Do you know just how much your God truly loves you? I’m sure you do, because we are all very familiar with the events of Christmas Eve and how the Lord revealed his Savior to the world on that night so many years ago. But do you know all the effort that went into fitting all the pieces of history together so precisely? Do you know the vast amount of preparation that that the Lord patiently orchestrated so that he could reveal his Son, our Savior not merely to the nation of the Jews, but also to the myriad nations of Gentiles as well? If you aren’t fully up to date on everything the Lord did to make sure that we, the Gentiles, would know his Son our Savior, then permit me if you will to take you on a journey back in time. Back before the night the Lord revealed his Son to the nations; back to the days of 931 BC when Rehoboam was scheduled to take the throne of his father, Solomon. Though the people asked him to lighten their load, he refused and promised even heavier burdens on the people to the point that the 10 Northern Tribes of Israel rebelled against him, split off, set up Jeroboam as their king and proceeded down a path of idolatry from which they never recovered.
Fast forward from there about 200 years to the year 725 BC. It was in this year that the prophecies the Lord had spoken against the Northern Kingdom of Israel came to pass. For in that year Shalmaneser, the King of the Assyrian Empire, attacked, laid siege to the kingdom for three years, and finally brought it to an end in 722 BC. It was in that year that the Lord sent his people into exile, leading them off to the land of Media nearly 1000 miles away from their homeland—a land located just south of the Caspian Sea in modern day Iran. Though in those years the Assyrian Army quickly marched through Samaria adding Israel, Philistia, and even Egypt to their vast empire, the small nation of Judah was left untouched simply because they had not rebelled and had remained loyal subjects continuing to pay their tribute to the Assyrian King.
For the next 100 years or so, things remained roughly the same for Judah, until the Assyrians began to fall from power and Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians began to rise to power as the Lord had prophesied that they would. It was during that time while Babylon and Egypt were struggling for control of the Assyrian Empire that Judah found herself in a curious place, and she sought to throw off the fetters of the Assyrians by backing the Egyptians against the Babylonians. But that lasted for only a short time, for when Nebuchadnezzar had finally conquered the Egyptians and added them as part of his new empire; he turned his sights on Jerusalem. Then, in 586 BC after laying siege to the city for the second time, he broke down the walls of the city, destroyed the Temple, burned Jerusalem to the ground, and led the people of Judah off into captivity, just as the Prophets said would happen.
But even though Nebuchadnezzar enjoyed a long reign as King of the Babylonians, all was not peaceful in the rest of the world, as less than 40 years later, in 550 BC, Cyrus, the Persian (also known as Darius) began his conquest. Over a period of the next 10 years he began conquering nation after nation. He started with Media, where the 10 Northern Tribes had been exiled. He entered into Lydia—the land where the Apostle Paul did much of his missionary work and where the 7 churches mentioned in Revelation were founded. He conquered the Babylonian Empire on the very night that the Babylonians King Belshazzar saw the hand writing on the wall and called the Magi, Daniel, in to interpret those mysterious words of: “Mene, Mene Tekel Parsin.” (See Daniel 5) Then he moved on conquering even Egypt and forming the Persian Empire, just as Daniel had explained to King Nebuchadnezzar when he had the dream about the great statue. (See Daniel 2) Nebuchadnezzar, the head of gold had fallen as the Chest and Arms of Silver, the Persian Empire, now took its place. It was this Cyrus who conquered Babylon who also issued a decree in 539 stating that all the Israelites living in the Persian Empire were free to return to their homes, to rebuild the city of Jerusalem, the Temple of the Lord their God, even the Nation of Israel—as the Lord had promised through the prophets.
Then, after roughly 200 years, in 330, of the Persian Empire comes to an end and the belly and thighs of bronze—the Greeks—enter the world scene. Under the leadership of Alexander the Great, in 13 quick years the Greeks conquer what remains of the Persian Empire extending their language and culture to much of the world in preparation for the quick and easy transmission of the Scriptures. Yet, even as Alexander is conquering the Persians, the legs of Iron, the Romans, are beginning their conquest of the Western World until, in about 200 BC, they set their sights on Empire Alexander had conquered moving Eastward until they had control of much of the world by 27 BC when Caesar Augustus came to power. Though the Roman’s Empire encompassed a great deal of territory around the Mediterranean, by the time of Jesus birth they had not yet reached the land of Parthia, nor would they ever conquer it.
It was into this world, perfectly prepared by the Lord for the spreading of the gospel that he revealed his Son as the Savior of all people. Though he was first announced to the Israelites by the shepherd who had received the glories news from the angel, it wasn’t that much later when the Lord revealed him to the Gentiles as well, as our text tells us: “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.” (Matthew 2:1-2) What an amazing thing it must have been for the Magi when they saw the star of the new born King rising in the sky! What an amazing thing it must have been for those men who had watched the skies for generations waiting for the fulfillment of Balaam’s prophecy: “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; scepter will rise out of Israel. He will crush the foreheads of Moab, the skulls of all the sons of Sheth. (Numbers 24:17)
Though we don’t know exactly who the Magi were, we know that they were Gentiles. Though we don’t know exactly where they came from, the simple fact that they were astrologers suggests that they may have hailed from the lands of Persia, lands located in modern day Iran and Afghanistan, a distance of some 800 to 1000 miles away from Jerusalem. Though we don’t know exactly how many Magi traveled to Jerusalem, we know that there were at least two because the Bible speaks about them in the plural. Though we don’t know exactly when they arrived in Jerusalem, we know from the Scriptures that they would have had to arrive by the time that Jesus had turned two. What a sight it must have been to see this caravan of Magi entering the city! Though a convoy like this may have simply been common place in a city situated on major trade routes, when they asked “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?” I’m sure there were many people who sat up and took notice, and when they said that they had come to worship the one whose star they had seen in the east they confirmed the message that the shepherds had spread on the night that Jesus was born.
In this simple and beautiful way, the Lord used these Magi and the star they had followed to reveal his Son, the Savior of the world. In one simple episode, the Lord demonstrated to the Israelites that the Messiah whom he had sent into the world was destined to be the Savior of both Jew and Gentile alike. In bringing the Magi to Jerusalem the Lord once again revitalized among the Israelites the news about the birth of his Son—the Messiah for whom the people had been looking for many long years, and he stirred his people up so much that the only thing that seemed to be on everyone’s lips was the news about the Magi, the Gentiles who had come looking for the one who had been born as King of the Jews. In fact, the news was talked about so much that eventually King Herod heard of it, as Matthew tells us, “When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written: “ ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.’ Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.” (Matthew 2:3-8)
Now, if you know anything about Herod the Great from History, you know that he was a very suspicious person by nature and was rather unstable when it came to things like people trying to usurp his throne. In fact, already by this time Herod had done away with his wife, three sons, and many other conspirators because they thought they might be after his throne. He was the one, who, in 40 BC had been named, “King of the Jews.” He was the one who spent the next three years fighting to claim his throne as “King of the Jews”. So, when he heard the news that a rival king had been born as “King of the Jews” you can imagine that Herod was about as agitated as a paint can on a shaker, or as a load of laundry in a washing machine. The last thing he needed was the people to catch hold of this message and rally themselves behind a Jewish baby that had been born, rebel against him and seek to over throw him. So he made his plan. He found out from the Sanhedrin that the Baby was to be born in Bethlehem. He secretly gathered the Magi to himself and learned when the star had appeared, ascertaining the approximate age of the child. He then instructed the Magi to find the child for him and report back so that when they had left, he could go out and do away with this rival king himself. Or if worse came to worse, and the Magi left him hanging, as they did, he could still get rid of this new King.
We know the results. We know who the Lord warned the Magi not to return to Herod. We know how the Lord sent an angel to Joseph to warn him to flee with his family to Egypt. We know how Herod slaughtered babies in Bethlehem, bringing about Rachel’s weeping in Ramah as Jeremiah had prophesied. (Jeremiah 3:15) We know how the Lord rescued his Son from the mouth of the great dragon, the devil, as John revealed in Revelation. (Revelation 12:4-5) We know how the Lord then called his Son out of Egypt and returned him to Nazareth. (Matthew 2:15)
It was this child that the Lord revealed as the Savior of the world that the Magi came to worship, as Matthew tells us: “After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.” (Matthew 2:9-12)
In this way the Lord set in motion the fulfillment of those very prophecies we heard and sang today! The prophecy from Psalm 72 telling us, “The kings of Tarshish and of distant shores will bring tribute to him; the kings of Sheba and Seba will present him gifts. All kings will bow down to him and all nations will serve him…Long may he live! May gold from Sheba be given him. May people ever pray for him and bless him all day long. (Psalm 72:12,11,15) And the prophesy from Isaiah 60: “Lift up your eyes and look about you: All assemble and come to you; your sons come from afar, and your daughters are carried on the arm. Then you will look and be radiant, your heart will throb and swell with joy; the wealth on the seas will be brought to you, to you the riches of the nations will come. Herds of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah. And all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the LORD. (Isaiah 60:4-6) He even set in motion the events that 30 years later would cause the lightning fast transmission of the Gospel to Jews and Gentiles alike as was begun on the day of Pentecost! For the Jews from Parthia, Media, and Elam, Mesopotamia and the rest of the Roman world carried the message of salvation back with them, they laid the ground work for the Apostles to go out and proclaim the message of Christ, the Savior whom the Lord God had revealed for the salvation of all people, of which you and I are the end result.
Now, because of the Lord’s great love for Gentiles like us, we are sitting here today amazed by all that he did throughout history to prepare the world for the revelation of his Son, the Savior of the world. Yet, if you truly think about it, how much more hasn’t the Lord done to see to it that his message is continually spread across the world so that Jews and Gentiles, alike, might hear that message, see the Son of God revealed, and believe in him as the one and only Savior form sin? We are part of that technological revolution that is enabling us to transmit the Gospel farther and faster than we ever have. We are part of the Gentile nation whom the Lord our God loved so much that he prepared the world so that we might receive the message of the New Born King, and we are the ones whom he is continuing to use to spread that message to other Gentiles and even back to his People, Israel as well. That is how much the Lord your God loves you. That is how far reaching his arm truly is. He is the one who moved the heavens and the earth themselves so that we might catch just a glimpse of his great love revealed in his Son, the Savior of the world.
Amen.
Pastor David M Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church -Le Sueur, MN
