Last week we went through the second half of Matthew chapter 1. We talked about Mary and Joseph, we talked about their relationship, we talked about how these two people were brought into this miraculous moment in history, and we talked about how they were dealing with it. I mean the reality is, that I think there were some parts of this that were pretty hard to deal with, this was no small thing after all. Thankfully for Mary she had the angel Gabriel come to explain some things up front about what was going to happen, but then obviously Joseph needed divine intervention as well and some clarity on these things to get them on the same page together. But in line with God’s plan, by God’s power, and for God’s purposes these two people were now part of the process of God bringing salvation to this world through God the Son, Jesus Christ. And that’s kind of where we ended last week, right at the moment that Jesus was born and we’re going to continue on from that point this morning.
Our main passage for today will be Matthew chapter 2 and we’re going to get there eventually, but before we go there, I actually want to start this morning by looking at Luke chapter 2 first. So, let’s head over there and we’ll make it over to Matthew in a little bit.
Read Luke 2:1-7
Obviously, this passage back tracks a little bit into the events that we looked at in Matthew 1 last week as the first seven verses are talking about Jesus’ birth, but Luke does add a little more detail and gives us some understanding of a few things that Matthew didn’t record in his gospel. We see here that a decree went out from a guy named Caesar Augustus that the whole world needed to be registered. And you may ask, what in the world are they being registered for? Well, most likely they are being registered for tax purposes. You know the Romans wanted to make sure they were going to be getting all of the money that they were supposed to be getting through their taxes and so a census or registration like this would definitely be helpful towards that end. And it’s interesting too because even in this seemingly simple comment by Luke we can see the way that God was orchestrating world events to accomplish His plan.
There really is crazy story behind all of this when you look into this guy Caesar Augustus. His real name was Octavian, and he was actually like the great nephew or something of Julius Caesar. But when you look into this story, you find out about all of this infighting in the Roman government and assassinations and civil wars. How one of the other leaders at that time went and married Cleopatra in Egypt to try to leverage Egypt’s wealth and resources to take down Octavian and so many other things. It’s really quite fascinating, I’ve always enjoyed history. But through so much craziness in the Mediterranean area, came this guy Octavian who would become known as Caesar Augustus. And when the dust settled from all the political drama and the fighting, Octavian was the last one standing and he ended up doing away with the Roman Republic way of governing and turning into an empire. Before in the republic you had multiple leaders so that one man couldn’t have all of the power, but now in the Roman empire they would be ruled over by a single emperor and obviously Octavian was the first. And he took for himself that title of Augustus which means “exalted” or “sacred”. He became the exalted or sacred emperor of Rome. But what’s the point of this backstory beyond maybe a good segment on the History channel?
Because it is this man that is calling for this registration. In the wake of all of that human drama, he rises to have enough power to require the whole world under the empire to go register themselves for taxation in their hometown. And it’s that requirement that caused a young pregnant girl and her betrothed husband to travel the 80 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem. I know when Eileen was pregnant with our kids, we weren’t really traveling any long distances for random reasons, especially later in the pregnancy. At that point we had our hospital bag packed and stayed local and were ready to go when the time came. But God had caused the prophet Micah to make the prophecy that the Messiah would be born in the town of Bethlehem and of course if God spoke it then that was how it was going to be. And so, God used these world events to move Mary and Joseph 80 miles on foot from where they were in Nazareth over to Bethlehem because that was how it was always supposed to happen. And an 80-mile walk is no small trip, that’s a little more than three full marathons, that’s basically the distance if you walked from here to Riverside or to San Bernardino.
But God moved them over there, the prophecy was fulfilled, Jesus was born in Bethlehem. But Jesus wasn’t born into extravagance or anything like that, Jesus was born into about as humble of a situation as they come. He wasn’t born in a medical facility, or a house, or a hotel, or a motel, or even the inn. No, He was born in the animal shed in back of the inn. He wasn’t wrapped in fine clothes or fabrics or linens. It says He was wrapped in torn cloths, the original word there for swaddling means to tear, tearing up other cloths to wrap up your baby because what else are you going to have with you 80 miles away from home inside of some little barn. And then they laid Him, not in a crib, or in a bed, or anything else like that. No, they laid Him in a manger or what would be better translated for us like an animal feeding trough. So, Jesus is in a little animal shed, wrapped in some torn up cloths, laying inside of a feeding trough. But it’s in these extremely humble conditions that these next verses in Luke 2 take place.
Read Luke 2:8-20
We find here some shepherds out in the fields at night keeping watch over the flocks. Probably the same thing that they do every night of their life. But this night…this night was different; this night was destined to be I guarantee the most incredible night of these men’s lives. While out there under the stars, keeping an on the sheep, looking out for any predators that might be coming to get these sheep under their care, probably just like any other night, but this night an angel showed up and stood before them. It says the glory of the Lord literally shone around them. It says they were afraid, which seems to be the recurring response by people in these types of moments, but through their fear the angel spoke and said what we see in verse 10 and 11:
- 10Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. 11 For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
And then suddenly it says that there was a multitude of angels or a great number of angels all around them saying:
- “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”
I can’t even begin to imagine what they experienced that night. One angel talking to them, the glory of the Lord shining around them, then a huge number of angels around them praising God, and then the message that was shared with them that on that very night the Savior, the Christ, had been born, and where to go find Him. And so, with that information they took off, they walked off the job, they left the sheep, and it says that with haste they headed to Bethlehem. And there they did find Mary, they found Joseph, and of course the newborn baby Jesus. But I love what verse 17 says there, it says:
- 17 Now when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child.
The wording of that verse stuck out to me, because “to make widely known” is the definition that we landed on a few weeks ago in regard to broadcasting Jesus, as we have in our mission statement. These guys after what they had seen and what they had heard could not help but to broadcast Jesus to everyone around them. And it says that people marveled at what they said, it says that even Mary was listening to what they were sharing and continued to think on these things in her heart. This was still all so new, the world was changing, Jesus was born, Mary was still taking it all in, these shepherds had the incredible opportunity to probably be the first ones outside of Mary and Joseph to really know and understand and then meet this Jesus who was here to save His people. And so, these shepherds left from that barn that Jesus was staying in and headed back home, but they left with an attitude and a voice of praising God and giving glory to His name. They left in worship, because they knew Who they had just seen, they knew the significance, they were welcomed to God’s house, even if it was just this barn at this moment and I know these men had to be forever changed from this night forward. But they also weren’t the only ones lead to come visit Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. The shepherds were likely the first, they were nearby, they were informed on the night of Jesus’ birth to go and they went. But let’s go over to Matthew chapter 2 now and see another group of people that were led to visit.
Read Matthew 2:1-12
I wanted to start in Luke 2 because Luke 2 happens before this passage in Matthew 2. For me it just helps sometimes to see the events in the order that they actually happened. So sometime after Jesus’ birth, and sometime after the shepherds visited Him, there comes these wise men into the picture. And so, what do we know about these guys? Really, we don’t know all that much. The only description that Matthew gives us is that they came from the East. There are a lot of church stories and traditions that have led to us usually talking about three wise men and there’s even church tradition that says that their names were Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. But the reality is that this information is not in scripture, and we have no way of knowing if this is at all accurate. And it’s believed that it might not be, that there might have just been an assumption made at some point that there were three wise men, because there were three different gifts that were brought. But there is a really good possibility that there were a lot more of these guys than just three and that they might have been traveling in a very large caravan to come see this new King. Like I said the only real detail that Matthew gives us is that they were from the East, and this has led to speculation that these men could have been traveling from Persia or the area of modern-day Iran. That would mean that they traveled somewhere around 800 or 900 miles to come see Jesus and that would probably lend more weight to a larger group then three crossing that great of a distance in the ancient world. If you left Indio and headed east all the way through Arizona and through New Mexico and made it all the way to the edge of Texas, that’s about the distance that they would have traveled. That’s a really long way without a car or even an airplane in this day and age. If you walked 3-4 miles an hour, twelve hours a day, it would still take 25 days to make this journey.
And if these men did come from Persia, it’s very likely that they were probably familiar with Daniel and Daniel’s writings and potentially more of scripture as a result of his influence and others in that area. But recognize this that these guys were most likely astronomers and philosophers, not necessarily even the “religious type” as some might say, but these guys at some point were confronted with God’s Word and they saw within it the truth of this Messiah or King and then one day they saw in the sky a visible new star that directed their way towards Him. And so, these men set off as well to follow that star, maybe they started their trip on the night that the shepherds were already there visiting, but their trip was much longer and they had to have gotten there at a later time. But after their long journey there, they came to the general area, they were in Jerusalem and not Bethlehem at this point, which is about 8 miles away. They’re close, but they went into town asking what we see there in verse 2:
- “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.”
And this gets King Herod’s attention. And now Herod was a regional ruler, he’s not at the level of Caesar Augustus that we talked about earlier who was Emperor of the entire Roman Empire. But Herod heard this talk of a new King of the Jews, and he was obviously bothered by this because that would be a threat to his position. And so, he gathered the religious leaders, the chief priests, and scribes and asked them where the Christ was to be born. And these guys knew the prophecy of course, they knew the truths of the Old Testament scriptures, and they quoted Micah 5 for him right there in verse 6 that the Christ would be born in Bethlehem.
And so, these wise men had not found their way yet to Jesus and Herod calls them in secret to himself and works with them to figure out when the star first showed up. Herod’s trying to get all the information that he can to work with, because Herod is afraid of what this might all mean for him. So, Herod provides the next piece of the puzzle that the wise men needed and got them headed towards Bethlehem, but not without trying to undermine the situation and basically use them to report back the Child’s location. He said basically “Oh I want to go worship Him too!” so let me know where He is when you find Him. I don’t know if they understood Herod’s plot at this moment, but verse 12 tells us they will be divinely warned not to return and report this information to Herod, and we’ll be looking at why that is the case next week.
But these guys head into Bethlehem, they like the shepherds before them find Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus and it says that they literally fall down before Him and worship Him. And to this Child, to Jesus, they present gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Imagine these parents, they have been told the truth and they understand what is going on, but imagine Jesus just being born and a bunch of shepherds come out of the countryside to see baby Jesus and start telling everyone about Him. And then sometime later, this group of foreign wise men that have probably traveled hundreds and hundreds of miles show up and fall at the feet of your child to worship Him and present valuable gifts to Him. And probably completely unknown to them was the political plot behind the scenes of King Herod trying to discover their location. But the wise men never returned to make that report and after worshipping Jesus they headed back to their own country by a different path to avoid Herod.
And so again today that’s a lot of history, I mean we’re not completely sure how much time we covered from Luke 2 to Matthew 2, but it’s history, its information, it’s good information as it’s part of the life of Christ and His earthly parents. But what can we take away from this practically for us this morning?
Well, there’s a reason I wanted to see both of these accounts in Luke and Matthew today, because they complement each other, but they also kind of contrast each other as well. I think we see a bigger picture of the truth if we see both of them together. There’s kind of three groups of people that stand out to me between these passages.
The first group is the shepherds from Luke 2, these are just working-class guys, they worked out in the fields taking care of sheep. And I mean these were the night shift guys too. But still a perfectly respectable job, but probably not highly regarded by society. But they were overflowing with excitement and ran when the news was shared with them that they would have the opportunity to come see Jesus. And when they saw Him, they couldn’t contain themselves and told everyone else that they could about Him. They were literally broadcasting Jesus and I can appreciate that. These men didn’t have gifts or riches to bring, but they understood what was going on, they were still invited into God’s presence, and they glorified Him, and they praised Him, because they knew Him and understood the truth.
The second group is the wise men. These guys were quite the opposite in many ways to the shepherds. It seems that they were probably wealthy based on their gifts and their position or jobs as these philosophers and astronomers and such. And it’s interesting to note that they were from another country, Judaism had been almost exclusively closed to the Jewish people for thousands of years beyond a few exceptions that we know of in the Bible. While Judaism had basically been closed to the Jews, belief in Jesus was now open to everybody and that’s a big deal. That’s why we’re sitting here today. But these men as well fell down before this Child, fell down before the very King of kings and Lord of lords and worshipped Him and gave Him these gifts.
These groups were very different from each other in a lot of practical ways, one group was local, one was foreign, one was probably poorer, the other seemingly wealthy, one traveled a long distance, one was just up the road a ways, but both of these groups were welcome and invited to come meet Jesus. And when they met Him, they worshipped Him, because He absolutely deserved it. He was but a Child at this point, He hadn’t yet called disciples, or taught the masses, or bled and died for our sins to then rise to life to give us life. These things had not happened yet, but it was still Immanuel – God with us, and Jesus – God saves, laying before these groups and they saw God in front of them and they worshipped at His feet. And so should we in light of everything that we knew, that goes even so much further beyond what these people knew at this point.
But there’s a third group and please, please, please don’t let us be like them.
The third group is the chief priests and the scribes. This group knew the truth. They heard people talking about the Christ being born. They were the ones that literally quoted Micah chapter 5, saying that He should be in Bethlehem then, if He is born. But it doesn’t sound like any of them went, it doesn’t sound like any of them actually did anything with that information. In fact, unfortunately they were really on the wrong side of things relaying this information to Herod. They knew the truth, but the truth hadn’t settled in. They knew the truth, but they didn’t act on the truth.
So, as we walk away from here today, let us know that God’s house is open to everyone. And I love seeing that in these passages. I doesn’t matter if we are wealthy or not, it doesn’t matter if we’re from here or not, it doesn’t matter what line of work we are in, it doesn’t matter what we have to bring or not, it doesn’t matter what we do or do not know yet. What matters is that we as a church recognize the worthiness of Jesus to be worshipped by us, it matters that we recognize that none of us will be saved without Him, it matters that we know the truth and actually act on the truth, and it matters that we take that truth to everyone that we have the opportunity to because God isn’t discriminating along whatever lines that culture has made and divided us with. God says in the book of Isaiah that His house will be a house of prayer for all nations which means for everyone, and I hope to see us reflect that here, because it was reflected even at the feet of the newborn Jesus.