Sunday January 9, 2011
Dear friends in Christ.
Here we are! We’ve finally arrived! We’ve come to the day that I’ve been talking about for the past few months! Today, we are beginning our Exploration of God’s Islands of Adventure! Now you all should have received a letter from me this past week detailing exactly how things are going to be working. If you didn’t receive a letter, then it is most likely that I have the wrong address for you and you will need to double check the address info that I placed in your boxes this morning. Also, please be sure to put the corrected sheets in my box before you leave today. Now, back to the letter; as I wrote it I knew it was too long and most of you would not read much more than the first paragraph. Thus, I planned to explain our challenge more clearly today.
During the next year, we will be reading or listening through the Bible so that we might grow together in our faith and knowledge of God’s Word. I have prepared a schedule that will take you through the entire Bible between today and December 31. I have placed these on the back table for you to pick up and take home. The cool thing about this schedule is that we are reading the Bible Chronologically. This means that we will read sections from 1 & 2 Samuel together with Sections from 1 & 2 Chronicles and avoid being bogged down in those books. We will also read psalms in connection with the events during which they were written. This is the schedule that I will follow for preaching and Bible Study, however, if you prefer a more relaxed schedule, such as a schedule that you have followed in the past, or the listing of readings that are printed in the bulletin each week, feel free to use whatever works for you. As I said in the letter, I want each and every one of our members to be in the Word on a regular basis during this next year. Now, that does not mean that I want you to become a slave to a schedule or feel guilty if you fall behind. No! What I want you to be doing is reading or listening to the Word of God on a regular basis as it fits in your life. For me, that means I take time in the mornings Monday – Friday to read or listen to God’s Word. I don’t read on Saturday or Sunday because my schedule on those days is too unpredictable.
Now, as you are reading I have set aside different ways to record your progress. When you find something that strikes you, you, a Navigation Notes sheet, write it down, and we will post it on the Navigation Notes bulletin board so that we can learn from each other. As you complete each book you will take a ship, add your name and the book and it will be anchored at the Island of God’s Word. Finally, as you complete certain books, you will also discover that treasure chests will be posted next to your name on our treasure wall. So, as I said before, this is something that I want each and every one of you to participate in during the next year. It doesn’t matter to me if you read or listen to the entire Bible in the next year or just part of it. I simply want you to be in the Word of God on a regular basis so that we can grow together in our faith as we worship the God of our Salvation.
So, with that explanation, let’s jump right into it. Open you Bibles to Genesis 1:1 and well take a closer look at why we have come together to worship the God of our salvation. As you’re opening to Genesis 1:1, let me give you some interesting statistics. When it comes to learning, we retain only about 5 % of what we hear, 10% of what we read, 20% of Audiovisual, 30% of Demonstrations, 50% of discussions, 75% of things we practice doing and 90% of what we teach others. So, if you think about it, being taught to sit still and listen to the Pastor during the sermon has really set us up for failure because we will only retain about 5% of what we hear. But, if we open our Bibles, read along, answer the personal study questions, even take notes, we will retain quite a bit more!
Genesis as you know is the first book of the Bible. The Word Genesis comes to us from the Latin language and simply means beginning, or origin. Interestingly the very first word of Genesis in the Hebrew is Biresheet, which also means, beginning. Take a look at verses 1-5: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.” (Genesis 1:1–5, NIV)
Here are some things to take note of; on day 1 our Triune God was busy. He called the heavens and the earth into existence out of nothing, and when he created them they were formless, empty, and dark. The Holy Spirit was hovering over the waters and the Son was present in the Words that God the Father spoke. The only reason we know this is because John tells us in the first 3 verses of chapter 1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. (John 1:1–3, NIV) But not only did the Lord create the heavens and the earth on that day, he also created light. This is my favorite part of the whole creation account, on day 1 before he even created the source of light, God created light. This is why scientists believe that the earth is billions of years old. Light takes a certain amount of time to travel through space, so they calculate the time it takes light to travel from the farthest stars to the earth and that is one of the ways they figure out how old the earth is. However, God takes care of that problem by creating light before he creates the source of light. Thus, by the time he is finished creating, everything is working the way it should, the brand new earth is created with age, and Adam and Eve are ready to go about with the jobs assigned to them by the Lord. Thus on day 1 God created 4 things: the heavens, the earth, light, and time. As he says in Genesis 5: “And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.”
From there Moses goes on to tell us how the Lord built on the foundation of the formless, empty world that he had created on day one. On Day 2 (Genesis 1:6-8) he created the expanse of the sky separating waters from water. On day 3 (Genesis 1:9-13) He gathered the water to one place so that dry ground appeared and he caused all sorts of plants and vegetation to grow. On day 4 (Genesis 1:14-19) God created the lights in the sky: the sun, moon, and stars. Three days after light was created God created the source of light. That just blows my mind! I love it! On day 5 (Genesis 1:20-23) God created the fish and the fowl—all the creatures of the waters—the birds to rule the waters of the sky and the fish to rule the waters of the sea. On day 6 (Genesis 1:24-2:1, Genesis 2:4-25) God created all the living creatures of the land, he formed Adam out of the dust of the ground, he had Adam name all the animals so that he might discover that he, Adam, did not have the same companionship that the animals had, God said that it was not good for Adam to be alone, he put Adam into a deep sleep, took a rib from his body, formed a woman from that rib, brought Eve to Adam and the two of them were married by God at the beginning of time establishing God’s blessing of marriage for his people.
Not only did God establish Adam and Eve as husband and wife, he also blessed them, telling them to be fruitful and increase on the earth. He made them rulers over the earth and caretakers of his world. He blessed them by giving them every seed-bearing plant for food and every tree that bears fruit with seed for food. The only two trees that they could not eat from were the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which were in the center of the garden. Then, at the end of day 6 (Genesis 1:31-2:2) God declared that everything he had made was very good and then he rested or ceased his creating work.
Now, one of the questions that naturally follow is: “When were the angels created?” To which I can only say that they must have been created at some point during the first six days of creation. Other than that we simply cannot say because the Bible does not tell us. The other question that follows is when did satan rebel against God and lose his position in heaven? Again the only answer I can give is that it must have been at some point after day 6 when God declared that everything was very good and sometime before satan tempted Adam and Eve to sin, which is what happened in chapter 3. Take a look at Chapter 3:1, “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” (Genesis 3:1, NIV)
If you think about it, the fact that the serpent spoke to Eve should have been Adam’s first clue that this was no ordinary snake. It should have been his cue to grab Eve and walk away rather than stand there and listen. But rather than fight for his wife and fight for the truth, Adam stood there and caved, and we know that Adam was standing right there because the last part of verse 6 tells us, “She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. (Genesis 3:6, NIV) We know how it happened, they stood there and listened to satan and they gave into temptation. They booth ate the fruit and instantly realized what they had lost by sinning. We know how the Lord came to them and spoke the consequences of their actions. The serpent was cursed to crawl on its belly (Genesis 3:14) Eve’s pain in childbearing was greatly increased (Genesis 3:16), and Adam, because he had not stood up for what was right, because he had listened to his wife, creation itself was cursed. (Genesis 3:17-19 and Romans 8:20-22). The ground would now produce thorns and thistles making plowing, reaping and every other aspect of life difficult. Yet, in the mists of all this bad news, the Lord gave an incredible promise of his grace. Take a look at Genesis 3:15: As the Lord concludes his judgment upon the snake he turns to satan who had undoubtedly, recently tried to take over heaven and tells him, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” (Genesis 3:15, NIV)
With such beautiful words, the Lord God revealed himself as the God of our Salvation by promising to send a Savior who would free his people from their sins. With such beautiful words the Lord put into motion the events that led to Jesus’ birth, which we celebrated only a couple of weeks ago. With such beautiful words, the Lord set the stage for the events of Matthew 2. Turn with me, if you would to Matthew 2:1 and we’ll take a look at how the appearing of the Wise Men also assures us of God’s salvation for us. Now, as you are turning to Matthew, let me just remind you that today we are celebrating the Epiphany, which has also been called Christmas of the Gentiles. It has been called this because with the arrival of and the worship by the Gentile Magi from the east, we are certain that the Savior promised by the God of our salvation is the Savior of all people; Jew and Gentile alike. Take a look at Matthew 2:1, “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 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.” 3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 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. 5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written: 6 “ ‘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.’” 7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8 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.” 9 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. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 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. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route. (Matthew 2:1–12, NIV)
Though the prophecy within this reading from Matthew tells of how the Savior would be the shepherd of Israel, as Simeon said at the temple, Jesus would be the light to enlighten the gentiles. Today, as we hear about the gentile kings who came from such a distance to worship the God of their Salvation, we are assured that this Jesus, who was born in fulfillment of God’s promise to Adam and Eve, is our Savior as well. He is our Savior who came to free us from our sins by his death and resurrection from the dead. So, with all this in mind, let us worship the God of our Salvation who has called us to faith in him and freed us from our sins. Let us begin, together, our Exploration of God’s Islands of Adventure so that through this coming year we might grow together in our faith and as brothers and sisters in the Lord God who saved us.
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church --Le Sueur, MN
Showing posts with label Magi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Magi. Show all posts
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Sunday, January 3, 2010
See the Savior of the World Revealed (Matthew 2:1-12)
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
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
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