Miracles in the Margins: Wise Men (Christmas 2025 - Part 4)

Turn, if you will, we'll be in Matthew chapter 2.

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

Interestingly, today's advent presentation lines up with

exactly where we are in our series.

So we'll be looking at the wise men.

So Matthew chapter 2 page eight O 7.

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

If you're using one of the Bibles there in front of you.

So the wise men, this is this is one of those moments that's

galvanized in Christmas lore, right?

3 kings kneeling there in in front of the Manger with, with

arms outstretched, offering their gifts to the baby Jesus

who is laying in the Manger and the the camels are photo bombing

the shot, right? The wise men have made their way

into Christmas songs, but what is fact and what's fiction?

Are they actually 3 kings from the Orient?

Were they actually kings? Were there even three of them?

This morning? We're going to see what

Scripture does and does not say about the wise men.

So we already read our passage this morning.

I forgot that that was going to happen.

So I had planned to have you stand to do it.

But Hadley did such an excellent job.

So. So we'll continue.

But yeah, it occurred to me literally while she was reading,

I was like, oh, hey, this is what we were doing this morning.

So. All right.

So Jesus has already been born in Bethlehem.

That's what what the passage tells us.

You know, Jesus has already been born.

This is still during the days of King Herod's reign.

A few weeks ago I mentioned what Herod was like.

Herod was was well known for his massive building projects.

So so in a sense there was some good that that he brought to

Judea. But for all the goods that he

may have been perceived to have done, he is most well known for

how evil he was. Herod was a ruthless evil man

who would literally stop at nothing to eliminate all

potential threats or people he just simply didn't like.

And I mentioned that they had one of his wives killed and

killed some of his children and and had numerous members of the

of the Jewish Sanhedrin killed just because he didn't like

them. They stood in the way of of his

plans. Verse one set the timing and

then it continues. Behold, wise men from the east

came to Jerusalem saying, where is he who has been born king of

the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose

and have come to worship him. So this is the arrival of the

wise men. The wise men had suddenly burst

onto the scene with no introduction or anything like

that. We're not expecting any guests

at this point, right? We are focused on the Messiah.

Jesus has come. So we're focused on that in the

text. And suddenly the wise men come

in from seemingly out of nowhere, right?

Who are these mysterious men that have just arrived in

Jerusalem? First of all, the text tells us

from there they're from the east, right?

How Far East? A little bit to the east.

You know, a few miles, 100 miles, 1000 miles.

How far? I think we can arrive at some

solid logical conclusions. Now, when you and I hear the

word Orient, our natural inclination is to think of the

Far East, right? Places like China, Japan, Korea,

Far East. However, historically the Orient

also included the Near and Middle East, not just the Far

East. You saw the word Orient to

describe a geographical region came out of Europe, and so for

them the east of the Orient was everything that was east of

Europe. So that's how it came to be

called. Orient included everything east

of Europe specifically, though it's likely that the wise men

are from the Middle East. They might have been from

Babylon. We have, we have some evidence

that seems to indicate as we look at Scripture, that they

might have been from Battle Babylon, which is modern day

Iraq. They're often referred to as the

Magi, right? The term Magi comes from the

Greek word magos, which originates from a Persian word

and it means magician. It originally referred to a

priestly cast in ancient Persia. Babylonian elements of

astrology, demonology, wisdom, and magic were incorporated into

into their practices and they had extensive knowledge of

science, agriculture, mathematics, and history.

So they knew all these things and so that made them wise men.

They knew a lot about a lot of different subjects and they were

involved in a cultic practices and they were also known for

their ability to interpret dreams.

They were also some of the highest ranking officials in

Babylon. Now after Daniel interpreted

King Nebuchadnezzar's dream in Daniel Two, it reads, then the

king gave Daniel high honors and many great gifts and made him

ruler over the whole province of Babylon and chief prefect over

all the wise men of Babylon. So this isn't the first time

when, when Jesus is born isn't the first time we hear about

these wise men. We hear about them here all the

way back during the exile. So Daniel wasn't involved in a

cultic practices, but but his spirit, given capacity to

interpret the King's dream, set him above the other magi of that

time. In many ways, the wise men would

not be considered marginalized. They were.

They were well off and and well educated.

You know, this series that we've been in is Miracles and the

margins. So why are we talking about the

wise men who were rich? Well, their status as foreigners

arriving to Jerusalem probably made them suspect as they show

up with this large retinue of AIDS and supports.

What are all these men from Babylon coming to Jerusalem for?

Surely for nefarious purposes, but perhaps because they were

foreigners, Herod thought he could manipulate them for his

purposes so that he could get what he wanted out of them and

out of this situation, using them as pawns.

This explains who they are, but it doesn't help us understand

why in the world these possibly, probably Pagan Gentiles would be

coming to Jerusalem from the east.

Now it's easy for us to forget that not all Jews returned back

to Judea to rebuild and resettle it.

In fact, the vast majority remain in Babylon practicing

their faith as as much as they could.

You know, obviously they didn't have a temple or anything like

that while they were there, but they would practice their faith

as much as they could while still living in the in the

comforts of Babylon and and living off of what Babylon had

to offer them. Many Jews had intermarried with

the Persians in Babylon, no doubt giving these these

Persians some exposure to the Hebrew Scriptures and and some

knowledge of the Messiah. Near the end of the 1st century,

the Roman historians Suetonius wrote there had spread over all

the Orient an old and established belief that it was

faded at that time for men coming from Judea to rule the

world. Jews no doubt would have taken

this to be the Messiah, of course, while Rome would have

understood its own power and authority in that region.

To fulfill that expectation, In Numbers 2417, Balaam prophesied

over Israel. He said a star shall come out of

Jacob and a a scepter shall rise out of Israel.

Taken at face value, this simply means a ruler would be coming

out of the land of Judea. Now of course there could, this

could possibly have been fulfilled to some extent in King

David, but it's fulfilled even more in Jesus Christ.

But something big was prophesied here, something big was going to

happen in Judea, and the wise men wanted to be there when it

happened. So they saw Jesus star while

they were while they were still off in the East, and they'd come

to Jerusalem to worship him. Possibly feel fueled by Balaam's

prophecy. Much has been made of the star.

It's hard to say what they were actually seeing or witnessing,

as they didn't have the same understandings of celestial

objects, but there are three options that I would propose.

The first interpretive option is to view this as as simply

natural phenomenon. Just natural phenomenon.

This could have been an event like a comet, a supernova, or a

or a conjunction of planets that was perhaps out of the ordinary

they'd not witnessed before. There are various astronomical

events that that happened in this time frame in the years

leading up to 0 which we actually don't believe.

Jesus was born at zero. It seems he was probably born

closer to 4-4 BC. So if that makes sense.

Jesus was born before Christ. But timing, when we consider

Herod and Quirinius and some different things, it seems he

was probably born actually before the year 0.

But there was some different actual astronomical events that

were significance that possibly could have been a factor in

this. Another possibility is that it

was a supernatural astral phenomenon, that is, that is a

star like phenomenon. God could well have used star

like objects in the sky, something not explainable by

modern science and and which would appear and reappear at

various times in the narrative and it and it helped direct the

Magi to Jerusalem and then to the precise location when they

arrived in Bethlehem. This could even account for the

idea of it being an Angel, as scripture sometimes refers to

angels as stars. Then 1/3 idea that's suggested

is it could have been simply God's glory, could have been

God's glory. The Old Testament is filled with

accounts of God's glory being revealed as light.

Of course, as as the Israelites were were in the wilderness and

wandering around, they were being LED at night with a pillar

of fire. When Moses came down from Mount

Sinai, his face shone because of the glory of Lord Jesus.

When he was transfigured, likewise shone on the road to

Damascus, Paul was blinded by a light that he describes as being

even brighter than the sun. And then in Revelation John

referred to Jesus face shining like the sun and and the new

Jerusalem will have no need for the sun, since the glory of the

Lord and the Lamb will be its light.

Now personally, I would favor one of these last two

supernatural options, or possibly a combination of all

three. Perhaps something natural

happened that got them initially headed out and then God started

to reveal through other supernatural stars and through

his glory. Theologians speculate that God

must have must have made this light visible only to those who

were intended to see it. The wise men, they were intended

to see it, but it would not have been visible to to Herod and to

the chief priests and scribes. Otherwise they too may well have

acted. And verse 3 read, When Herod the

King heard this, he was troubled in all Jerusalem with him.

This is the agitation of King Herod.

Of course, Herod was troubled at the news of the wise men.

This entourage of from the East had had shown up looking for

someone that they claimed they said was the king of the Jews.

This is an affront to Herod. Only one person wore that title.

So Herod was not pleased and he was on high alert.

Who did he need to add to his long line of people that he

disposed of in order to maintain his control over the crown?

Now, it's safe to assume the inhabitants of Jerusalem knew

what it meant when someone threatened the title of the King

of the Jews. They knew all too well.

Herod's agitation would likely mean maniacal bloodshed.

He wasn't calculated in his approach to problems.

He didn't work to identify the enemy.

Herod was extremely volatile and and he would simply act.

This would have led all Jerusalem to fear for their

safety. Anyone with the label King of

the Jews was a threat. So Herod needed to know where

the threat that the wise men spoke of might lie.

In order to do this he he consults with the with the

scribes and the chief priests. Now by the time of Jesus birth,

the the chief priests had become little more than a group of

corrupt, religiously oriented politicians who are more about

politics than they were actually religion, and Rome would use

them in order to implement its will.

There in Judea, among the Jews, the scribes, they were the

actual scholars of Judaism. They would have instantly known

where the Messiah would be born. But it seems that they had no

interest in Herod's query. In Greek, Herod's inquiring is

is in the imperfect tense. And when the imperfect tense is

used, that means that it's a continuing process.

If Herod asked once, it would have used the perfect tense, but

it's in the imperfect. So it implies that he asked and

he asked and he and he had to keep pressing the issue with,

with the scribes and the and the chief priests.

And finally they relented and they would have referred, they

referred him to Micah. 52 But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who

are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall

come forth for me, one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming

forth is from of old, from ancient days.

But these scribes and chief priests, they should have been

waiting for the Messiah, but they seemingly had no interest

in this announcement by the Magi.

They didn't recognize Jesus at his birth, nor did they

recognize him in his teaching, his suffering, his death, and

his resurrection. Instead, they were Jesus literal

enemies from the beginning to the end when he ascended back

into heaven. So Micah's prophecy had pointed

to Bethlehem. But this isn't the only thing

that that has happened in Bethlehem.

You see, Bethlehem is already an important place, just it's just

5 miles South of Jerusalem. And it's important because Jacob

buried Rachel there, Ruth Ruth met and married Boaz there, and

then their grandson David. He grows up there and and by the

time Jesus was born, Bethlehem has long been called the city of

David. Herod's agitation was further

exacerbated when when he discovered that the wise men

went home a different way. It wasn't convenient for them to

go home a different way, but they did.

They were they? They were supposed to go worship

the child and report back to Herod so he too could go worship

the child, he says. But we know Herod.

We know that he has ulterior motives and and likely would

have killed the child. But when the Magi went home

another way, he had to take action.

He worked out the timing of when this child was likely born.

And he had all boys in Bethlehem 2 years old and under killed.

Jesus wasn't an infant when the wise men arrived at Joseph and

Mary's permanent residency there in Bethlehem.

Sorry, the the pictures with the with the Magi in the stable and

baby Jesus in the Manger. As lovely as it is, it's not

accurate. There's a home just northwest of

Long Grove, just just outside of the town of Long Grove, and as

you approach it, you see there's a nativity scene in on one side

of their very large yard. It's a nativity scene.

It has the right people. The wise men are not in the

nativity scene. They have the wise men on the

other side of their yard because wise men were far away.

Every time I see it, I always giggle inside.

I appreciate it. I appreciate their desire to be

biblically accurate. The wise men were not there.

It makes for a wonderful picture.

But they weren't there. The prophet Jeremiah had had

spoken of this defining moment in King Herod's reign.

Jeremiah 3115 says Thus says the Lord.

A voice is heard in Rama lamentation and bitter weeping.

Rachel is weeping for her children.

She refuses to be comforted for her children because they are no

more. Rachel who had been buried

there. Rachel was metaphorically

weeping over her children, these little boys who had been killed.

Stepping back a little bit on our story, we look, we'll look

at the wise men's journey to Bethlehem and, and what actually

happened there. After listening to the king,

they went on their way, it reads.

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. When they saw the star, they

rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.

And going into the house they saw the child with Mary his

mother, and they fell down and worshipped him.

Then opening their treasure, they treasures, they offered him

gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.

As we look at the adoration of the Magi, we see that they had

great joy. The text uses a few superlatives

to convey how joy filled that they actually were.

To have seen the star that first LED them to Jerusalem and then

to this specific house. They were overflowing with joy.

As they went into the house they found Mary and Jesus.

It's possible Joseph text doesn't name him.

The wise men fell down to worship the child.

They knew who he was. They fully believed in him being

the Messiah and offered him 3 gifts, gold, frankincense, and

myrrh. Now because they brought 3

gifts, history has deduced that the number of wise men was 3.

But where does the text tell us how many wise men there were?

It only mentions the number of gifts.

Throughout history, gold has considered the most precious of

metals, right? It is a universal symbol of

wealth, universal from the ancient days up to today, and it

was used extensively in the construction of the temple.

Gold symbolizes royalty. Gold symbolizes royalty.

So it's fitting that the the wise men are are giving this

gift to the real king of the Jews, the King of Kings.

Then Frankincense. Frankincense was a costly,

beautiful smelling incense that represented divinity.

It was used only for the most special of occasions.

We see it used in grain offerings and royal processions

and sometimes at weddings. The Great Church Father Origin

noted that frankincense was sprinkled on certain offerings

as a symbol of the people's desire to please God.

It was representative of divinity.

When the wise men offered frankincense, it indicated their

desire to please God, whom they presumed this child that they

had just met to be. Lastly, myrrh.

Myrrh was a valuable perfume symbolizing humanity.

Sometimes myrrh would be used as an anesthetic, or it would be

used in preparing a body for burial or also in embalming.

We don't want to go too crazy with what they might have

understood about the personhood of Jesus.

But when the wise men offered these gifts, it seems that they

were offering them to a king who was both God and man.

It seems they were offering these gifts to a king who is

both God and man. So that's the story of the wise

men. As with everything I like to ask

So what? So what?

How does this impact us? Is it just a nice little story

that makes our hearts warm when when we see images of the wise

men in the stable bowing down as they offer their gifts to the

baby Jesus in a Manger? Or is it more than that?

First of all, the story teaches us trust in God's plan, teaches

us to trust in God's plan. The Christmas narrative that

that we've looked at each week has unfolded in ways that that

seems so unlikely. Hence, we've been calling it

miracle in the margins, God taking the unlikeliest of people

and scenarios and working them for his purposes and plan.

Matthew's account helps focus our attention on the fact that

God is in control, even as the events surrounding his work

unfold in unexpected ways. When we don't see exactly what's

happening, God is still sovereign and working in the

circumstances around us. And here in this passage, the

the political power of King Herod is juxtaposed against the

humble and the precarious beginnings of this baby, now

toddler. And the powers that be

continually wanted to destroy Jesus, not just in his birth,

but also 30 years later as he began teaching.

And then the disciples were baffled and distraught when

Jesus died. But it was his sacrifice that

brought redemption. You see, they'd forgotten Isaiah

55, nine in that God's ways are higher than our ways.

We can trust that God is working even when we don't understand

what's happening. So that's trust in God's plan.

Now, as we further examine the Magi, it begs the question, how

do you respond to Jesus? How is it that we ourselves

respond to Jesus? Everyone essentially fits into

three different categories. 1st is hostility.

Some people are outright hostile to the idea of Jesus, his

historicity and life, which are well proven and documented, and

their need for a savior. They're openly hostile to him,

and it's clear that they are enemies of God.

Romans 87 speaks to this person. It says the mind that is set on

the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law.

Indeed it cannot. This person refuses to place

themselves in submission to God. They don't want to come under

His authority. But most people are probably in

the second category, indifference.

Indifference. This is indifference like the

the scribes and the chief priests, the Jewish leaders.

They had, they had the Hebrew scriptures.

They could look into God's word and see what it said.

They would have large sections of it memorized.

But they chose to ignore the actual words of God.

They had no real interest in the Messiah, and instead they were

focused on political affiliations and power they

should have been waiting for. They should have been longing

for the Messiah, but they'd forgotten to anticipate his

arrival. This indifference reminds me of

the parable of the sower and the seed that was sown among the

thorns. In Mark 4 it reads Others are

the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the

word. But the cares of the world and

the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things

enter in and choke the Word, and it proves unfruitful.

Life creeps in and chokes out the revelation of God's Word,

and people who might have had an interest find themselves

completely indifferent to the Lord.

But the Gentile Magi, the ones we wouldn't expect, respond and

worship. They responded in worship.

The Holy Spirit was working in them, and then they responded to

the revelation of God in their hearts.

They didn't. They didn't have much, But what

they did have, they chose to believe and follow.

That was worship, simply giving gifts to God like the wise men

did. They gave their gifts with the

right heart posture, responding to God's revelation, right

giving, right learning, and right service.

Or they're all contingent on our hearts orientation to God.

Someone's giving. Your giving may well be

generous, but done apart from a loving relationship with God, it

proves empty. It's it's simply philanthropy.

Learning the right things is good, but apart from knowing and

depending on the source of that truth, learning is simply empty

knowledge. It's just information, like that

of the chief priests and the scribes.

Just vain knowledge. One service to others may well

be demanding and even sacrificial perhaps, but

performed in the power of the flesh or for the praise of men,

it turns out to be empty, just vanity, true worship, whether

giving, learning, serving, it must be performed in the context

of a relationship with our Savior.

This response to Him is the foundation of our Christian

walk. Those who should have worshipped

Jesus, those who should have responded to his revelation,

didn't. But those who were least

expected to did respond. Some, like Herod, are hostile to

Jesus. Some, like the chief priests and

scribes, are indifferent to him. They don't.

They don't necessarily need Him in their lives.

Some, like the Magi, worship him.

So where do we find ourselves? Are we ready to acknowledge

Jesus presence and all the details of life?

Or do our own desires and ambitions cause us to overlook

and completely miss what God is doing?

Let's bow our heads and close our eyes.

Let's take a moment in the quietness of your heart and

consider what does my worship look like?

Is my worship out of the flesh just simply going through the

motions? The the service that I render

the, the knowledge, the, the, the time with God, is that all

so that I can just grow closer and closer to him?

Or is it just so I can say, look what I'm doing?

Look, I did this. I I read the word.

We want our hearts to be fully engaged, seeking Jesus because

we want to know Him more. Let's take a moment of quiet.

Just examine our hearts. God, may we be people who who

respond. Some can respond in even with a

relationship with you. They may at seasons find

themselves indifferent. God, may we be people who truly

respond to you in worship, not just out of routine, going

through the motions, but true worship, a desire to to respond

to you with all that we are because you have revealed

yourself to us. So we thank you for coming into

this world. May we worship you with all that

we are. It's in Jesus name we pray.