The Star Proclaims the King is Here

The Epiphany and the Visit of the Wise Men

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel.

According to St. Matthew chapter 2 verses 1 -12. Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king behold wise men from the east came to Jerusalem saying where is he who has been born the king of the Jews?

For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. And when Herod the king had heard this he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him. And assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.

They told him in Bethlehem of Judea for so it is written by the prophet and you O Bethlehem in the land of Judah are by no means least among the rulers of Judah. For from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.

When 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 had offered him gifts of 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 gospel of the Lord.

Herod, the Magi, and the Prophecy of the Scepter

In the name of Jesus. Alright today is the epiphany. What is the epiphany all about? Well epiphany just simply means the revealing. One of my old pastors called it Christmas for the Gentiles. You see when Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea there well the announcement of the birth of Christ was given to the poor humble shepherds out in the field and they were given the sign to look for a child who was an infant lying in a manger and then they revealed to the parents what had been told to them by the angels.

Now some time has passed Jesus is no longer an infant. He's not sleeping in a manger. Apparently Joseph and Mary have rented a house of some kind and Jesus is most likely a toddler between one and two years old.

Maybe he's potty trained by now. Maybe he's not. And I'm sure that Mary probably had a very easy time potty training Jesus. But the whole point of this is that there's the Son of God in human flesh as a helpless tiny toddler probably hiding behind his mom's skirts as toddlers are prone to do.

So this is what's going on. This is the time frame and Matthew tells us this account and what we'll do is we'll work our way through the story first and then kind of ask ourselves this question. What does the epiphany, what's its relevance for us today?

So Matthew 2 .1. After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king. Now we'll pause there for a second and consider a few things. Herod at this point is technically the king of the Jews made so by the Roman Empire.

But Herod is not a Jew. He's an Idumean. Now the Jews of his time claim that he converted to Judaism but his conversion was contested and challenged and questioned and is there any wonder because Herod was a fellow who was, as I've said before, a real sick puppy.

This is a guy who used power given to him for his own sake. So much so that he murdered one of his wives, Mary Omni, murdered several of his sons, also murdered another one of his wives and he's so sick that Eusebius in his church history writes that as Herod was getting close to his death, which is about a year after what we hear going on here, as he was getting close to his death, that what he ended up doing he recognized that upon his death the people in Israel would rejoice over his death because he was a wicked, self-centered, power-greedy tyrant and so he came up with a scheme that would make it so that people would actually mourn his death and here's what he did.

He had the soldiers, the Roman soldiers, sequester a group of the most outstanding and righteous men and leaders of the Jerusalem community as he was on his deathbed and then when the word came to the soldiers that Herod had died, the order was to put all of those men to death, which then resulted in Jerusalem weeping and wailing and lamenting and mourning the death of Herod and that was all so that he could have a proper funeral.

That's what Eusebius tells us about this fellow. So keep that in mind. Now another thing to note here is that when you read the church fathers and you even read Luther's sermon on the epiphany, all of them point to Genesis 49 verse 10.

Let me read it for you. Here's what it says. This is Israel, Jacob, the heel grabber who's become Israel. This is his final words as he's getting ready to die, a prophecy. And in verse 10 of Genesis 49 he states, the scepter shall not depart from Judah nor the ruler staff from between his feet until Shiloh comes and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.

And so the ancient church saw Genesis 49 as a prophecy that tells us when the Messiah would appear. Now keep in mind Moses is the one who wrote Genesis and from the time of Moses until the time of Herod the great Israel had some form of self governance either in the form of judges or of the kings of the Davidic kingdom and then in the Maccabean period they still had some say over themselves until Herod the great.

And at that point that was the first time since Moses penned these words that a Jew was not having say over what was happening in Israel. And so the scepter shall not depart from Judah until Shiloh comes.

And so they saw that when Herod became king he's an Idumean, he's not a Jew, that that was the sign that the Messiah himself must appear at that time because that was the time when Israel lost the scepter.

And so 30 years after Herod becomes king we now read about these events. So after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king great word, behold, something is going on here. This word appears twice in our text.

Behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem saying, where is he who was born the king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. Now who are these guys? These are magi.

These are astronomers, most likely from Babylon. And you'll note the lasting impact that Daniel had upon this particular school of scientists, studiers, I'm not sure how you would label them, but they were astronomers.

And if you remember from the book of Daniel, Daniel himself was made the chief of the magi. And the lasting impact was that whatever he left them when this star appeared, they knew exactly that a king had been born for the Jews.

The king of the Jews had been born and these men set out to Jerusalem to come and literally worship him. Now, Jerusalem makes a lot of sense because I mean that's the capital city of Judea. You show up in Jerusalem, a king has been born and so this is obviously the place.

So you can almost see these magi showing up and no, they're not just three guys. I know your Christmas cards and our nativity scenes like to show the three guys. There were three gifts but not three magi.

Probably a bigger group than that. And so they show up in Jerusalem and it's like, alright, where is the king of the Jews? Where has he been born? And you can just see the people of Jerusalem going, huh?

What? What are you talking about? Shlomo, have you heard about where the king of the Jews has been born? There's been a king of the Jews been born? Are you sure about that, Itzhak? Yeah, I'm pretty sure.

Well, let's go talk to Yeshayahu. Yeshayahu, are you sure? No, I haven't heard about this. And so everybody in Jerusalem is abuzz. These guys have shown up. These Gentiles from Babylon have shown up looking for the king of the Jews who has apparently been born.

Everybody's scratching their head. Everybody's talking about it. And word gets back to the sick puppy himself, Herod. Now watch what happens. So when Herod heard this, he was troubled. All Jerusalem with him.

And so he decides that he's going to formally call the Sanhedrin together because that's really who the chief priests and the scribes are. And he sends a formal inquiry. And watch this inquiry. He inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.

Where the Messiah was to be born. You see, word gets back to Herod. The king of the Jews has been born. And he knows enough about Jewish theology and the scriptures to know that must be the Messiah. He knows exactly who they're looking for.

And rather than saying, praise Yahweh, praise the Lord, hallelujah, the Messiah is here, Herod decides to concoct a scheme to figure out, get the data points to figure out where this Messiah had been born for the purpose of murdering him.

How do I know? Read the rest of the chapter. You'll see that he after the Magi leave, sends soldiers to Bethlehem and orders them to murder all of the two-year-old males and under in accordance with the time given by the Magi.

So, the Sanhedrin sends word back to Herod. Herod knows who he's looking for. He's looking for the Messiah. And now he knows where. Because the Sanhedrin replies back, well, in Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet.

And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah. For from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. Quoting from the prophet Micah. And so now Herod knows who he's looking for.

He knows where he is. Now we just have to kind of figure out how old he is. So watch what he does next. Herod summoned the wise men, the Magi, secretly. Beware of those secret meetings. No good things come about from secret meetings.

Clearly he didn't want everybody else to know what he was up to because if somebody had known that he had met with the Magi, they.

May have warned them. No, no, no, no, no. You don't want to talk to Herod. You don't know.

What this guy's like. He's killing his own family members. They're dropping like flies. Right? So he summons them secretly. And he ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. Now he knows who he's looking for.

He knows where he is. And he has a pretty good idea how old he is. So he sent the Magi to Bethlehem. So his plot here was, you guys go and do the hard work. Figure out what his address is. Is it 1379 Bethlehem Street?

And then when you figure out the exact house, you just come back and you let me know. So they're going to do his dirty work for him. So he sent them to Bethlehem and you get to see him saying, oh, listen, you're looking for the king of the Jews?

Oh, he would have been born in Bethlehem. You guys go ahead and go figure out where he is. Go search diligently for the child. And when you've found him, bring me word so that I too may come and worship him.

Yeah, he doesn't want to worship the Messiah. He wants his head on a pike. So after listening to the king, the Magi went their way. Now a little bit of a note here. When I was a kid, one Christmas, I lived in Southern California, we had family come in from the south, from Tennessee and from Georgia.

And they spent Christmas with us. And of course, when you go to California, you have to go and see the Southern California sites. You have to go to Hollyweird and all that kind of stuff. And so after Christmas, we decided to do the sightseeing things with my aunts, who had this weird thing that they would do.

Anytime I would say something that was even remotely stupid, they would say this phrase, oh, bless your heart. I figured out later that that's not a good thing. They weren't actually blessing me. Anyway, so we decided that we were going to go to Hollyweird.

We saw the Walk of Fame, and we went to the Griffith Observatory. That's another famous site there in Southern California. And because it was Christmas time, just after the holidays, they have a planetarium there.

If you didn't know what a planetarium is, you kind of sit back in these seats and looking up at the ceiling that's like a dome, and they have this ginormous thing that projects stars and stuff onto the ceiling.

And so they tell, you know, the whole thing was about the Star of Bethlehem. What was it? The definitive answer is, we don't know. We don't know. And so they say, maybe it was a supernova. Alright, okay, maybe it was a supernova.

Yeah, a giant explosion in space. A collapsing of a star. But see, here's the thing. If it was a star, I mean, we can navigate by the North Star across the Atlantic Ocean or the Pacific. We can navigate by stars, but they don't lead us to particular addresses.

You know what I'm saying? And so I'm convinced by how I'm reading this text that this is a star like no other star. It's not a supernova or something like that. Because, I mean, if tonight, you know, some star went supernova and it just so happened that at 1015 for the next two days, it was right over my house, still nobody could find my house using that supernova.

You know what I'm saying? So we're dealing with something a little bit more miraculous than that. I like to think of it this way. God just likes to cheat. I mean, Jesus says in John 6, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.

And so here we see a clear example of God giving these astronomers a sign that they can understand in order to draw them. Come and see my son. Come and worship him. Come and be forgiven. Come and see your Savior.

He's for you too. He's not just for the Jews. See, God's cheating. And so here's what happened. These guys show up in Jerusalem and the star disappears. And the text literally says now that as they're on their way to Bethlehem, which is only about 15 miles from Jerusalem, so we're talking a walk of just a few hours, right?

So after listening to the king, they went on their way. Behold the star! There it is again. Behold the star that they had seen when it arose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was.

That's some star.

That star has like cognitive abilities. Makes me wonder what it really was. So when they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And then going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother.

And think of it this way. I mean, this is just a fascinating thing. We know that Mary and Joseph are dirt poor. We know that they don't have a palace. They don't drive a Ferrari. I mean, they are as from the other side of the tracks as you could possibly get.

Jesus is probably not wearing the best clothes ever. And so here's the incarnate deity in the most humble and well, despised kind of packages. And yet it says they saw the child. Notice the child comes first, not the mom.

They saw the child with Mary his mother and they fell down and they worshipped him. And the text basically makes it clear. They're not just dropping a knee. They're on their face. That's how low they go.

And then opening their treasures, they offered him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. And I always love how the church fathers interpret this. Gold befitting a king. Frankincense invoking the incense within the temple.

Befitting of God himself. Myrrh, an embalming spice. Prefiguring the fact that Christ would bleed and die for our sins. That's a good way of looking at these things. And so then being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.

Law, Gospel, and the Two Responses to Christ

What a great story. So what are we to do with this epiphany text? How are we to well, see its relevance for us today? I think it's important for us to take a look at the relevance in light of law and gospel.

You see, we, whether we want to admit it or not, we were all born dead in trespasses and sins. And by our natural birth, down in our core, because of the corruption of sin, each and every one of us, and I mean it, every one of us here, we are little King Herods.

Now, you may not like to think of yourself that way. I mean, I don't, but the thing is that that's true. We are all this way. You need to recognize this and you need to own up to it. You see, we don't like competing kings.

We don't like people challenging our sovereignty. We don't like, well, not being in charge. We, like them, like Herod, misuse power and authority for our own means rather than for the serving of the people that we are to be governing, not as tyrants, but as ministers.

We want nobody over us. We will not bend to any one's rule. A clear example of this, out in the world, I mean, talking about people being like Herod, all the talk today, all the talk today that there are more than two genders, and if you dare to say that there's only male and female and that God created us this way, oh, you will be made to suffer.

It's another example of this. We will not allow God to be king over us and dictate to us that we are either male or female. We're going to create all kinds of new genders, not male and female, but zuh and meh and bleh, you know?

This is all nonsense. This is Herodian in its evil. So, we don't want anyone to rule over us, not God, even on our own bodies, how we've been made. And so, because of our sinful nature, the news of this child of Jesus Christ, our old Adams are not excited about this at all.

Herod may say that he wants to worship Jesus, but he actually has other plans. He wants to get him out of the way. He wants to kill him. And unfortunately, there are many Christians who have it out for Jesus, too, or at least they self-identify as Christians.

They have it out for him, too, and they want to get rid of him from his own church. Is this not what the church in Laodicea did, where you have this absurd example of Jesus basically saying to the church in Laodicea, it's like, hello, I'm standing outside the door of your church and knocking.

Could you let me back in, please? Yeah, that happens, too. Now, I know that none of you like to think of yourselves in a way where you would think that you would kill cute little toddler Jesus, but you might want him out of your way when he interferes with you being the Lord of your own life.

And therein is the Herod in each and every one of us. Think of how we bristle at being told what to do. Think of all the ways we make excuses and self-justify what we do to those who threaten our power, threaten our reign, threaten our control.

And that's the Herod in each and every one of us. And that's the sin that we need to all repent of. But also think of this. As Christians, we don't only have a sinful nature. We are also new creations in Christ.

And so each and every one of us here today has come to worship Christ, this exact same Jesus, and to do so where he's revealed himself in very humble and ordinary means. Think of it this way. The wise men knelt before the lowly Christ, and they worshipped him, even though his glory and his divinity were totally hidden.

And Jesus is kind of two-year-old, one-year-old toddler-ness. Right? But in the same way, we also bow down and we worship this same Jesus who is concealed and revealed for us in the preached Word.

He's concealed and revealed for us in the absolution of your sinful pastor. He's concealed and revealed for us today in the bread and wine where we will truly receive the body and blood of Christ given and shed for us for the forgiveness of sins.

He's hidden, concealed and revealed also in the waters of baptism, where we have been united with him in his death and his resurrection and had our sins washed away. You see, we are a lot like the Magi, believing in the great promises of God concealed in ordinary and humble things like bread, wine, water, and the words spoken by a sinful pastor.

You see, we trust in the same Jesus, and so we are a lot like the wise men as well. And this is most certainly true. Now, a little bit of a note. In the ancient church, the first Christmas celebrations were on epiphany.

They were not at the nativity of Christ. And that makes sense, because it's this text where we hear about gifts given. Now, I've got to note this, that you kids in the congregation today, the original Christmas gifts were about giving to God, not to you.

I'm sorry. Something's gone squirrelly, so I just want to make that clear. But you'll note that the gifts were originally given to Christ. And so it is also our great act of worship, as Paul says in Romans 12, to now then, because of God's great mercy and grace, to offer ourselves, our bodies, as living sacrifices, which are pleasing and holy and acceptable to God, made so by Christ himself.

And so, gold, frankincense, myrrh, you may not have any of that, but Christ has redeemed your body, and so offer it now back as a living sacrifice. That is your gift. That is your holy and acceptable worship.

So, we have a lot in common with Herod, and as Christians we have a lot in common with the Magi. And so let us repent of our Herod-ness, and again, humbly receive the great promises of God's mercy and grace, given to us, concealed in these humble means, trusting in these great promises, and in worship like them, offering ourselves up to Christ and to each other.

In the name of Jesus, Amen.

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