Matthew 2:1–11

0:00 You know, after all that, and especially after that in particular, I feel like every year when I stand up here in this pulpit, it is the most anticlimactic moment of the evening. Oh, sorry, I was waiting on a John Lovett amen right there. You know, this old Louisville Christmas that we celebrate here, two weeks usually before Christmas every year, it's become a bit of a tradition. for many of us at 3rd Avenue or members at 3rd Avenue.

0:32 If you've been here for a long time, you've been to a whole lot of these probably. I think we're on about year 15 of something like an old Louisville Christmas. And so for a lot of us, it's become a bit of a tradition. You know, there are a lot of traditions that surround Christmas. Some of them go back like an old Louisville Christmas, 15 years. Some of them, maybe if you're a new family, go back a couple of years. Many of them go back hundreds of years or thousands of years or even all the way back to when Jesus was born. Even the date of Christmas is a tradition.

1:03 Do you know why we celebrate Christmas on December the 25th? It has nothing to do with the Roman celebration of Saturnalia, anything like that. It's not based on a pagan holiday. The way it worked out is because scholars figured out very early on in the history of the church that Jesus would have been crucified in the Jewish calendar on the day of the 16th of Nisan. Nisan was one of the months in the Jewish calendar, Which, when translated into the year in which we think Jesus died, would have come out to March the 25th. So Jesus died on March the 25th.

1:35 And so they thought it would be very cool if Jesus died on the very same day in which he was conceived. So they said Jesus must have been conceived on March the 25th by the Holy Spirit. And then you do the math, nine months later, December the 25th. That's how it worked out. Christmas tree, same way. Christmas trees don't go all the way back to Jesus. They came around in the Middle Ages because in Europe there was a play that was often put on during the Christmas season in which the story of the Bible was told all the way from the Garden of Eden to the New Jerusalem.

2:09 And the only prop in the play was a tree that sat in the middle of the stage that served as a tree for various things that were going on. The tree in the Garden of Eden, the tree that's on either side of the River of Life at the New Jerusalem. It served in many different ways. one of the ways that they would decorate that tree was to hang apples on it so that Adam and Eve could take the apple off and eat it at the beginning of the play well they quickly figured out after after some time that the apples were too heavy and so the leaves of the tree would start to droop downward and so they figured out that instead of putting real apples on the tree which were really heavy they could bake bread in the shape of apples paint the bread red and hang that on the tree, and the bread was light enough to hold up the apple-shaped bread.

2:56 Well, in time, what they started doing, instead of just putting apples on the tree, was that they began to put other things on the tree, too. They would bake bread in the shape of angels, or stars, or shepherds, or a manger, and they would hang those on the tree as well. As far as we know, Martin Luther, the great reformer, was the first person to take candles and put it in the branches of the tree. Dangerous. but pretty, and Martin Luther, as you know, was not averse to some risk.

3:29 Here I stand. I can do no other. But you know, there's one tradition that very much goes back to the very beginning, and that is the giving of gifts around the season of Jesus' birth. You know where that comes from? It comes from the gifts that the wise men brought to Jesus, the gold and the frankincense and the myrrh in the days after his birth. I want to take just a few moments this evening to talk a bit and think a bit about those wise men. Linda Heitzman read that passage from the book of Matthew as the eighth lesson just a few minutes ago.

4:03 So if you want to look at the story as we talk about it, you can turn over in your bulletin to the eighth lesson and you'll find the story about the wise men being led by the star to see Jesus. The basic story is simple enough. sometime after Jesus was born, we think it was probably six to 18 months probably after he was born because that's how long it would take someone to trek through or around the desert from Babylon to Bethlehem. Some men that the Bible calls wise men or just magi come from the east to Jerusalem and they show up talking about the birth of a new king of the Jews. Now to be perfectly honest, we don't know a whole lot about these men. They probably aren't kings as the old song would have it and we have no idea how many of them there were. So the song that says We Three Kings is probably wrong in at least two details, three and kings. The reason we get three is because they brought three gifts, right? Gold, frankincense, and myrrh. So it stands to reason that one brought gold, one brought frankincense, one brought myrrh, but we really don't know. What we do know about them, because we can kind of figure it out by reading through the lines or between the lines,

5:05 is that they were probably astrologers who had some knowledge of the Jewish scriptures. And so if they were from Babylon, there were still some Jews who were living there after the exile, and they would have learned about the scriptures from those Jews. Well, the second verse of Matthew 2 says that these wise men, whoever they were, were alerted to this new king's birth in Babylon by the rising of, quote, his star. Now, the fact is, again, we don't know what that was, and people have given all kinds of guesses about it. Maybe it was a supernova in the sky. Maybe it was an angel. Maybe it was a particularly bright star and I happen to think that the best case that's been made for the star was that it was a comet that sort of upended all the wise men's astrological expectations and communicated to them in some way as that comet made its way through the various zodiacal signs that they would have believed in that a new king had been born in Jerusalem in fulfillment of the prophecies of scripture well anyway when the wise men arrive in Jerusalem they're not discreet in

6:06 any way whatsoever. And what they were claiming that this new king had been born in Jerusalem or in a town near Jerusalem quickly made its way around the city, including to the palace of King Herod, who was the ruler over the Jews at the time. And Herod summoned them. He questions him a little bit and then finds out from his own Old Testament scholars where the Messiah is going to be born. And he tells them where to go. You should go, he says, to Bethlehem, a city that's rich with these royal connotations because it was the hometown of King David. When Herod sent them to Bethlehem, he had hoped that the wise men would find the young king, come back to the palace, tell him where the child was. And that was certainly not because Herod wanted to worship the baby. In fact, he wanted to kill him. So the wise men set out from Jerusalem. They go about six miles down the road to the city of Bethlehem. They find Jesus, who is now a small child, six months, 18 months, something like that.

7:02 And they worship him and present him with these very costly gifts. Right there, what you've got is this amazing story right at the beginning of Jesus' life of God bringing the nations to the manger of Jesus in order to worship him. Jesus' throne would not just be a Jewish one. It would be a universal one. Men and women from every tribe, tongue, and people and nation would come to worship him. And the wise men are some of the first witnesses of that. but I want you to notice something too about this whole passage that Linda read to us just a few minutes ago. I want us to notice how the birth of Jesus elicited a number of different responses from various people in the story. And I think the amazing thing that we'll see over the next few minutes is that their responses in an incredible way tend to mirror our responses to Jesus. So first, just think about Herod for just a second. If you're looking at verse three, you can see that when Herod heard this news of a new king born in Bethlehem, he was troubled.

8:07 That's verse three. Why is Herod troubled? Well, he's troubled because he's actually not a Jew by birth. He had been placed on the throne several years earlier by the emperor, and thus he'd never really been able to secure the allegiance of the Jewish people. And so his claim on the throne and the kingship of Judea was incredibly tenuous. So now that there's word of someone being born who has a rightful claim to the throne of Israel, Herod's all of a sudden in a bad position. And to make matters worse, in his old age, he'd become paranoid. He'd even had his wife and two sons executed when he suspected them of plotting against him. So that's why verse 3 there says that Herod was troubled, and it's why it says also that all Jerusalem was troubled right along with him. Jerusalem wasn't troubled about the word of a king being born. Jerusalem was troubled with Herod because nobody knew what Herod might do when he was threatened. So you see Herod's response to this whole thing? As the whole thing plays out, his response was hostility and self-preservation.

9:11 That's what Herod did. He was hostile to the new king, and he decided instead of worshiping and recognizing that new king to preserve his own throne and kingdom. So from the minute he hears, his only thought is to keep his throne, to preserve his position. He wants to keep the crown. He wants to keep the kingship. And this child who has been born is a threat to it. So his mind starts to worry, starts to try to figure a way out of it. Even in verse 7 there, he's already plotting the slaughter of the infants. He asks, why is the star, or when did the star appear?

9:45 And what he's trying to do is ascertain the age of the child. Because he wanted to know what age children he needed to kill. And he also deceives the wise men, right? And you can almost imagine just the oily, fake piety when he says to the wise men, go and find him in Bethlehem and then come back and tell me where he is so that I may worship him. You can almost hear Satan's hiss in his voice. But he didn't want to worship him. He wanted to kill him. Because he wanted to preserve his own station. In his own position.

10:18 Now I wonder if in this Christmas season, maybe even in this Christmas service tonight, if you really look down deep into your heart, if you can see any of Herod in yourself. Any of that response of self-preservation and self-defense. It's a super common reaction to Jesus, self-preservation. Because the fact is when you acknowledge Jesus as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, when you acknowledge him as the Savior who came to save his people from their sins, when you embrace him as those things, things change in your life.

10:55 Your life changes. Your priorities change. The way you spend your time and your money and your friendships, it all changes. So I wonder if Herod's response of self-preservation describes you at all. When you hear us as a church tell you that you're a sinner before God, that you deserve to die, that you deserve to be cast out of His presence for all eternity, to absorb His wrath in yourself for your rebellion against Him for all eternity, and yet that there is a Savior who lived in the life you ought to have lived and died the death that you deserved for your sins, and who offers salvation and redemption to everybody who will come to Him in faith and repentance of their sins, I wonder when you hear that, what happens in your mind?

11:45 And do you start coming up with reasons why this isn't relevant to you? Do all your old objections to Christianity start coming up and you start reinforcing those? Maybe some old pledge that you made years ago that you'd never have anything to do with the church again. Never have anything to do with religion ever again. Maybe that old pledge starts to come up in your mind and you dust that thing off and get ready to hold to it even tighter. But friend, if that's what's happening in your mind, don't you see what's going on there? It's the same kind of self-preservation that Herod was engaged in.

12:19 Secure the throne. Hold on to my position. Prevent the change that Jesus will demand. Friend, if you see that in yourself, let me give you a better response. A better response to the gospel, the good news of Jesus that we've been singing about and talking about all evening is this. Stop fighting. Stop resisting. Lay down your weapons. Open the gates of the castle and let him in. Put your faith in Jesus because you realize, don't you?

12:53 You realize that every defense you make against Jesus is a defense that you are making against your own salvation and your own ultimate joy. Don't defend against that. I want you to see another response here. Just notice another thing. In verse 4, Herod assembles all the people's chief priests and teachers of the law. Those chief priests that he assembles would have been the high priest, anybody who's ever held that title, anybody who's a sort of high-ranking person among the Jews.

13:24 And so what you had here in this assembly of people are scholars of the Scriptures. These are the ones who could have identified, you could have identified as being the most ready for the Messiah. I mean, when Herod comes to him and asks the question, where is the Messiah to be born? It's not like they have to go search the scriptures to find it. They know the scriptures. They know where the Messiah is to be born. And they answer him with this just straightforward answer. Like, you're not even a Jew, Herod. How do you not know this question? Duh, he's supposed to be born in Bethlehem.

13:57 And it's not like they didn't know what the wise men were saying as they went about town. They weren't whispering the news of the king. So the scholars who Herod gathered together knew that there was a proclamation of a king and they knew where that king was and yet here they still are in Jerusalem, not in Bethlehem. Why is that? And when they give Herod the answer, why don't they go and find the new Messiah? Why don't they go to Bethlehem to find him?

14:29 I mean, what did they do? Did they just give Herod his answer and then just go home? Why? I think it must have been just apathy and disinterest Hidden by a very well put together religion Friend, especially if you're a Christian today Don't let this Christmas season With all its pomp and circumstance and lights and music Be to you just a well put together ceremony and religion under which you hide your disinterest in Jesus.

15:07 Take time to look him in the face. Take time to read the stories of the Bible about his birth. Take time to meditate and to think and to imagine what it would have been like on that night. Take time not just to sing all the right words and say all the right words and send all the right cards, but really to worship Jesus. But then here's the last one. In contrast to all that is the wise men themselves, the magi. When you think about it, they're different from the priests, right?

15:40 The priests had all that they needed. They had this rich picture of the Messiah from the scriptures. And Bethlehem was just five miles away. That's like a short afternoon walk. But the priests did nothing. But think about the wise men in contrast. the wise men saw a star in Babylon 600 miles away to the east and they came in a months-long journey across the desert. You see that? Whatever they knew about the Messiah, they believed and they acted.

16:10 They set off on a massive journey that had an uncertain end, but they acted on their knowledge and faith about Jesus. You look also at their response at the end of the story when they finally come into the house and see him. I mean, he's just a child. Jesus is just a child. Maybe six months, maybe 18 months, maybe a couple of years old. But they bow down and worship him. And notice all those gifts that they give him. They're all kingly gifts, right? Gold is a gift for a king. Frankincense is a gift for a king.

16:42 Myrrh is also a gift for a king. Christians have seen different symbolism in that. Gold for the king. Incense, like I said this morning, for a priest. and then myrrh for someone who is going to die. But all of them, and with all three of those gifts, they hail Jesus as their rightful Lord. Listen, in everything that we're doing tonight, in everything that you're going to do over the next few weeks as we celebrate the Christmas season, Jesus is going to confront you again and again with a choice.

17:17 Are you going to respond to Him with self-preservation and self-defense? With disinterest and apathy? Or are you going to bow your knee to Him, the infant King, and respond to Him with worship? That's the question. Let's pray. Our Lord Jesus, we want to be a kind of people who bow our knee to You. as King of kings and Lord of lords, as the one who was born, who took on flesh, who became a man, so that you might walk in our place, so that you might live in perfect fellowship with your Father and without sin, and then so that you might die on the cross in our place, in the place of everyone who would ever put their faith in you and repent of their sins, so that along with you, we might rise to newness of life and to the hope of the resurrection.

18:11 Our Lord, we pray that these truths would be alive in our hearts this Christmas season. We pray that we would think about them, that we would meditate on them, and that they would be deep, deep down in our souls so that we may live ultimately for your glory. We ask all of that in the name of Jesus. Amen.