Bible Text: Matthew 2:1-12 | Preacher: Pastor Christian Preus
After the magi have traveled hundreds of miles from the East, guided by a star, they end up in the wrong place. God put that star in the sky. What it was, we don’t know. Some think it was the light from the angels who appeared to the shepherds that first Christmas. Some think it was a new star, or that a star that already existed got brighter. Whatever it was, God led those wisemen by that star, and he led them to Jerusalem and not to Bethlehem, where Jesus was. Why? How do they get lost when they’re following the star God put there as a guide for them? It looks like it disappeared, because after the magi leave Jerusalem, Matthew says, “When they saw the star (again) they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy.” So God purposely leads them to the wrong place, takes away the star, so that these wise men end up in Jerusalem and have to ask where the King of the Jews is to be born. Why? Because God wanted to show them and us how we find Jesus. How do the magi find out? Herod calls the priests and scribes together and asks them where the Christ is to be born. And they answer immediately, in Bethlehem of Judea, and they know this because the Bible says so. They quote from Micah, “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, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting.”
That’s how you find Jesus. God can send a star, he can send a dream, God can do whatever God wants to do. But in the end, God will always point you back to His word. How do you know about Jesus? You, how do you know? From your parents teaching, from a Sunday school teacher, from a friend, from a pastor. But where did they get it? In the end it is all from the Bible, which shines brighter than any star. “Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
The magi were smart men. We get the word “magic” from magi, but they weren’t magicians. They were counselors to kings. They were the equivalents of the philosophers in Greece, like Aristotle who was the teacher of Alexander the Great, or the priests in Egypt, who advised the Pharaohs. In today’s world, we’d compare them to university professors. They studied physics and natural science and mathematics and astronomy and history. They were the brightest of the bright. And in the end, they are bowing down with their faces on the ground before a little baby in Bethlehem.
There has been a deceit for some time that being smart means not acknowledging the supernatural. As if ignoring the fact that God exists and that we are moral beings accountable to God, is intelligent. It’s not. “The fool has said in his heart there is no God.” It is more intelligent to think the moon is made out of cheese than to think there is no God. It’s more intelligent to think the sun revolves around the earth than to think the universe has always existed and was not spoken into existence by God.
Today (or tomorrow) is Epiphany – that means Enlightenment. Because the light of the star brought the magi to Jerusalem and then the light of Scripture brought them to Bethlehem, and there they found the true Light that gives light to all men. There they found Jesus, a poor baby, born to a poor mother, in a poor house in a poor town, and they bowed down and worshipped Him. Because He is God and Savior. He is the Wisdom of God. He is the goal of all seeking of truth, all education, all smarts and intelligence. And they got there and you get there, because God’s Word, the Holy Scriptures, points you to Him.
No one is so blind as those who refuse to see. Neither Herod nor the priests or scribes went with those wisemen to Bethlehem. Why? Because they didn’t want what the baby Jesus had to give. Herod was a paranoid, power hungry, maniacal king. The only thing he cared about was keeping his power and so he planned to kill the baby Jesus. And the priests and scribes weren’t much better. They wanted to keep what little authority and reputation Herod still allowed them. What kept them from going to Bethlehem and seeing the child Jesus was not smarts. It wasn’t intelligence. It wasn’t that they were too enlightened to believe in things like stars appearing or Bible prophecies. It was simply that they didn’t care about a Savior.
The magi did. Just like the shepherds. The shepherds were totally uneducated. Illiterate even. But they knew they needed a Savior. And the magi were the elite, the smartest and most educated men in the world. But nothing they had learned could take away their guilt or their death. They needed a Savior. Epiphany is when we celebrate the uniting of Jew and Gentile – those magi were Gentiles, not Jews, and the Savior came for them too, for all the world – as Simeon sang, “A light to lighten the Gentiles.” But just as much Epiphany is the celebration that God has united all classes, poor, rich, educated, uneducated, in one church. Because the simple truth preached to the shepherds that a Savior has been born is also the profound truth that the magi in all their seeking of wisdom strove to find. [That’s why the manger scene is so beautiful…]
And so we unite, children and adults, tradesmen, teachers, workers, ranchers, homemakers, college professors, PhDs, poor, rich, it doesn’t matter, we all bend the knee to Jesus Christ, our God and Brother, the One who is from everlasting and yet is born a baby to the virgin, who has all the riches of heaven and yet takes on our poverty. And the greatest wisdom we have, the highest intelligence, is not in quantum physics or Greek or Latin or philosophy or for that matter in the natural science needed to ranch and farm and hunt, but all these things we submit in obedience to our Lord who gave them. He is our Savior. We cannot live without Him. He takes our sins away. He bears them in His holy innocence. The death we have to face, He faced for us. The guilt of our sins, He bore and suffered the punishment for them on the cross. He shows us not only God, but the love of God for us sinners, not only life, but life at peace with our Creator, not only now, but forever. And if we learn anything else in this life, it is only to serve Him.
The magi give him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Traditionally, the church has said they gave gold to confess Jesus is king. Frankincense is what is offered to God, and so it is a confession of God. Myrrh was used to anoint dead bodies, and so it is a confession that Jesus would die for us. Jesus says this about the woman who anointed him with spikenard before He dies, “She has anointed me for my burial.” The greatest honor Jesus gives us is not that we give him our money. We do that, but not many, maybe not any of us, can give the riches the magi gave. But what was more precious, and obviously so, is that those magi bowed down and worshiped Jesus.
Your confession that Jesus is your King and Lord, that He is the master of your life, is far more precious to Jesus than all the gold in the world. And when you confess that He is God, when you speak that in the Creed, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, it is a fragrance far fairer than any incense. Let my prayers rise before you as incense, the psalm says. And when you confess that Jesus laid down His life for you, when you sing, “O Christ Thou Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” that is richer and fuller than spikenard and myrrh.
When the wisemen saw that star again, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. Because that sign led them to Jesus, their Savior. The signs, the pledges to you, are greater. The Herods and the scribes of the world may ignore them, but true wise men see and rejoice with exceedingly great joy. The water of your Baptism has the pledge of God that you belong to Jesus and share in His death and resurrection, that you are a child of God. The bread and wine are His body and blood, a pledge of peace, that give your soul its dearest treasure, that your Lord Jesus unites Himself to you and you to Him, so that everything He has is yours. This is where true joy is found.
Amen.