had given to the prophets the birth town of the Messiah, and they knew where it was: Bethlehem. And it’s not that far away. I wish Round Rock was six miles from Austin. It’s not that far. I mean, it’s close; it’s walking—it’s a, you know, a morning walk from Jerusalem down to Bethlehem.
Now, there’s a thing in the text. We remember that Bethlehem was a tiny town; it was a kind of out-of-the-way place. There were some important things that happened in Bethlehem. Bethlehem was where Rachel was buried. Bethlehem was where Ruth married Boaz, remember that? And so, and they gave birth to Jesse who gave birth to David. David was born in Bethlehem. That’s why it’s called the city of David, and that’s why all the descendants of David were going to Bethlehem to be registered for the census. But still, it’s a little podunk town.
And I want to point this out to you. I don’t know if you noticed it in the lessons, but when you read the text in Micah, it’s different than the way the scribes quote it in Luke. See if you can pick it up. Here’s Micah 5:2: “But you, Bethlehem, Epaphrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to me the one to be the ruler of Israel, whose goings forth are of old from everlasting.”
Did you get it? In Micah it says, “You, Bethlehem, are little among the tribes of Judah,” but when the scribes quote it 500 years later, they say, “You, Bethlehem, are not little; you are not the least in the tribes of Judah.”
Now what accounts for that difference? Here again, I don’t know. You’re going to get another best guess. Here’s the best guess I have. There’s been, you know, the Bible scholars have written a lot about this particular problem, but here’s what I think it is. Bethlehem was a small little town; it was a kind of out-of-the-way place. But as soon as Micah indicates in his prophecy that Bethlehem is the place where the Messiah will be born, then it becomes a big deal.
The promise, which indicates the humility of Bethlehem, in fact gives glory to the city. I’ll give you an example: Lukenbach. That has a—it has a population of three. Did you know that? I looked it up today. Three people. It’s a tiny little town totally out of the way, but as soon as Willie Nelson is singing about it or whatever, then all of a sudden it has a prominence.
So this is Bethlehem. It’s out of the way, but as soon as Micah says Bethlehem is the one, now it is no longer the least of the tribes of Judah, the cities of Judah. The promise itself makes it glorious. But this is the way…
Now, think about this. This is the way the Lord works. Of all the cities in all the world, in all the glorious places that the Lord could call His hometown, Jesus chose Bethlehem. And not even a home in Bethlehem; He’s born in the—He’s laid in a manger, He’s in a stable, in a cave with the animals. And this is how the Lord comes in His humility.
But here I want you to notice, remember we’re considering this text under the three reactions to Jesus. I want you to see the first reaction that people have to Jesus. It’s the reaction of the scribes and the Pharisees, and the reaction is indifference. They knew the prophets. They were a four-hour walk from Bethlehem, but they couldn’t be bothered to go and even check it out, just even to send somebody to see what was going on down there. They were just totally indifferent.
And I would say that this is probably the most common reaction that the preaching and the name of Jesus has today: indifference. What do we do about that? Well, Jesus will stir them up when He grows up.
Verse 7: “Herod, when he had secretly called the wise men, determined from them what time the star had appeared, and he sent them to Bethlehem and said, ‘Go and search carefully, diligently for the young child, and when you have found him, bring back word to me that I can go and worship him.’”
Now we know better. We know that Herod has wicked designs, that Herod was plotting to destroy this child as soon as he could find him and get his hands on him.
And so he sends the wise men to track him down and then to bring him back word. And it seems like Herod—and think about this—that Herod had convinced them. I mean, if the angel didn’t come to the wise men and tell them, “Hey, don’t go back to Herod,” they would have gone back and they would have told them, “Hey, Jesus lives at 4 Jerusalem Way in Bethlehem” or whatever, and they would have gone and found Him there.
But Herod was, under the guise of this kind of nicety, enraged against Jesus. And here is the second reaction that Jesus gets: anger, hatred. The world hates Jesus. I mean, Jesus Himself says it, “The world hated me long before it hated you.”
Now, this is also interesting for us to consider: why? Why does the world hate Jesus? You have asked me this question, and this is, by the way, my favorite question to hear from you. So write it down, and in a couple of weeks, don’t ask me today because I’ll know, but I’ll forget in a couple of weeks you’re going to ask me this.
The question is this: “Pastor, the gospel is so sweet, it’s so good, it’s so wonderful. The life and death of Jesus is so marvelous and fantastic. Why doesn’t everyone believe? Why doesn’t everyone rejoice with this joy? Why doesn’t everyone cling to this comfort? Why doesn’t the world worship Jesus?”
It’s a wonderful question because I know whenever you ask that question that the joy of the gospel has captured your own hearts. But here’s the problem with the world: Jesus claims to be Lord when we want to be our own Lord. Jesus claims to be the Savior when we don’t need any help. Jesus claims to forgive our sins, and we say, “What sins?” We, according to our sinful nature, and the world according to its only nature, are experts at self-justification, and we are vociferous defenders of our own righteousness.
Do you see that to be saved by Jesus, you have to first need to be saved? To be forgiven by Jesus, you have to first know that you are a sinner, and the world refuses to admit it. Herod will defend his throne to his last breath. He is busy sharpening his sword because no one else ought to be king but himself. And so it is to all of us who would be king and rulers and laws unto ourselves, Jesus is enemy number one.
So we see the reaction of indifference and the reaction of anger. But we’re after the third reaction to Jesus: worship. Verse 9: “When they, the wise men, the Magi, heard the king, they departed, and behold, the star which they had seen in the east went before them till it came and stood over where the young child was.”
It seems like the star rose and they went to Jerusalem and then was gone for a little while. And then once they heard the word Bethlehem, the star is back in the sky. And not only back in the sky, but it goes to rest over the home where Jesus is.
And when they saw the star, look at this, verse 10: “They rejoiced with exceedingly great joy.” And when they had come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and they worshiped him. And they opened their treasures; they presented to him gifts—gold, frankincense, myrrh—and then, being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country another way.
They worshiped Jesus like we do. Now, I want you to imagine walking down the sleepy streets at Bethlehem this night, I don’t know, January 6th in the year 2 B.C., and you’re just taking your dog for a walk or something. You turn the corner, and you see all of these camels parked on the side of the road.
You know, you can tell when your neighbors are having a party, right? Because the streets are filled. But imagine if the streets are not for cars; they’re for walking, and there are all these camels stuck in there. What’s happening down there? And there’s all these people mulling around, and there’s all this activity. What’s going on over there? So you cruise down the alleyway to see what’s going on, and you walk by the house, and you look in there, and you see these three men decked out in rich, wealthy clothes with crowns on their heads. They’re complete strangers, and they’re down on their knees and their hands and their faces to the ground. What’s going on there?
And then you look to see what they’re worshiping, and there in the lap of his poor little mother is a baby. What’s going on here? What are these men doing? Luther loves to preach about this. He says, can you imagine what great fools the wise men would have seemed like to the world? If you wanted to worship something, there are so many greater things to worship. There are so many more magnificent things to bow down to, but here they are in this humble little home worshiping this poor little baby.
What great fools these wise men look like to the world, and what great fools we look like to the world when we worship Jesus. But Jesus is the wisdom of God. Jesus is the power of God. Jesus is the glory of God, hidden in that flesh, and we worship Him. This is wisdom. This is why the wise men were wise, because they could see past the appearances of this child to the truth.
That this baby in the lap of his mother, that this boy growing up in Nazareth, that this man in the river baptized by John, that this one healing and teaching, and this one being whipped and scorned and having his beard torn out and nailed to a cross and laid in the tomb and raised from the dead, this one is Christ the Lord, the Savior of sinners, God in the flesh.
So, we pressed past indifference, and we pressed past the defensiveness that we have, and we join these wise men, and we worship Jesus.
I suppose if someone is walking their dog tonight, and they go and look in the window, and they see you up here kneeling down at this rail and taking a little piece of bread and a little sip of wine, they might have the same astonishment that the people would have had in Bethlehem that night. But don’t be ashamed. Jesus is our God and our friend. And we, together with the wise men, delight to worship Him.
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
And may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Please stand.
