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If you were keeping count, you?d know that yesterday was the 12th day of Christmas. As of midnight last night, the Christmas season was officially over. If you haven?t done so already, it?s time to take the tree down, pack away the ornaments for another year, finish off the remnants of the fruitcake and Christmas cookies and throw away any eggnog that?s still hanging around in the fridge.
Today, marks the beginning of the season of Epiphany. The Epiphany season always begins on the 13th day after Christmas. Which means that it always begins on January 6th. Only occasionally does January 6th fall on a Sunday. So usually, we slide right on by the Epiphany of our Lord and the visitation of the Magi. And before we realized what we?ve missed, it?s already the 1st Sunday after Epiphany, which is marked by the Baptism of our Lord.
But this is January 6th and today is Sunday, so today our attention is directed to the visitation of the Magi.
You might be surprised at just how many of our Christmas traditions are based on the visitation of the Magi. For example, may I see the hands of all those who either traveled to visit family or had family travel to visit with you over Christmas? Traveling over Christmas traces its origins back to the Magi who traveled from afar to visit Jesus. The star on top of your Christmas tree owes its place to the star that the Magi followed. The tradition of exchanging gifts on Christmas is based on the gifts that the Magi brought to give to Jesus.
More importantly than all of that of course is the reason for the Magi?s traveling from afar to visit the King of the Jews and what this has to do with the plan and purpose of God to redeem mankind through Jesus Christ.
Matthew tells us that these men were Magi. The word ?Magi? is the basis for our word ?Magician.? The Magi were astrologers, which is quite a different thing than an astronomer. Astronomers study stars and planets and other objects in outer space in order to better understand the universe in which we live. Astrologers study the stars and planets in outer space in order to uncover some special mystery or discover some secret wisdom that the stars reveal.
Contrary to the popular opinion, the Magi weren?t kings. But kings would have Magi serve in their palace as court astrologers to read their horoscopes and interpret their dreams. The Magi weren?t wise men as in, philosophers, so much as they were mysterious men as in, a little bit strange and odd. And there may have been more or less than three of them who came to find the King of the Jews. Three is just a guess based on the number of gifts. They most certainly arrived on the scene when Jesus was somewhere between the ages of 6 months and two years old.
All of this background information is simply to set the record straight about the Magi. Don?t take me wrong way here however. I?m not suggesting that you need to chuck the three kings you have in your nativity sets at home for the sake of historical accuracy. It is after all not the Magi that we?re primarily interested in but the child whom they have come to worship. So go ahead and put figurines of yourself into your nativity scene if you?d like. After all, someday, you will be worshipping Jesus along with those Magi and shepherds and Mary and Joseph.
Matthew tells us that sometime after the birth of Jesus, a star in the sky caught the attention of these Magi. Lots of astronomers have given lots thought to the nature of this star. Frankly, I?m not much into astronomy. What I know for sure is that in Genesis we read that God made the sun and moon and the stars and put them in their places to be ?signs for the seasons.? Who knows that He didn?t arrange the universe just as He did in order to lead these Magi to the Jesus? What lengths God won?t go to just to bring three strange men from pagan backgrounds to Jesus.
What?s a whole lot more worthwhile than stargazing however, is to consider, what made the Magi think that this sign in the sky meant that a new King of the Jews had been born? We?re still just guessing here, but knowing something about how God works through real history and real people, and how He sometimes does things centuries ahead of time, its fun to think about where these men from the East could have heard about the King of the Jews. As it turns out, roughly six centuries before the birth of Jesus, the Babylonians from the East conquered the Israelites and deported them to Babylon. Among those exiled from Israel to Babylon was a young man whose name was Daniel. Because Daniel had a special gift for interpreting dreams, the King of Babylon put Daniel into an important position in His palace. In Daniel, chapter 2, we read, ?Then the king placed Daniel in a high position and ?made him ruler over the entire province of Babylon and placed him in charge of all it?s Magi.?
Now certainly Daniel would have spoken to these Magi about the long promised Messiah who would be the king of the Jews. When these Magi asked Daniel how they would know when and where this King made His appearance, Daniel might have told them about the ancient prophet of Israel named Balaam. One day the king of Edom asked the prophet Balaam to put a curse on Israel. Instead, Balaam spoke about a king of the Jews who would come and crush all the enemies of Israel. Balaam said, ?I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near: a star shall come out of Israel, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel, and it shall crush the forehead of [His enemies]?? (Numbers 24:17).
This is the kind of stuff that astrologers live for. They would have passed this secret wisdom down through the generations of Magi after them. And then, when the time had fully come and they saw this strange star rising in the sky, they would have consulted with their king and told him the meaning of this star and the warning of Balaam. And who knows that maybe this king, taking his astrologer?s advise seriously didn?t load them up with precious gifts and send them on their way to pay their respects to the king of the Jews and hopefully win his favor and avoid His wrath.
Whatever the reason may have been, upon seeing this rising star, the Magi head west to the capital city of Israel ? Jerusalem. If you were looking for a king, the capital and the king?s palace would be the logical place to start. But when they arrived there they were surprised to find that no one seemed to know anything about the new king?s birth. Luther says that the Magi must have been amazed and disappointed that when they arrived in Jerusalem, they found none of the celebrating, dancing, music and parades that they must have expected for such a special occasion.
Only when the Priests and Scribes cracked open the bible, were they able to find where the king of the Jews was to be found.
?And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
Are by now means least among the rules of Judah,
For from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.?
You?ve got to hand it to these Magi from the east. They were certainly not Jews. They certainly were gentiles. Yet, when they heard the Word of God, they believed it and did what it said. The Scriptures pointed them to Bethlehem, so to Bethlehem they went. ?And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was? And going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him.?
So, what are we to do with this? What does the visitation of the Magi have to say to us? It says a couple of things.
First and most obvious, God is drawing foreigners to worship Jesus. The Magi were the first gentiles, non-Jews to come to Christ. There would be many more to follow, you and me included. But these were the first of those whom St. Paul was talking about in our Epistle this morning when he wrote, ?This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the Gospel.? Paul tells us that was no accident or coincidence but ?this was according to the eternal purpose that God has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord.? (Eph. 3:6,11). Being the King of the Jews that Jesus was, the Jews thought that He was just for them, nobody else.
But right from the start, Matthew wants us to understand that Jesus is not just the king of the Jews, He?s the king of the Jews and the Gentiles. No one has a monopoly on Jesus. He has come for all mankind, every race and language and color, every age and gender and background. He has come to redeem the whole world.
And that leads to the second thing that this account tells us. For all of the many and various religions in the world, and there are some real doozies out there, there is only one Lord. In all of heaven and earth, there is no other name that is given by which men must be saved. Here we see God bending over backwards to reach out to those who don?t know Him and worship false gods. For them, He provided a star in the sky. For them, He subjected His own people to exile so that the Gentiles might know the meaning of that star when it appeared. What God is doing here is getting all the nations ready for when He sends His apostles out to ?Go therefore to all nations,? baptizing in His name and teaching them His Word.
Finally, this account tells us, or at least it should, just how privileged and blessed we are. We too have come to the house where Jesus lives so that we may worship Him. But it wasn?t by mysterious signs in the sky that we were led to do so. And it didn?t take a 700 mile journeys on camel back to get here.
We are the beneficiaries of those men who wrote down God?s Word as they were inspired by the Holy Spirit to do. So we don?t have to consult the stars or the horoscopes or interpret our dreams. We have the mystery made known to us through God?s Word. Through hearing and reading God?s Word St. Paul tells us that ?the unsearchable riches of Christ, bring to light for everyone what is the plan of ? God.? God?s plan to save you through the life and death and resurrection from the dead of this King of the Jews, Jesus Christ our Lord.
How blessed when we come to worship Jesus, we need not bring precious gifts to offer Him in order to win His favor or avoid His wrath. We come here with nothing to give to Jesus but our sins and our guilt. How fortunate we are that when we come to this house to worship Jesus, it is He who gives us gifts, gifts of forgiveness for all of our sins, His body and blood for the atonement of all of your guilt.
So, like the Magi, we return home from here ?another way.? ?Another way? than the way of guilt and sin. We return to our homes from here, purified, justified, sanctified, with eyes fixed, not on the stars in the sky, but on Jesus, our newborn king.