You might think from the title of this post that it’s going
to be about the awe the wise men felt as they came face to face with the Christ
child. But, while I’m sure wonder was among the emotions they experienced, the
wonder I’m writing of today is that which is there for us to feel as we dig deeper into the account of the wise men and
understand the significance of their history and their gifts. If you’ve never
read Matthew 2, which gives the account of the wise men’s journey, there’s no
time better than the present to discover it, and if you have, it’s always good
to read it again. In fact, I’ll give you a few moments to go do so now. . .
. . . Okay, you back? Let’s dive in.
We’ve taken a lot of artistic license with the wise men over
the years. You might’ve noticed that the Bible never states that there were
three of them; we likely arrived at this number from the three items listed as
gifts—gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Nor was there a scene such as that
depicted in countless nativity sets with the shepherds and the wise men bowing before Jesus together.** But all that aside,
there are other facets of the wise men’s story that reflect the beauty and
wisdom of God.
First, the gifts. It’s easy to skim over the specifics of
what gifts the wise men presented to Jesus—gold, frankincense, and myrrh—but
they are far more than answers in a Christmas trivia game.
You might be familiar with the Christmas carol “We Three
Kings” by John Henry Hopkins, Jr., but do you know all the verses? While the
aforementioned artistic license is taken in the title and first verse, verses
two through four shed light on the significance of the gifts brought:
Born a King on
Bethlehem’s plain:
Gold I bring
to crown Him again,
King forever,
ceasing never,
Over us all to
reign.
Frankincense
to offer have I,
Incense owns a
Deity nigh;
Prayer and
praising, all men raising,
Worship Him,
God on high.
Myrrh is mine,
its bitter perfume
Breathes a life
of gathering gloom—
Sorrowing,
sighing, bleeding, dying,
Sealed in the
stone-cold tomb.
A more recent carol, “Joy Has Dawned” by Keith Getty and
Stuart Townend, reveals the same meaning in the middle of verse 3:
Gifts of men
from distant lands prophesy the story.
Gold—a King is
born today, Incense—God is with us,
Myrrh—His
death will make a way, and by His blood He’ll win us.
So the gifts weren’t just expensive
products lavished upon a worthy recipient. They were emblematic of the very
significance of Jesus’s identity and purpose. Gold was a gift for a king—and
Jesus is the King of all. Incense was a substance offered to God—and Jesus is
God, come to live among us, experiencing life and temptation as we do yet never
sinning. Myrrh was used to prepare a body for burial—and Jesus would die as an
innocent God-man in the place of us, His fallen creations, and be buried in a
tomb before being raised from the dead.
Thus, the wise men’s visit did so much
more than pay homage to Jesus. It declared to those living then and declares to
us now that this Jesus isn’t just a man—He’s the King of kings, God with us,
and Savior of the world, or as the final verse of “We Three Kings” says, “King
and God and Sacrifice.”
But there’s another element of the wise
men’s account to consider—one that isn’t so readily apparent. In fact, we have
to go hundreds of years back in time to realize its significance. The clue is
found in Matthew 2:1, which tells us that the wise men came from the east. Okay…so what’s the big deal, you might
be thinking. They could just as easily
have come from the south or the west.
. . . But could they have?
Here is where I must thank my college
New Testament professor for opening my eyes to what I’m about to share. Ever
since he put the pieces together in the second week of class that spring
semester of my freshman year, I can’t help but get excited when I think about
the wise men.
Curious now? Well, here we go. Hold on
to your seats for a blitz through history . . .
After the Jewish nation was split into
the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah, each kingdom
was exiled and came under the influence of a different world power. For Israel,
it was the Assyrian Empire in the 700s B.C., while Judah was conquered in the
600s and 500s B.C. by the Babylonians, who rose to power after the Assyrians.
The next empire to rise was that of the Medo-Persians, who were the power at
large when the Jews were allowed to return to their homeland and begin
rebuilding the temple. Following the Medo-Persians were the Greeks, and the
Greek decline was succeeded by the rise of the Romans, who ruled when Jesus was
born.
Perhaps you’ve heard someone explain
before how Jesus’s birth came at a time when conditions were precisely
favorable for it. The Pax Romana (or
peace of Rome) was in effect, and the western world was united by Roman roads
and the Greek legacy of a common language and culture. In other words, the
practices of the world powers created an environment conducive for God’s plan
to be put into action. But it wasn’t only the Greek and Roman practices that
influenced the Jewish people and laid the foundation for the coming of Christ.
Each of the other empires had their own way of dealing with captives, too.
The Assyrians’ modus operandi was to
disperse captive people, mixing one group of captives with another to
demoralize the people and prevent uprisings. Incidentally, this is how the
Samaritans came to be—a mixed race of Jews and other peoples that was to play a
prominent role in Jesus’ ministry (think the woman at the well, the parable of
the Good Samaritan, and the command in Acts 1:8).
The Babylonians took a different tactic,
however. Instead of mixing up their captives wholesale, they left the poorest
of the people to tend their homeland and took the richest, most intelligent,
and most influential back to Babylon where they could indoctrinate this cream-of-the-crop
in Babylonian ways and profit from their services. Daniel was one of these
elite, and he went on to become an incredibly prominent person in the
Babylonian empire and even into the reign of the Medo-Persians. But, as the
book of Daniel shows us, Daniel wasn’t indoctrinated but rather was a bold
spokesman for the Lord, even prophesying about a coming Messiah.
Are you starting to connect the dots? Daniel
lived among the wisest of the land and introduced the promises of God to those
in his circles of influence. And where was this place of influence? Babylon—which
is in the east.
Word of a coming king found its way to the
east through the captivity of God’s people, and once planted this news would continue to be passed down in
the eastern culture for hundreds of years until a star shone one night and drew
some wise men to Bethlehem. Through a painful season of judgment, God was still
merciful and still in control, leading His people to a new land where they
could spread His message to those who had yet to hear.
Immediately after the Babylonians, the
Medo-Persians’ policy was to send captive people back to their lands, hence
God’s using King Cyrus to send His chosen people back to the promised
land—where they would later come under Greek and Roman rule, where Jesus would
be born, and where one night a star would guide a group of eastern men to find
Him.
To some, all this might just seem
coincidental, but to those of us who know our God is sovereign and who see the times
in Scripture when He explains His use of nations for His purposes, we see a
greater Hand at work. For in addition to the wise men’s gifts revealing truths
about Jesus’s identity and life, their journey reminds us of the beauty of God’s
sovereign rule, for in their story, we see how He used the practices of
multiple world powers over hundreds of years to orchestrate the circumstances
which would bring about the birth of His Son and the message brought by men
from the east, the message that Jesus is the promised one, who is the Hope of
the world.
To read the Arabic translation of this post, click here.
لقراءة الترجمة العربية لهذا المنشور إضغط هنا.
** The shepherds, we know from Luke 2, came soon after Jesus was born and visited Him while He was still in the manger. The first clue that the wise men came later is found in Matthew 2:11. Mary and Jesus, who is referred to as “the child” instead of “the baby” as in Luke 2, are in a house now. But Matthew 2 also tells us that Herod’s decree to kill all the boys two years old and younger was based on the information he had obtained from the wise men about when the star appeared to them. Thus, Jesus would have been somewhere close to two years old rather than a newborn when the wise men arrived.
