The Wise Men (Matthew 2)
The coming of the wise men to Jerusalem is a reminder that we have our years wrong in our use of BC and AD. Herod the Great died around 4BC, and since Jesus was born before the death of Herod, we can see that the number we use for our years is not accurate.
The wise men come to Jerusalem
There has been different suggestions as to who the wise men were and where they came from, but no one knows exactly. All we have to go on is what is recorded in this brief account by Matthew. We are told that about two years had passed since they first saw the star (it is unlikely that Herod waited a long time for the wise men to return from Bethlehem with the information he wanted, so his cruel response would be soon after their arrival in Jerusalem, which means that the two years would include all the details mentioned in the passage).
If the wise men started their journey soon after they first saw the star, it would mean that they travelled very slowly to Israel. For example, it would take a caravan of traders about a month to travel from Persia to Jerusalem, and even if they came from the Far East the journey could have been made within three months. So why is there a time gap between them first seeing the star and their coming to Jerusalem?
Before they could begin their journey, they would need to know where to go. The star itself did not tell them where to go. We often think that the wise men followed the star from their homeland, but Matthew does not say that. All he says is that they saw the initial appearance of the star in the east and then they saw it again when they left Jerusalem after meeting with Herod, and only then did it lead them to the house in Bethlehem where Joseph and Mary and Jesus were living. They may have followed it from their location in the east, but the passage does not give that information.
The wise men came to Jerusalem because they knew that the King of the Jews had been born. They do not seem to have deduced this information from the Old Testament, because if they had been familiar with it they would have known that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.Yet we are told that they knew the star was connected to the birth of the King of the Jews. How did they know that?
The obvious answer is that God told them in supernatural ways similar to how he informed Joseph and Mary what to do. The logical thing to do after being told what the star signified would be for the wise men to go to Jerusalem. Maybe God told them this several months after the star first appeared. This would explain the length of time between their first seeing the star and their coming to Jerusalem.
How would the wise men have reacted to what they saw in Jerusalem? Probably, they were surprised by the lack of awareness of the birth of the King of the Jews. After all, almost two years had passed. Yet no one in the places of power knew that the Messiah had been born in the vicinity. This means that what had happened to the infant Jesus after his birth – the appearance of the angels, the visit of the shepherds and their ongoing testimony, the experience of the family at the temple, the discussions taking place about the birth – had not reached the ears of those in power. God had put a wall round it all.
We should observe that the wise men, when describing the newborn child, do not say that they think he was born to be king at some stage in the future. Rather, their words stress that a King has been born, that he was born a King. While they anticipated seeing an infant, they also expected to see a King.
The wise men and Herod
Herod was appalled by the prospect of a potential royal rival. After all, although he was the current king, he had not been born king of the Jews. He was not a member of the Jewish royal line, but was an Edomite who had risen high within the structures of the empire because of his contacts with Caesar. The birth of Jesus was a threat to him, therefore he had to come up with a plan to get rid of the new-born King.
Having discovered the details in the prophecy of Micah about Bethlehem being the birthplace of the Messiah, he sent the wise men to find the child who had been born there recently. It is odd that he believed the prediction had been fulfilled and yet imagined he could interrupt the plans of God for the child.
The wise men go to Bethlehem
Matthew tells us that the star resumed its role in their experience and led them on the short journey down to Bethlehem. The description by Matthew suggests that the star was low in the sky when it came to the house, easily identifying it for the wise men. They regarded its reappearance as confirmatory evidence of the precision of the Old Testament prediction and it brought great joy to them because they realised that God was guiding them to see the King.
Joseph does not seem to have been there when the wise men arrived at the house. If he was there, he is not mentioned. We are not told how long the wise men stayed, but since they received a warning from God in a dream they must have remained in Jerusalem for at least one period of rest. No doubt, they were informed of the different things that had happened to him since his birth.
What we are told is their response to the infant Jesus. They saw him, they fell before him, and they gave gifts to him. While they did that in a literal sense, this is what we do each time we worship him. We focus on him and his work of grace, we fall in worship before him, and express our faith by giving to him out of our resources.
Lessons from the passage
Why did Matthew include the account of the wise men in his story? Or to put it another way, what lessons can we take from the story? The first lesson is that there are elements of mystery in the story of Jesus. There are some things about him that are too great for us to understand. Our response to the mystery of Jesus is to worship him because he is God as well as man.
A second lesson from the story tells the reader to expect the miraculous in the story of Jesus. His birth was a miracle, because God came one of us. But the announcement of his arrival also was a miracle because God created a special star to indicate the arrival of his eternal Son into this world. There are many stories of God’s power in the Gospel by Mathew. What will happen next should be on every reader’s mind.
A third lesson is that readers are being told not to expect too much from their religious leaders. They showed no interest in going to Bethlehem and checking out if the claims by the wise men were true. It is not enough to have a knowledge of the contents of the Bible, we must also know the Christ of the Bible.
An obvious fourth lesson that Matthew is indicating concerns the ingathering of Gentiles into the kingdom of God. He has already suggested this in the names of women in his genealogy of Jesus. Now unknown wise men come and confess that Jesus is the Christ. No matter where they are, the Lord knows how to bring his people to himself.
A fifth lesson is we should worship Jesus wherever you find him. The wise men probably came to Jerusalem expecting to find the new king of the Jews in a palace. Instead they found him in an ordinary house. Yet they worshipped him there. Where can we meet Jesus? Often we do so in unexpected places. We should be ready to worship him at all times.
A sixth lesson is that we should obey God rather than high earthly rulers when they engage in sinful actions. Herod possessed some power, but when it came to obeying him or obeying the Lord the wise men chose to obey God.
A seventh lesson is that people often discover who Jesus is by a step at a time. The wise men noticed a star, discovered what it signified, went to where they thought the newborn King would be, heard truth from the Bible, saw the star again and followed it, met Jesus and worshipped him.
An eighth lesson is that believers are often guided a step at a time, with a variety of different factors contributing to the guidance. The wise men were given a physical sign (the star), the significance of the star (in some way they discovered what it pointed to), the biblical details, and a dream in which God told them not to go back to Herod. At each stage, they needed further guidance.
The ninth lesson is that we should give our best to Jesus. What we give should indicate how much we value him. That was certainly the case with the wise men.