Bible Text: Matthew 2:1-12 | Preacher: Pastor Christian Preus | Series: Epiphany 2020 | We’re celebrating Epiphany today. Epiphany is simply the preaching of Christmas to the whole world, the beautiful fact that Christmas is for everyone. Our celebration of Christmas the last twelve days should instill in us the confidence of history. It happened. We know where – in Bethlehem, we know when – in the reign of Caesar August when Quirinius was governor of Syria, we know the circumstances – a census ordered by Caesar Augustus, really unparalleled historical detail for a birth in the ancient world. And finally we know who and why – Jesus was born, the Savior, God in human flesh, to live our life and die our death and bear our sins and open the way to everlasting life.
But you notice that it all happened in a little town inhabited by Jews thousands of miles away from here. And all the characters are Jews. Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, all Jews. Jesus Himself a Jew. We don’t think of this often enough, because we don’t read our Old Testaments enough. The Christ was promised to the Jews. He’s called King of the Jews. He came to save His people. Even Jesus says this to the Syrophoenician woman: The Son of man was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. St. John stresses it in the Christmas Day reading, “He came to his own.” St. Paul stresses it too, “To the Jew first.”
But as often as the Bible stresses that Christ came to save His people Israel, it stresses even more that He came for all. This is the message of Epiphany, but we see it already on Christmas. What does the angel tell the Jewish shepherds, “I give you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people.” Everyone. What do the angels sing in chorus, “Glory to God in the highest and peace, goodwill to men,” to all men, all people. What did we hear Simeon confess last Sunday and what do we sing every Sunday, “A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.” The Gentiles, for you kids who don’t know, are the peoples, everyone, all nations, red and yellow black and white, everyone. Jesus comes for them. And we could go on and on quoting Bible passage after Bible passage that prophesy and confess Jesus has come not only for his race, for the Jews, but for all people, which means for you and for me, that He’s not only taken on Jewish flesh, but my flesh and your flesh, human flesh, and as many as receive Him, He gives power to become children of God.
And that’s the point of Epiphany. Epiphany is the for you of Christmas. It’s the preaching of Christmas to you. Because it does you no good at all that all this actually happened in Bethlehem, that it’s fact, that it’s history, unless you trust this history took place for you.
The wise men teach us how to do this. And Herod teaches us how not to do it. So let’s start with Herod.
King Herod the Great is a perfect example of what we call a worldly person. He’s obsessed with the things of this world. He’s obsessed with his reputation, with his power, with his money. It’s not simply that he doesn’t care about things like forgiveness, peace with God, righteousness, eternal life, it’s that his mind is incapable of thinking in these categories. Let me tell you just a little bit about Herod. He thought of himself as the King of the Jews. He wasn’t himself a Jew. He was an Edomite, descended not from Jacob, from Israel, but from Esau. And he also wasn’t much of a king. He was a Roman vassal king. That means he served as king of Judea only at the pleasure of the Roman Emperor. So things are complicated for Herod. He wants power above all else. He’s terrified that he might lose it. Power, wealth, reputation, these are his gods, what he loves more than anything, what he fears losing more than anything, and what he trusts in with all his heart. So when he hears about Jesus – and this is the point – when he hears about Jesus, he can see him only in a worldly way, only as competition with his worldly pursuits. Herod is King of the Jews politically, in a worldly way, Jesus is King in an entirely different way, He’s the King who brings not earthly peace, but peace with God, not earthly wealth, but the wealth of innocence and forgiveness with God, not worldly reputation, but a good name in heaven. But Herod is worldly, so he can’t think of a King or a kingdom this way. So he makes Jesus his enemy.
Now I’m focusing in on Herod because his type of thinking is dominant in our day. People only think about earthly things. People will invest for a future retirement that’ll last maybe twenty years, and then ignore the very idea of heaven and resurrection, that’ll last forever. They’ll be obsessed with their reputation and be enraged when people talk bad about them and be ecstatic when people say good things about them, but have no care at all what God may think of them, what their reputation with Him is. They’ll work and sweat and obsess about money or some earthly pleasure and never think about the pleasure of knowing the God who created them and being reconciled with Him. And then when confronted with Jesus, there is either total apathy – who cares? What can he give me now? How is he going to make my life better? Or, and this happens all too often, people “believe” in Him only because they want more pleasure, because living forever sounds like a good thing, but the desire for forgiveness? For peace with God? For living a righteous life and finally in heaven being cleansed from all sin and loving perfectly? These things that Jesus actually comes to bring are far from their minds.
Herod died. And in death he lost everything he trusted in. It was all an illusion. Ridiculous things to trust in and love. His power was gone; he couldn’t take his wealth with him; he couldn’t defend his reputation anymore either. That’s all this world’s going to give you in the end. Nothing. Moths and rust. But God, the very God Herod ignored, the very God he persecuted, there’s no ignoring him after death, He remains, no matter how much Herod disregarded him in this life. We all meet our Maker.
So this Epiphany let’s look at our lives and our hearts, see what we obsess over, see how worldly minded we can be, compare ourselves to Herod, and repent. God help us. He gives us so much to enjoy on this earth. And you should work hard and earn money and save it for your future, you should enjoy what God gives you, the good things in life, kids and spouse and food and drink and friends and family, you should take care of your life so that you have a good reputation, you should care about these things, please don’t get me wrong here, God tells you to care about these things, but He tells you to care about them as Christians, and that means enjoying them and caring about them as gifts from God, the same God who created you and requires of you a righteousness you have not lived, a righteousness and an innocence and a good relationship with Him that you desperately need above everything else, that gives meaning to everything else in your life, and that you can only get from your Lord Jesus.
And this is where we need to learn from the wise men. What is so striking about these men is that they are single-minded in their pursuit. They leave home, studies, jobs if they have them, family, everything, and they travel hundreds of miles, months of travel, with the sole purpose of worshipping the child Jesus. It’s not simply one concern among many for them, it is the concern of their life, period, the reason they get up in the morning, the reason they do everything else, because they want to see the Christ-child and worship Him. There’s our example of faith.
And it’s more than this. Look at how they go about it. First, they clearly studied the Bible. That’s how they found out that the Christ was born. They saw the star appear. And they knew it meant the birth of the Christ, the King of the Jews, because the Bible says so – it’s the prophecy of Balaam, in Numbers 24, “I see Him, but not now; I behold Him, but not near; A Star shall come out of Jacob; A Scepter shall rise out of Israel.”
So there’s the first point, that true worship of Jesus begins with the Bible. It doesn’t begin with your emotional experience. It’ll give you one, but it certainly doesn’t begin there. It begins with God’s Word, which is outside of you. The wise men actually illustrate this again when they come to Jerusalem. They go to Jerusalem because they figure that’s where the King will be born. It’s the capital. It’s where kings should be. So here they use their reason, and they go to the wrong place. So it’s not emotions AND it’s not reason, smarts, that will get you to Jesus. It’s the Bible. That’s how they know how to get to Bethlehem. Because all the Bible scholars in Jerusalem find the prophecy of Micah in the Bible that says the Christ will be born in Bethlehem.
Now that’s not to say that Christians don’t use our reason. We do. The wisemen did. They got pretty close to Bethlehem, right. They got to Jerusalem, just a few miles away. And they did that, in part, by using their reason. But it didn’t get them all the way. It didn’t get them to Jesus. And the same goes for us. Can you figure out that God exists using your reason? Absolutely. The Bible says so. The fool has said in his heart, “there is no God.” That’s Psalm 14. And look at St. Paul’s beautiful argument in Romans 1, where he says that everyone is without excuse, because they all should know God exists from their reason, from seeing that everything that exists had to be made, that they should be worshipping their Creator. Reason will also tell you that there’s a difference between right and wrong, that marriage between one man and one woman is good, that homosexuality is bad. It’ll tell you that staying true to your spouse is good, that working hard is good. Reason will tell you to obey authorities, to keep your hands from murder and stealing.
But reason has its limits. Both because we’re sinners and because it just does. You can’t find Jesus with it. And that’s a huge limit. Instead you need the Bible, just like the wise men did. And that, that, is what made them wise. God’s Word. That’s how they got to Bethlehem. That’s how they got to worship Jesus. And it’s how you get there too. By listening to God’s Word, which points you to Jesus.
But why? Why go to Jesus? Why be so single-minded about it? Why care so much about what the Bible says about Him? Why mimic the wise men? The scene of the wise men bowing before the baby Jesus with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh is so precious, it teaches us so much about what worship is and why Jesus matters. These aren’t just nice gifts. They aren’t just expensive gifts. They’re given for very specific reasons. Each gift is a confession.
First, they give Him gold, because He’s a king. They want Him to rule over them. We are all ruled. Freedom in this sinful world is something of an illusion. Either we’re ruled by our desires, by what we want, by our sins, by our fears, or we’re ruled by Jesus who forgives our sins and gives us peace. The wise men want to be ruled by Jesus. They don’t want to be ruled by their desire for wealth, or for a good reputation, or for power, or for sex, or for anything else that dominates the human mind. They want to be ruled by Jesus, by the forgiveness of their sins, by the God who created them and who is now at peace with them. The only true freedom is to be ruled by Jesus, to have Jesus as King, as God created us to be.
Second, they give Him incense. “Let my prayers rise before you as incense,” so we sing to God from Psalm 141. And so the wise men confess. Jesus is God. This baby is God. God has become a man. God is not some distant power out there. He’s not what my mind or my emotions think Him up to be. He’s this very specific Jesus who has existed from eternity but was born a baby in Bethlehem.
And so they give Him myrrh. That’s a burial perfume. It’s what Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus the Pharisee used to anoint Jesus’ dead body when they took it from the cross. And this, the wise men know, is why God has become a baby, why they worship Him, want Him to rule over them, acknowledge Him as their one and only God, why they’ve traveled hundreds of miles to lay eyes on Him, because He’s come to die for them, to bear their sins away, to take the punishment they deserved on Himself, to win them the wealth of God’s love, the honor of being reconciled to Him, the power to become children of God.
And so we worship the Christ. He is the King of the Jews. That’s what was written on the cross above his bleeding head – Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. But He’s our King. Because it’s from that cross that he draws all nations to Himself, as He Himself says. The body and the blood that were once laid in a manger and then 33 years later given and shed on the cross, what drew the wise men, it still draws us. Our God has come for us, for us, He has humbled Himself for us, He has spilt His blood for us, and His Word calls us to draw near, and receive Him. There is no greater treasure. There is no wealth or power or reputation we could possibly want above this. Here in Christ’s blood shed for you is God’s pledge of peace, His oath that this is His pleasure, His glory, His greatest desire, to give you His Spirit, to teach you His Word, to feed you with His body and blood, to forgive you, make you His friend, assure you that nothing can sever you from Him, and that you will see Him finally face to face, to enjoy the pure joys of God forever.
Let us pray:
O joy to know that Thou, My Friend, art Lord, beginning, without end, the First and Last, Eternal! And Thou at length – O glorious grace! – wilt take me to that holy place, the home of joys supernal. Amen. Amen! Come and meet me! Quickly greet me! With deep yearning, Lord, I look for They returning.