Presented to the Swift Current Corps on 25
December 2014, 23 December 2013 and 26 December 2010. Presented to Corps 614 Regent Park, Toronto on 27 December 2015 and Alberni Valley Ministries on 26 December 2021 by Captain Michael Ramsay
Read the extended 2010 version on-line
here: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2010/12/matthew-118-218-what-is-your-choice.html
Read the 2013 version here: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2013/12/matthew-118-218-what-is-your-choice.html
Click here to read the 26 December 2021 Alberni Valley version: https://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2021/12/matthew-118-218-whats-your-choice.html
.
Today, in
Matthew’s version of the Christmas story, we are met with three responses to
the miracle of the birth of Christ, that of:
1) Joseph[1]
(his legal father),
2) Herod[2] (the king of
the Jews), and
3) Magi (astrologers, astronomers, magicians or wise men,
traditionally ‘we three kings’).
I want to look a
little bit today at each of these responses to the news that Jesus was to be
born and the news that he was actually born.
1) Joseph
First we have
Joseph: Joseph is a carpenter/stone
mason. He is from the occupied territory of Judea and Joseph is righteous.
Matthew tells us
also that Joseph is pledged to be married to a girl named Mary.[3]
Now, betrothal in the first century is not like it is today. When you are
engaged then you are already bound.[4]
But even so before Mary and Joseph ever ‘know each other’ in the Biblical
sense, before they ever come together in THAT way, Mary becomes pregnant.
Imagine this
scenario with me, if you will – men in particular: you are engaged, you have
not had relations with your fiancée and all of a sudden you find out that she
is pregnant. What would you do? What would you say? What would you feel? What
would you think? What would you think and what would you do if your girlfriend
to whom you are engaged becomes pregnant – and not by you? Would you still get
married? Joseph, when he finds out that Mary is pregnant, is planning to call
off the wedding altogether. Verse 19 says that he wants to do this quietly so
as to not bring any disgrace upon Mary.
Then something
happens. Joseph has a dream. He dreams about an angel and in the dream this
angel tells Joseph that he should ‘take Mary home as his wife’, Verse 20,
‘because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit’. He then dreams of
the child saving people, even from their sins. Joseph thus has a number of
decisions to make.
1.
Does he believe in visions and angels
in general and does he believe this vision of this angel in particular?
2.
And how will he respond to this
belief? Will he ignore his conviction that this vision is from God and press on
with the separation/divorce anyway or will he accept the commission given to
him from God through a messenger in a dream?
What would you do?
Do you believe in your dreams? When Joseph awakes from his sleep, Verse 24, he
does everything the angel from the Lord told him. Joseph is a righteous man.
2) Herod
The second
character’s response to the news of Christ’s birth in our story today is Herod.
Herod is a regional king. He works for the Romans and he is known throughout
history as ‘Herod the Great’. Herod is a great political leader. He is a
politician and as such is involved in all the political intrigue of his era in
all the ways that political intrigue is carried out in his era (cf. Josephus,
Bellum ii.10–13; cf. also Josephus, Antiquities xvii. 224, 229, 250, 304, 307,
340).[5]
He is a king but his job is no more secure than that of a contemporary
politician and Herod defends his title and his job no less vigorously: in order
to secure his position, Herod needs to back the right horse and defeat all his
rivals (cf. Josephus, Antiquities i.358). He – like many contemporary
politicians – switches his allegiances more than once as to whom he backs for
Emperor – first he backs Mark Anthony’s (and Cleopatra’s) coalition government
and later crosses the floor to support Caesar Augustus.[6]
Herod the Great is a king who leaves behind a good legacy of building and
growth but he is also an adept politician, cruel and insecure. The title
awarded to him by Caesar Augustus is Herod, King of the Jews.[7]
Imagine with me
what it must have been like for him. Imagine you are King of the Jews and these
privileged academics come to you from a foreign country and, Matthew 2:2, they
ask “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.” You haven’t just had a son; so what is
going on? Imagine, you have this job that you have fought hard for all your life
and your job title is ‘King of the Jews’ and these strangers come up to you and
ask to meet your replacement, the new King of the Jews. How would you react?
I was a dishwasher
once, for about a week as a teenager; the job didn’t go well and I didn’t get along
with my co-worker and one day I meet a friend for coffee; he is excited as he
tells me that he has just been hired for a job at this same restaurant. When we
talk for a while it becomes apparent that they have hired him for my job. That
is how I found out that I am going to be fired. This could be what it is like
for Herod when he hears this news that a there is going to be a new king of the
Jews. This news is a shock to him. This news is a threat to him. Current kings
can be killed when new kings take over. Herod is the current king. He hasn’t
just had a son; so who is this new King of the Jews that has just been born? If
you were Herod, what would you do? What would you say? What would you feel?
What would you think?
Herod is
determined to eliminate his would-be-rival so Herod sends in the troops. The
military massacres male babies two years old and younger in order to wipe out
any possible rival king of the Jews who may have been recently born. This is
Herod’s reaction.
3) Magi
The third response
to the news of the coming King of the Jews which we are looking at this morning
is that of the Magi. Magi are astrologers, astronomers, or wise men (cf. Daniel
2:2,10; Acts 8:9; 13:6,8). Our word ‘magic’, interestingly enough comes from
the same root as ‘magi’. In Acts 13:6,8, this same word, ‘magoi’, is actually
translated ‘magicians’.[8]
In the Christmas story these magi are traditionally known as ‘we three kings’
(ca. 225 CE Tertullian called them kings).[9]
Now – of course – there is no mention about how many of these magi there
actually are in the story. The Bible mentions that they bring three different
kinds of gifts – gold, frankincense, and myrrh – but does not mention how many
magi there were (Matthew 2:11). The word ‘magi’ is plural so presumably there
are at least two of them but there could be 2 or 102 of them. We don’t know but
we do know that they are learned people.
These learned
people see this thing in the sky. They see this ‘star’. These magi, they
probably aren’t Jews.[10]
They come from the east (cf. Philippians 2:10-11). Remember that travel isn’t
easy in that day and age: they can’t just hop a flight or drive the
Trans-Palestine superhighway to Jerusalem. These wise men realize somehow from
their studies of the world around them that the King of the Jews has been born
(cf. Numbers 24:17, Daniel 9:25, John 4:25,Romans 1). [12] What do they do when
they discover this? Remember that they probably aren’t Jews and they don’t live
in the area. They probably are men of privilege; who else has time to devote to
study and travel in this way in this time in this place? What do these
privileged foreign academics do when they find out a king of the Jews has been
born? They come to worship him (Matthew 2:2; cf. TSA d. 2,4).
They go to the
palace in the capital city of the Jews and ask the current king if he has had a
son or where else one would find a new king. After an interview or two with the
current king of the Jews, these learned Magi realize that not only is the new
king of the Jews not with the current king of the Jews but they realize that
the current king of Judea has no immediate idea of what they are talking about
and King Herod even asks them in a subsequent interview to tell him where he is
when they find him (Matthew 2:8). Herod is up to something (Matthew 2:16). But
the Magi are warned by God in a dream; they avoid Herod’s trap and they follow
God’s star to where God is taking them and God is taking them to a house in
Bethlehem where these gentiles meet the King of the Jews and present him with the
gifts they brought with them (Matthew 2:11). These foreigners see the signs;
they leave their homes and their lives to track down the young king in a
foreign country and worship Him. These are the Magi.
What is your
response?
These are the
three different responses to the birth of Jesus that Matthew intertwines for us
in our text today. What is our response to the news of Christ? Are we like
Herod? Herod is a man of power, prestige and privilege in society. He doesn’t
believe in the power of the Almighty God. Herod thinks he can take matters into
his own hands and disregard the truth of what God has preordained. Instead of
worshipping the Lord, he tries to rule his world himself. His plans are
frustrated though and he is furious. Likewise today if we deny the reality of
the Kingdom of God and the return of Christ, instead trying to control our own
world, in the end we will be frustrated because in the end every knee will bow
and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord – whether we want to our
not (Isaiah 45:23, Romans 14:11, Philippians 2:10). Jesus has already defeated
sin and death. We do not want to make the same choice as Herod.
Better are the
choices of the Gentile Magi and the Judean Joseph in their responses to the
news of the birth of the Christ. Joseph, a righteous man, has grown up in the
faith. He knows that God can be trusted so when the almost inconceivable
conception occurs, he draws on the teaching of his youth, he follows his
dreams, he listens to God and he spends his life living with the Christ. This
is a faith that each of us who grew up in the church should have. We have the
Biblical record (cf. TSA d.1), we have the historical record, we have our
personal experience, and we have a brain; so rather than chuck all that we have
known and experienced out the window like Herod, let us lean not on simply our
own understanding (Proverbs 3:5) but let us trust instead in the power and
majesty of our Lord.[11]
And let us today and forever more, when we realize the power and majesty of the
reality of Christ’s reign; let us, like the Magi, come and worship Him. This is
my prayer for us today on this Christmas Day some 2000 years after the birth of
our Saviour, that indeed that we will realize from all the evidence around us
the reality of Christ, cast all else aside and come to worship Him forevermore
(cf. TSA d. 2,4).
Let us pray
---
[1] cf. Captain
Michael Ramsay, 'Luke 1:26-37: Do You Believe?' Presented to the Nipawin Corps
14 December 2008. Available on-line: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2008/12/luke-126-37-do-you-believe.html
and Captain Michael Ramsay, 'Matthew 1:18-25: Do you believe?' Presented to
each Nipawin and Tisdale Corps, 24 December 2007 and the CFOT chapel in
Winnipeg, December 2006. Available on-line:
http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2008/12/matthew-118-25-do-you-believe.html
[8] Douglas R.A. Hare, Matthew (Interpretation: Louisville, Kentucky: John Knox Press, 1993), 13.[9] Ralph L. Smith ‘Magi’ in Holman Bible Dictionary, Editor, Trent C. Butler, (Holman Bible Publishers: Nashville, Tenn., 1991), 910. [10] Walter W. Wessel and Ralph Earle, note on 2:2, 1467, and Douglas R.A. Hare, Interpretation: ‘Matthew’, 13.
[8] Douglas R.A. Hare, Matthew (Interpretation: Louisville, Kentucky: John Knox Press, 1993), 13.[9] Ralph L. Smith ‘Magi’ in Holman Bible Dictionary, Editor, Trent C. Butler, (Holman Bible Publishers: Nashville, Tenn., 1991), 910. [10] Walter W. Wessel and Ralph Earle, note on 2:2, 1467, and Douglas R.A. Hare, Interpretation: ‘Matthew’, 13.
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