What Would You Do?

What Would You Do?  2020 12 20

Matthew 2:1 – 12

We live in interesting times.  2020 has been a year like no other.  Now we are approaching Christmas, less than a week away, and we’re being told we’re not allowed to gather with our families.  We’re being told to wear masks everywhere.  We’re being told to stay 6 feet apart and not to go anywhere.  Many are upset after almost a year of restrictions of various kinds and are either threatening to or are disobeying the government.  Others are reporting their friends and neighbours for having gatherings.  What about you?

Now imagine the government was actually doing something a lot more serious than asking you to wear a mask or maintain your distance for a while.  Imagine they were telling you to turn in people they thought might oppose them politically. Imagine you knew that if they caught someone like that, the penalty for that person would be high.  What would you do?

Matthew 2:1 – 12

Here were three foreigners, possibly with an entourage of some kind, who came to Israel, specifically to Juda, to seek out the One they knew had been born, the King of the Jews.  They asked about Him, and the news eventually got to Herod the king.  Herod was a tetrarch, under the emperor of Rome.  He was troubled by what he heard and summoned chief priests, the scribes, and the wise men to his palace to find out more.  Then he told them to let him know where the child was when they found him.

When they found the child, it was an occasion of great joy for them.  But then God warned them in a dream to disobey Herod, so they went home, instead.  But by doing so, they earned the ire of Herod, who wanted to destroy the child.  He did not want anyone to challenge his authority.

What if you were told by your government to never again mention the name of Jesus in public?  What if telling people about Jesus could get you in trouble?  What if telling people about Jesus would make your life more difficult?

I A Familiar Story

1. For most of this, this is a familiar story.  Whether you grew up in a Christian home or not, you would have heard the story of the birth of the baby Jesus in Bethlehem and the three wise men who came to visit him.

1. This story has been read, played out and sung about in churches and public schools for hundreds of years.
   1. Sadly, this is no longer the case. The generation coming up has not experienced this in public school.   Christ has been taken out of Christmas and the Christmas season has become the winter festival or something similar.  This is all the more reason why we need to be vocal about our faith in our society, or no one will know anything about Jesus.

1. This is the record of three wise men, sometimes call magi, the plural of the Greek word, magus,  which is the word translated to wise men in our text.

1. magus
   1. the name given by the Babylonians (Chaldeans), Medes, Persians, and others, to the wise men, teachers, priests, physicians, astrologers, seers, interpreters of dreams, augers, soothsayers, sorcerers etc.
   2. the oriental wise men (astrologers) who, having discovered by the rising of a remarkable star that the Messiah had just been born, came to Jerusalem to worship him
2. These were men of high esteem, wealthy and prominent in their own land. They were able to travel a great distance and bring expensive gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.     

II  Looking for a King

1. These wise men cam to Jerusalem looking for a king.  Unlike what the re-enactments of the account often show, the star did not initially guide them directly to the baby.

1. They were able to understand what region the baby would be born in from the star, and naturally went to Jerusalem, the capital city of Israel, and the obvious place for a king to be born.
2. But when these pilgrims started asking about where this new king of the Jews was, king Herod and the people of Jerusalem were troubled.

III  Jesus was Born

1. Notice this – Jesus was already born. The nativity scenes almost always show the shepherds and wise men at the manger in Bethlehem.
   1. But that simply isn’t scriptural. In fact, there’s no evidence in the scriptures that he was even in Bethlehem anymore.
2. Herod called a special meeting of all the religious scholars of Jerusalem who told him that the Christ would be born in Bethlehem.
   1. Notice that Herod asked them where the Christ should be born. He knew who this child the wise men looked for must be.  He knew they were searching for the Messiah.
   2. Herod did not know when the baby was born, again pointing to the fact that Jesus was already born. He asked the wise men when the star appeared.
      1. This became a deciding factor later on when he killed every child two and under in Bethlehem and the surrounding area.
   3. Herod then asked the wise men to find the child and then report back to him giving him his whereabouts.

IV He Wasn’t In Bethlehem!

1. When you examine the account of his birth in Luke 2, you discover that Jesus was circumcised at eight days, as was the custom, then He was taken to the temple in Jerusalem around 33 days later, when the days of Mary’s purification were finished, according to the law of Moses.
   1. It was required under the law to bring the firstborn child if it was a male to the temple to offer a sacrifice of redemption, because he was holy.
   2. Then, the same passage in Luke 2 tells us, they went home to Nazareth!

V  The Wise Men

1. The wise men left Jerusalem after being grilled by king.  This Bethlehem was in Judea, just south of Jerusalem, but Jesus was in Nazareth, way up in Galilee.

1. Too the great joy of the wise men, the star once again began to lead them in such a way they were able to go the right way, until they reached Nazareth and the star showed them where the young child (not baby) was.

VI  Herod’s Edict

1. Herod was the king in Judea and commanded the wise men to report back to him once they found the child.  He expected they would go to Bethlehem and get back to him.

1. Instead, they went up to Nazareth.
2. The favoured route up to Nazareth is and probably was them, one that swung to the west and back.
   1. They found the child, worshiped Him, and gave Him gifts; then they obeyed God and returned to their own country by another way, likely by going down on by the route that swings to the east and south through Jericho, rather than Jerusalem.

VII  Taking a Risk

1. These wise men took a real risk in disobeying Herod.  Had someone spotted and reported them, they would have faced the ire of Herod, who had the Roman army supporting him.

1. They could have been arrested and executed for disobeying the king. They were guests in a foreign land, where foreigners were not highly rated.
2. Yet they obeyed God and went back to their own land by another road, a road where they still risked having to answer the questions of a Roman patrol.

1. Think about this carefully.  What would you do?

1. They could have reasoned that God would understand how great the risk was if they obeyed God.
2. They could have reasoned that it was probably just a dream created by their own imagination that they mistook for a warning from God.
3. The could have reasoned that it couldn’t hurt anything to do what Herod said, even though God expressly said not to do it.

Conclusion

1. What would you do?
2. The three wise men risked a lot by disobeying Herod, but they chose to obey God, rather than man.
3. In today’s world, there’s a lot of debate about whether we should do what the Bible says or try to make the Bible fit the values of our world.

1. Many, if not most Christians now agree with a lot of what the world says, even though it goes against the express word of God. Believing that the Bible says what God means and means what God says has become very unpopular, even in many churches, and it’s common to be called intolerant by people identifying as Christians just for believing and obeying God.
2. Jesus said, “Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.” Matthew 10:32, 33  What will you do?