“The Wise Will Come to Him”

Scripture text: Matthew 2:1-12

Today is the Sunday that we know as Epiphany – the day when, traditionally, the Magi arrived from the east to worship the Christ Child.

Read Matthew 2:1-2

These men are historically known as the 3 Wise Men, even though there is no evidence that there were only 3 – only that there were 3 gifts, and the word Magi is a reference to the priestly class of men, probably from the Medo-Persia region, which typically would be the learned class of any nation.
These were foreigners – they were not Jews. They may very well have know a lot about Israel as a nation and a people, but I doubt that they had ever taken a trip to visit these folks to the west. But they found their way there without maps, directions, GPS, or any other aid, except for a star that had guided them every step of the way. Human aids can be misleading, and take us in the wrong direction at times, but God’s star? Never.
Did you hear about the couple who, following their GPS, wound up in a remote place, trapped for 3 days over Christmas? We think of the new trend of electronics as nearly as infallible as anything possibly could. But a star? Navy story – there are all kinds of navigational aids on ships today, but navigators still shoot the stars every once in a while, just to verify that the electronics are correct! You just can’t trust human devices or human directions!

A motorist found himself lost on a back road in Alabama while trying to find his way to Montgomery. He saw an old farmer sitting on a fence, and stopped to ask for directions. The farmer looked down the road, scratched his head and then gave the motorist very explicit instructions. Half an hour later, after following the farmer's directions to a tee, the motorist found himself back at the starting point. The farmer was still sitting on the fence, in placid contemplation of the landscape.
“Hey, what's the idea?” the motorist demanded. “I did just what you told me, and look where I wound up!”
“Well, young feller,” the farmer explained, “I didn't aim to waste my time telling you how to get to Montgomery till I found out if you could follow simple directions.”
-- SourceBook of Wit and Wisdom, (Canton, Ohio: Communication Resources, Inc., 1996), 85a.

And maybe we can’t trust the human intellect, either!

Simple or not, directions are only as accurate as the person who is sharing them with us! These “wise” men found their way to Jerusalem, and following standard international protocol for that day, stopped in to pay their respects to the King of Israel and his court. And they asked where the “new” king was so they could honor and worship him! The Star had lead them across many miles, but while it lead the shepherds directly to the manger, the Magi needed to take a slight detour.

Read Matthew 2:3-8

The assistance that Herod had given them was, in itself, accurate, but there was royal subterfuge at work.

Here's some ancient wisdom that each generation discovers anew: “Don't fret about what the world wants from you. Worry about what makes you come more alive. Because what the world really needs is people who are more alive.”
-- Homeletics Online

The world was at work in these foreign visitors’ lives, but God was at work, too. Isn’t that so true? That whenever secular forces try to take control of situations, conditions, directions, decisions, that God is right there in the middle of it all. Consider some of the people of scripture who experienced this – people like:
- Esther, a Jewess who had been raised up to become Queen of the Persian Empire, presumably because of her great beauty and King Xerxes love for her, but then discovers that God had a whole different purpose, one of urgency and immanency, for her being in that position.
- Job – a righteous and very wealthy man who “feared God and shunned evil”! And then he lost it all, except for the 3 friends who kept tempting him with their worldly brand of “truth”. But God had a plan that far surpassed everything that the world – or Satan - could possibly throw at the man.
- Jonah didn’t like God’s plan, and tried to create his own, but quickly discovered that this is an impossibility. Eventually, the divine plan triumphed, and although Jonah did what he was supposed to do, he still didn’t like it.
- Even Elijah – the greatest and most revered prophet in all of Israel’s history – had his moment in the cave when he was hoping to hear God’s word in the loud and powerful, but was disappointed until the “still small voice” came to give him hope once again.
- and how could we fail to mention Saul of Tarsus in this list – he was working a plan that was anything but God’s, until God in Jesus Christ was revealed in a very dramatic and glorious way.
And the list goes on. But the common thread here is that each of these folks, as well as many more throughout the ages, were first subjected to a human and worldly “wisdom” that, when illuminated by the light of God, completely fell apart, and God eventually triumphed. For some, that revelation comes fairly swiftly – for others, it comes only after years of struggle and hardship. And true wisdom and Godly power will be for those who seek the only one who can give them.

In November of 1948, in a speech given by General Omar Bradley, he said “The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.”
--Omar Bradley in a speech, November 10, 1948, quoted in Christianity Today, February 9, 1998, 78.
That could almost apply today!!

Sometimes the “nuclear giants and ethical infants” of the world are allowed to take control for a short period of time and are even permitted to raise their own form of havoc in the lives of God’s people, but eventually, the faithful will – must - be raised up – not necessarily through power and might, but through the message of wisdom that is offered within the “still small voice”.

Read Matthew 2:9-12

The Magi had been given their “marching orders” by Herod, and we have to believe that without any intervention to the contrary, they would have carried out that royal command. But they were about to actually “see” that still, small voice of God. And they honored Him, and they worshipped Him, and they knew exactly who He was! And we know that by the gifts they offered, and we offered them again in our Unison Prayer this morning:
- Gold was a gift for a king – it symbolizes wealth, beauty, power.
- Incense (or Frankincense) was used nearly exclusively by the temple priests. It was always used in it purest state, and because it burned with such fragrance, it actually was seen to symbolize God. It was given for Jesus the High Priest.
- Myrrh was not only a perfume, but also an embalming agent. It symbolized the death that would come all too soon to our King and Priest.
3 gifts – one for a King, one for a Priest, and one to anoint the dead. Is there any doubt that these worshipers truly knew this Baby? They had been granted a wisdom that eluded Herod. They came before the truth of God in reverence and not in envy. They worshipped and believed in the God of Israel who they may never have knelt before in their entire lives.
Isn’t it interesting that scripture only mentions two types of visitors to the bedside of Immanuel - foreign, pagan priests, and filthy, socially inept, and ritually unclean Jewish shepherds?
Why weren’t the leaders of Israel, the major landowners, the wealthy merchant class, the priesthood – why weren’t they represented at the crude crib?

Salomon Ibn Gabirol, a Hebrew poet and philosopher who lived in the first half of the 11th century, gives us this bit of wisdom:
It was asked of the sage, he tells us: “Who are the superior; the wise or the rich?” ”The wise”, was his reply.
“But why”, objected the questioner, “are the wise more frequently at the door of the rich, than the rich at the door of the wise?”
“Because”, the sage replied, “the wise know the value of riches, but the rich do not know the value of wisdom.”
--- Salomon Ibn Gabirol (A Hebrew Poet and philosopher, who lived in the first half of the 11th century)

They weren’t kneeling at the side of the new born Christ because they didn’t know the value of Godly wisdom – they had all come to rely on earthly gifts and powers, and over the years had come to despise any word or thought that condemned their worldliness and exalted divinity!

Now, 2,000 years later, the humble still come to Him, the wounded still come to Him, foreigners still come to Him, the rejected still come to Him, sinners still come to Him, the truly wise still come to Him.
And the arrogant still reject Him, the wealthy still avoid Him, the powerful still condemn Him, and the self confident still know better than Him.

Have you been distant and remote from the Crib of God? One more character from scripture – Nicodemus. He was a Pharisee, and as such, was expected by his peers to avoid any contact with the Christ, other than to ridicule and condemn. But one dark night, he found himself walking to the house where Jesus was staying, and he was welcomed, and he was given the message of being born again. And by the time of that dark day at Calvary, he would be seen, not in hiding, but in the daylight, helping Joseph of Arimathea to apply the ointments and linens to the still body of Christ, and helped to carry Him to the tomb. Wisdom!

Jesus honors us in what ever means brings us to Him – whether it is in the dark of night or in the brilliance of the day. He just wants us to come, seeking His wisdom, seeking His authority, seeking His glory.

Won’t you come to Him today?