Christmas Eve 2019

Hello, Redemption Church.

Hear now the word of the true and living God, Matthew 2, starting in verse 7.

Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared.

And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word that I too may come and worship him.

After listening to the king, they went on their way, 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 treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh, and being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Good afternoon.

Merry Christmas.

Wow, we did it.

It's incredible.

Uh we've been saying for a while that we're going to be having Christmas Eve as our first service at our new location here in Centennial, a school for expeditionary learning.

And that if there's anything that we're doing today, it's expeditionary learning.

That is a def the definition of today.

This is our first service.

If this is your first time here, welcome.

I have no idea how you found out we were meeting here.

Probably a family member.

Thanks for joining us.

Merry Christmas.

Um let's go ahead before we get into our text for the day and pray together.

Would you pray with me?

Father, thank you for being so gracious towards us.

Thank you for your care and your compassion and your mercy and your patience, Lord.

Thank you for uh sending your son, that we celebrate that just explicitly today.

Um, as we look forward to Christmas tomorrow, Lord, uh, let us consider a world looking forward to you coming to save.

Lord, you are the God who comes to us to rescue, and we praise you for that, Lord.

Um, we pray that you'd be glorified uh in our worship of you tonight, and that you would inhabit our praises, and that you would make your word attend to our hearts, uh, so that we might see you and you might be uh praised tonight uh as you are worthy.

Lord, we lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So I'd selected for my text for tonight uh uh the bit on the wise men.

So the wise men is a story that we're all uh sort of familiar with, and a story that I thought I was more familiar with than I actually was as I sat down to study the wise men.

Here's what I knew about the wise men.

The wise men, a group of guys, three of them, we don't actually know how many there were, but there were three gifts.

And they come from the East and they visit Jesus.

The end of what I knew about the wise men.

Uh and the question is, uh, why who are these mysterious figures that are a part of every nativity scene, and yet we don't really know much about them other than what they look like behind Mary and Joseph crouching down, holding gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Uh who are they?

Where did they come from?

Why did they come to Jesus?

Is astrology okay all of a sudden?

Seems like we're mixing some strange things with the wise men.

So uh here's what we're going to see when we're looking at the wise men.

Really, the story should be called uh the that section of the birth narrative of Jesus should be called The Wise Men and King Herod.

And that's because they work.

I just got a single step backwards.

Can you see me better now?

See?

That's called expeditionary learning.

Uh we are uh wise men.

Here's what we're talking about.

I'm very distracted now.

Keep stepping back, okay.

So, you know what I'm gonna do?

Check it out.

We did it.

Now we will all be able to hear the word of God.

The wise men story should be called the story of the wise men and King Herod.

And that's because when we see these two uh characters placed right next to each other, what we see is that they act as foils off of each other.

King Herod shows us one way of responding to Jesus, while the wise men show us another way of responding to Jesus.

The way that King Herod responds is a way that is uh a response of fear and anxiety that ends in death.

And the way that the wise men respond to Jesus is a way of hope and joy that leads to life.

So uh I bet you can guess which one I'm going to endorse today on Christmas Eve.

We're going to endorse the way of the wise men.

When we look at this story together, comparing King Herod's response to Jesus and the wise men's response, we're able to kind of look through this one story as a window through which we can see the whole arc of Jesus' life, why he came, and the different responses to him that he experienced throughout his time on earth.

So let's go ahead and jump into our story.

So the wise men uh uh they see a star rising in the east, and they're likely Babylonian, and they are likely astrologers.

Astrology and astronomy have not made their enlightenment split yet.

They are the same thing.

So the best stargazers, the best astronomers were also astrologers, and they would look at the stars and they would make readings and interpretations of particular events that would be happening in the world.

And they see a star rise, and through some aid of the Holy Spirit, they are able to interpret that star as meaning there is a new king of the Jews being born.

So the Jews had been exiled in Babylon for hundreds of years, but it had been hundreds of years since that exile.

But it seems as though there was still some cultural uh togetherness, some cultural influence that the Jews had during their time in Babylon that might linger and come up again through the Magi here, uh, which is what you say, what you call the wise men if you would like to be impressive.

The magi.

And they are um uh they so they see the star rising, they follow it, and they think, okay, a new king is being born, a new king of the Jews.

Where should we go?

Jerusalem.

So they go to Jerusalem and they announce this news to King Herod.

King Herod uh receives the news and he becomes uh incredibly nervous, and those nerves trickle down to the rest of Jerusalem.

This is what it's recorded in Matthew 2, verse 3.

Matthew 2:3

It says, When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.

See, I told you.

So why is Herod immediately troubled at the news of a new king?

Well, it's because he's the sitting king.

You know, King Herod, news of a new rightful king of the Jews would be particularly terrifying to someone like King Herod.

King Herod is not the rightful king of the Jews.

He is an Edomite who, through some uh uh through a connection of his father, was given this place as king over Judea.

And during his time in Judea, he accomplished quite a lot.

He was able to quell some Jewish uprisings that had taken place, and he becomes known as Herod the Great because he's such an excellent builder.

He reestablishes the games in Judea, which means like gladiator stuff, uh, and he uh builds the temple that would form the backdrop for so much of Jesus' ministry.

He is this incredibly powerful, incredibly influential figure for first century Judea.

He sort of builds the setting that the New Testament takes place in.

And so this powerful character hears of a new king who's being born.

And you've got to picture these two things of what it is that Herod is threatened by.

You know, they don't know where Jesus is.

So Jesus at this point, he's uh a child, we don't know how old, likely under two years, and he's living in Bethlehem still, where he was born, and he's born to this relatively insignificant couple in this insignificant part of town, and yet this man of ultimate significance is filled with complete fear that there may be this new king born who is Jesus.

Uh Herod goes to the chief priests and the scribes, and he gathers them together and he says, Okay, we need to figure out where this new king is being born.

So they interpret the scriptures and they quote Micah 5, verse 2.

Micah 5:2

And in that it says that this king will be born in Bethlehem.

The king of the Jews will be born in Bethlehem.

And so Herod gathers the uh gathers together the uh uh wise men, and he says, Okay, it's your job now to go find this king on my behalf, and when you find this new king, report back to me where he is.

The wise men go to Bethlehem, and we'll pick up our story with them later.

But the thing that I want us to see here is that Jesus is a threat when we are the kings of our own lives, because Jesus always comes as the one who is king, the one who is rightful king.

And so when we're most threatened by insignificance, then the one who is born in Bethlehem of all places, in a manger, this ultimate symbol of insignificance is king.

It exposes in our hearts that it doesn't matter what we've built, it doesn't matter what we've created, it doesn't matter how politically effective we've been, all of those things that we thought made us king, all those, all of those things that we thought, this is what I can point to, so I know I should be king, those are undone by Jesus.

And so in that way, Jesus becomes this incredible threat.

Just his very existence exposes what we really think a king is in our hearts.

And so Jesus, this baby in Bethlehem, becomes this one who exposes who are what the true kings of our hearts are.

So at this time of Christmas, when the true king is coming, this is a great time towards the end of the year to take stock, take inventory.

You know, what is it that we're pointing to in our lives that we think, you know, this makes it reasonable that I would be the one who's really in control?

This is uh the house that I bought that I can point to that lets me know that I've you know got my stuff together.

This is the you know, church move across town that we pulled off, whatever it may be.

I don't know what your guys' stories are.

But uh those uh but those things that we kind of stack up, Jesus, the baby in a manger, undermines all of that.

He exposes those things as the true king that comes on the scene.

So King Herod responds in anger and in fear.

Now the wise men give us this completely different response.

When they're finally commissioned by Herod to go to Bethlehem to try and find Jesus, what they are shown is a uh uh uh the same star that rose in the east.

It now rises directly over Bethlehem.

And I I don't know exactly how this took place, I'm not an astrologer, but they it rose directly over Bethlehem and then it settled in over the very house that uh Mary and Joseph were in with Jesus.

And so they follow this star.

And it says uh that uh in Matthew 2, verses 10 through 11, it says, When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.

Matthew 2:10–11

This is huge language.

The Bible is very spare in the way that it describes things, especially in the way that it describes emotions.

But listen to this, 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 treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.

We see the wise men pour out their hearts to Jesus.

They give him gifts that show he is the one who will really be king, he is the one who will rightfully rule over them, he is the one that deserves glory and honor and praise.

And when they show Jesus that right honor, they are filled with, they are overwhelmed with their rejoicing.

They are full of joy.

See, there's a right response to Jesus which says, You're a king, and that's good news.

And that results in joy and rejoicing, and there's a wrong response to Jesus, which says, You're a king, and that's a threat to me.

In the wise men, you know, it's it's almost a little on the nose what Matthew is doing.

It's like, why is he being so spare in the way that he describes them?

It's because he's not telling a story about the wise men.

He's telling a story about Jesus and about what happens to the human heart when it comes in contact with the rightful king of that heart.

And what happens is it splits us because to some of us it's just a threat, but to others, to have the right king on the throne is the good news.

It fills us with joy and rejoicing.

So the wise men come forward in order to highlight the rejection of King Herod.

King Herod, just a couple sentences later in the story, he will command that uh all of the newborn boys in Judea be killed.

It's this terrible, terrible event of history.

His fear goes so deep.

And it's that type of rejection that Jesus faces since the moment that he's on the scene.

It's just the announcement of his birth that immediately goes to foreigners in another country and then to the king of the very people that he came to save.

And so here's what we have to consider, and this is the strange news of Jesus' coming, is that Jesus came so that he would be rejected.

And in his rejection we might be brought in.

This is the story of Christmas.

This is why the wise men show us what a proper response would be to Jesus, so that it might be highlighted even more clearly how terrible the response is that the human heart would normally give to Jesus.

Because here's the storyline of Scripture.

But it is truly a rebellion against God, against our Creator, against having God as our king.

And that means that the rebellion is most intense among those whom God has drawn closest to.

And so God, in choosing this particular people, the Jews, to draw closest to through all of history, we see the rebellion more and more magnified amongst them.

And this is perfectly according to God's plan.

That he draws ultimately closest to these people.

And in his closeness to them, he exposes the rebellion of their heart.

And in that rebellion, Jesus doesn't hide from it or cower from it, he offers himself to it.

And somehow, in the plan of God for our salvation, he uses that very rebellion to bring us in.

So that in Jesus' death we might be saved.

In his death, we might find life and joy and rejoicing.

So here at Christmas, what we see is that Jesus entered into the pain and suffering and the rejection of the world, the things that we experience and the things that we would bring into the world ourselves.

And Jesus, by entering into that, brings us in to exceeding joy and rejoicing.

Because he is our Savior.

This is the amazing story of Christmas.

That in Jesus and in the rejection that he faced, we might be brought in to his salvation.

So that's what we remember today, and that's what we celebrate today, that God became one of us so that we might live with him eternally.

We have such good news.

We have so much to celebrate.

So let's spend the rest of our time together singing and praising and worshiping our Lord.

Have a Merry Christmas, and we'll take communion and then we're gonna sing a lot together.

So before we do that, let's pray.

Lord, we praise you that you have moved the world so that you could uh rescue your people even by taking on our own punishment onto yourself.

Lord, I pray that that news would settle in on our hearts and that you might make us a people of praise for the good news that in Jesus Christ we are free.

Father, we praise you.

We lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.