A paranoid king, shadowy astrologers, secret plots, and a mysterious star collide in a high-stakes race across ancient Judea, where the birth of an unknown child sets the stage for a dramatic first Christmas. Join us in Matthew 2:1-12 for our next edition of the Holy Moments Christmas series.
During my first trip to Israel (which I thought would be the only one I’d ever take in my life), thick, black clouds obscured the sun for a week. On day two, we walked out onto the tiled patio of the monastery built to commemorate Elijah’s battle with the prophets of Baal. From this vantage point, you can usually see the entire Valley of Armageddon down below you as you look east. I couldn’t have been more disappointed because clouds and fog kept us from seeing much of the massive valley. Later, when we visited Nazareth, we drove to the southern overlook of the same valley where so much biblical history occurred and where Christ will, at the end of time, battle the final Anti-Christ forces of the world. Again, we couldn’t really see much. Sadly, clouds enshrouded northern Israel the first week of a two-week tour.
When the day arrived for us to depart this region and head south toward Beth Shean, I sat at the back of the bus on a large bench. I positioned myself here because I wanted one last glimpse of the Galilee and the surrounding areas where Jesus did so much of His ministry. As we drove up the grade just outside Tiberias, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, I looked wistfully out the back window as the clouded-over sea slowly began to recede into the background.
Suddenly, three holes formed in the black clouds just above the middle of the lake, allowing brilliant parallel beams of light to strike the lake’s surface. Immediately, I knew this was one of those Holy Moments. How could it not be? We hadn’t seen the sun in a week, and then as we left this special area of biblical history, the sun just happened to break through with three, not one, not two, but three pillars of glorious light. Turning to the rest of the I said, “Hey, everybody! Turn around and look at the sea. The Holy Trinity is telling us good-bye.” When the group turned and looked, they joined in my spiritual excitement.
Have you ever had a moment like that? You don’t forget them, and you thoroughly enjoy telling others, especially believers, about them, so God gets the glory.
As we consider the arrival of the three Magi to see baby Jesus, it doesn’t take too much reading to discover this was one of those Holy Moments when God showed up in a profound fashion. And, as you’d expect, the moment comes with powerful spiritual points for us all to contemplate this Christmas. The Magi didn’t see three beams of light that demonstrated God spoke definitively. In their situation, they encountered a magnificent, marvelous astral anomaly that not only arrested their attention but magnetically drew them some 600 miles to the feet of the Messiah, Jesus. The process of their journey is what teaches us so much about the Lord of this particular Holy Moment. Matthew, a former despised tax collector turned disciple of Jesus, records the arrival of these unique men from the East with the historical precision of a numbers man.
The Mission (Matt. 2:1-2)
From the opening verse, Matthew introduces us to a group of educated men who traveled from afar to meet the Messiah, Jesus, face-to-face.
1 Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, 2 “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east, and have come to worship Him.” (Matt. 2)
How much time elapsed between the birth of Jesus and the arrival of the Magi? Since Herod, who was paranoid of the arrival of Jesus and the potential threat He might be to his devilish dynasty, ordered the massacre of all baby boys in Bethlehem from two years old and downward (Matt. 2:16-18), we can surmise that Jesus was easily under two years of age. Ostensibly, this means that contrary to what we are told in Western Christmas lore, the Magi didn’t hover over baby Jesus in a manger. On the contrary, they showed up suddenly at His parents’ home.
My late Greek professor at Dallas Theological Seminar, Dr. Harold Hoehner, wrote his doctoral dissertation at Cambridge on the chronological aspects of Christ’s life. In this book, he collates non-biblical and biblical evidence to demonstrate that Jesus’s birth occurred in the winter of 5/4 B.C. Concerning the timing of Herod’s death, Dr. Hoehner observes:
According to Josephus, an eclipse of the moon occurred shortly before Herod’s death. It is the only eclipse ever mentioned by Josephus, and this occurred on March 1213, 4 B.C. After his death, there was the celebration of the Passover, the first day of which would have occurred on April 11, 4 B.C. Hence, his death occurred sometime between March 12th and April 11th. Since the thirty-fourth year of his reign would have begun on Nisan 1, 4 B.C. (March 29, 4 B.C.) His death would have occurred sometime between March 29 and April 11, 4 B.C. Therefore, for these reasons, Christ could not have been born later than MarchApril of 4 B.C.[1]
This historical data underscores the fact that Jesus’s birth occurred prior to this, probably around 5 B.C.
Who were the Magi who followed a unique star in a holy quest to worship at the feet of the long-awaited Messiah? The KJV calls them “wise men,” but this is not the meaning of the ancient term. The Greek of this text calls them magoi:
Matthew 2:1 Τοῦ δὲ Ἰησοῦ γεννηθέντος ἐν Βηθλέεμ τῆς Ἰουδαίας ἐν ἡμέραις Ἡρῴδου τοῦ βασιλέως, ἰδοὺ μάγοι ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν παρεγένοντο εἰς Ἱεροσόλυμα 2 λέγοντες· ποῦ ἐστιν ὁ τεχθεὶς βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων; εἴδομεν γὰρ αὐτοῦ τὸν ἀστέρα ἐν τῇ ἀνατολῇ καὶ ἤλθομεν προσκυνῆσαι αὐτῷ. (Matt. 2)
Two leading Greek lexicons reveal that this word was associated with astrologers:
Friberg, Analytical Greek Lexicon
μάγος, ου, ὁ from Persian magus (great); (1) magus, plural magi, the high priestly caste of Persia; wise man of the Magian religion (MT 2.1); (2) magician, sorcerer, one using witchcraft or magic arts (AC 13.6)
Danker, Greek NT Lexicon
μάγος,ου,ὁ [foreign loanword] – 1. ‘one of a class of Oriental men of letters and experts in astrology’, a Magus Mt 2:1, 7, 16. – 2. in the narrower sense of 1, magician Ac 13:6, 8.
Several things must be noted here: First, the Magi were not kings. The famous Christmas hymn “We Three Kings of Orient Are” is misleading. These men were astrologers, as their name suggests in the original text. Regarding them, Craig Keener says in his helpful Bible Background Commentary, “’Magi (not “wise men”–KJV) were pagan astrologers whose divinatory skills were widely respected in the Greco-Roman world; astrology had become popular through the `science of the East, and everyone agreed that the best astrologers lived in the East.”
Where in the East did the Magi probably come from? I believe it was Babylon. Why? For one, the Babylonians were historically known for their advances in astronomy. In his book, Babylonian Life and History, Dr. Budge of the British Museum, observes:
It must never be forgotten that the Babylonians were a nation of stargazers, and that they picked a body of men to do nothing else but report eclipses, appearance of the moon, sunspots, etc., etc., . . . “Astronomy, mixed with astrology, occupied a large number of tablets in the Babylonian libraries, and Isaiah, xlvii. 13, refers to this when he says to Babylon, `Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now thy astrologers (marg. viewers of the heavens), the star-gazers, the monthly prognosticators stand up.’ The largest astrological work of the Babylonians contained seventy tablets, and was compiled by the command of Sargon of Agade thirty-eight hundred years before Christ! It was called the ‘Illuminatio of Bel’ … They built observatories in all the great cities, and reports like the above were regularly sent to the King … They were able to calculate eclipses, and had long lists of them … They found out that the sun was spotted, and they knew of comets …[2]
Babylon, therefore, is, I believe, the logical origin of the Magi.
For another, Daniel the prophet, who was taken to Babylon as a prisoner around 605 B.C., became, through his divinely ordered prophetic prowess, the leader of the astronomy/astrological school in Babylon. After Daniel interpreted King Nebuchadnezzar’s divinely ordained dream of the rise and fall of the final world empires, the king did this:
47 The king answered Daniel and said, “Surely your God is a God of gods and a Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, since you have been able to reveal this mystery.” 48 Then the king promoted Daniel and gave him many great gifts, and he made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon and chief prefect over all the wise men of Babylon. (Dan. 2)
Later, Belshazzar, who replaced Nebuchadnezzar, appealed to Daniel, as the leader of the astronomy/astrological department, to interpret the meaning of the divine handwriting that appeared on a wall during what proved to be his last regal drink-fest (Dan. 5:11).
Daniel’s prophetic ministry lasted from 605 B.C. to around 536 B.C., or just a few years after Cyrus, King of Persia, released the Jews from captivity in 538 B.C. During this time, he gave mankind the most precise prophesies concerning the rise and fall of the final earthly empires before the coming of the Messiah and His kingdom.
- The rise and fall of Babylonian rule: 605-539 B.C.
- The rise and fall of Persian rule: 539-331 B.C.
- The rise and fall of Hellenistic rule: 331-143 B.C.
- The rise and fall of Hasmonean rule: 143-63 B.C.
- The rise and fall of Roman rule: 63 B.C.-476 A.D.
- The rise and fall of the Anti-Christ’s rule: still future
No man could have known this level of geopolitical data if God, who is outside our version of time and space, had not told him, which He did. If you are looking for hard information to substantiate that the Bible is God’s Word, you need look no further. Daniel, as the leader of the astronomy/astrological school, not only prophesied the rise and fall of the final earthly empires (Dan. 2:42ff; 7:23-27) but also waxed eloquent about the timing of the divine Messiah’s arrival and death.[3] Any Jew, therefore, who studied Daniel’s time calculations would have naturally been looking for Christ’s birth around the time it actually occurred. And anyone, or should I say, any Gentile who sat under Daniel’s tutelage in Babylon from 605-536 B.C. would have known all of this biblical prophetic data, along with other prophetic indications of the coming of the Messiah. What I think this tells us is that the Magi represented believing Gentiles who studied the Torah and the Prophets concerning the Messiah’s arrival. For some five hundred years, therefore, the faith that Daniel gave these learned men burned within them, until they finally witnessed an astronomical anomaly at the right time in history, which indicated the Messiah had arrived as prophesied.
So, these Magi loaded up their gear, probably mounted their camels, acquired a small entourage, and started making their way along a circuitous 900-mile, four-month journey from the Babylon region to Jerusalem to see and worship at the feet of the coming One, the Messiah. Oh, for more people who follow the evidence God has provided concerning the person and work of Jesus, the Christ. Will you follow the evidence God has made available to you in special revelation, viz., the Bible, to not only obtain faith in God’s existence, but to evidence faith in the long-awaited redeemer, Jesus?
Arriving in Jerusalem, things did not go as expected for these Magi.
The Menace (Matt. 2:3-8)
Not everyone was excited about the birth of Jesus, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
3 And when Herod the king heard it, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. (Matt. 2)
King Herod, who was an Idumean, not a Jew, ruled over Israel with an iron fist from 37 B.C. to 4 B.C. Throughout his totalitarian, despotic reign, paranoia of losing his power by means of assassination gripped him and essentially drove him to brutal behavior.
For instance, early in his reign, he consolidated his power by murdering 45 of the most prominent, wealthy citizens of Jerusalem, while also seizing their property. He killed John Hyrcanus II, the last remaining Hasmonean claimant to the throne, but married the Hasmonean Mariamne to retain ties to the old royal family. Later, his suspicions of the Hasmoneans became so captivating that he murdered her (29 B.C.). In 7 B.C, or about two years before Christ’s birth, he killed their two sons, Alexander and Aristobulus, simply because he feared they would attempt to take the throne from him. So, to say that Herod was troubled by the arrival of the Magi looking for a new and final King of the Jews is a gross understatement. Herod immediately saw Jesus as a threat to his power, and history demonstrated how the ruthless ruler threatened claimants to the throne of Israel. In this fashion, Herod represented everything the king of Israel was to be: cruel, brutal, illogical, paranoid, and power hungry. Jesus, on the other hand, represented everything God the Father has said the true King of Kings would be: Loving, kind, fair, just, righteous, a lover of law, and holy. All the things that Herod despised resided in the true Messiah; hence, Herod became alarmed at this new prophetic news.
As a sidenote, we must ask, why was the city troubled? Let me put the answer to you like this. If you had a leader who possessed military and judicial power, and he historically acted in an unhinged, unpredictable, and bloodthirsty fashion, then anything that bothered him would logically bother you. Why? You could be swept up in his next illogical, angry purge to secure his power base as the king.
It is interesting that Herod, the politician, wasted no time trying to get to the bottom of this prophetic word about a King of the Jews by assembling the finest theological minds of Israel:
4 And gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he began to inquire of them where the Christ was to be born. 5 And they said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it has been written by the prophet, 6 ‘And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the leaders of Judah; For out of you shall come forth a Ruler, who will shepherd My people Israel.'” (Matt. 2)
The chief priests included, of course, the High Priest. These materialistic, power-loving men were primarily Sadducees. They willingly collaborated with the Romans and essentially ran the Sanhedrin, or the High Court. They were anti-supernaturalists, and they denied the following: that history was divinely ordered, that angels and demons exist, that the body will be resurrected (Mark 12:18-27), that the coming of the final divine judgment with rewards and punishments, that the oral tradition of the Pharisees, and that the expectation of the Messiah.
The scribes, who were primarily Pharisees, were the authorities of Jewish law, Scripture, and traditions. Essentially, they were the religious lawyers of the day, who wielded their power over the masses with ruthless and methodical abandon. They believed in the supernatural, the sovereignty of God, the presence of angels and demons, the coming of a final judgment, the supreme authority of the Scripture and oral law, and the messianic hope.
When asked by Herod to supply information about the prophesied coming of the Messiah, the King of Kings, these men wasted no time quoting Micah 5:2, which contains one of the most precise prophesies about the Messiah. Their loose quote conveniently omitted the fact that the Messiah/King would be the eternal one, or God:
2 But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity.” (Mic. 5:2 NAS)
The late Jewish/Christian Old Testament scholar, Charles Feinberg, offers an insightful understanding of this final clause in Hebrew: “The phrases of the text are the strongest possible statement of infinite duration in the Hebrew language (Ps 90:2; Pr. 8:22-23). The preexistence of the Messiah is being taught here, as well as His active participation in ancient times in the purposes of God.”[4] The Sadducees knew this text but denied its teaching. The Pharisees knew this text but would eventually deny the Lord who fulfilled the text because He dared to correct their twisted theology, binding legalism, and love of tradition over the love of God’s actual Word. Sad. These religious men schooled in the prophetic Word rejected it in their personal lives . . . like so many today. Tragically, a person can know all about God, they can have proofs about His Son’s prophesied arrival, and still choose to be skeptical, antagonistic, and apathetic.
Armed with this information, Herod called for a private meeting with the Magi. His goal? Find out when the star they followed first appeared, and then determine if the child had, in fact, been born in Bethlehem:
7 Then Herod secretly called the magi, and ascertained from them the time the star appeared. 8 And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, “Go and make careful search for the Child; and when you have found Him, report to me, that I too may come and worship Him.” (Matt. 2)
Right. Herod wanted to worship Jesus. I don’t think so. He wanted all worship. His statement to the Magi was just Herod in action, using deceit and diversion to get what his evil heart wanted. And what was that? Total possession of power as the king. He had no idea in his secular, tainted mind that nothing he did could stop what God the Father was going to do in and through His Son, the final Davidic King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Leaving Herod’s presence, the Magi picked up their messenger again.
The Messenger (Matt. 2:9-10)
And who was the messenger? That’s the wrong question. The better question is, what was their messenger? Here is Matthew’s answer:
9 And having heard the king, they went their way; and lo, the star, which they had seen in the east, went on before them, until it came and stood over where the Child was. 10 And when they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. (Matt. 2)
This star was no alignment of various planets, for planets in alignment do not go before you, and they don’t last for months. This star was no comet, for comets don’t behave like this either. This star didn’t act like any star they had ever studied. It would appear in the sky to lead and guide them, then disappear, only to reappear again to provide further guidance on their journey to find the Messiah. When they left Herod’s presence (palace?), the Magi became excited when the star showed up again. They followed it six miles, somewhat downhill from Jerusalem (2,600 feet) to Bethlehem (2,543 feet) in the west. They stopped when the brilliant star stopped directly over the home of Joseph and Mary. Amazing.
What was this star? It wasn’t a star. It could have been a trans-dimensional angel, for they do appear as stars in the Old Testament (Job 38:7; Isa. 14:12; Jud. 5:20). There is, however, no indication in the text that this star had any angelic characteristics other than brilliant light, so I don’t think it was an angel.
I think it represented a tear in the fabric of our dimensionality whereby the Shekinah glory of God burst through in that “pinhole.” At the baptism of Jesus, the heavenly dimension opened, and the Spirit of God emerged and landed on Jesus in the form of a dove (Matt. 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:21). Jesus taught that at the end of time, His glorious dimension would break into ours at His arrival to establish His kingdom:
29 “But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken, 30 and then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. (Matt. 24)
When something momentous occurs, God’s light appears in a spectacular, jaw-dropping fashion.
Additionally, when Saul encountered the risen Lord on the road to Damascus, he encountered a bright light that drove him to his knees:
3 And it came about that as he journeyed, he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him; 4 and he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” (Acts 9)
Obviously, God’s light-filled dimension broke into our dimension at this specific point. Interestingly, the men traveling with Saul didn’t see the light, but they heard the heavenly voice above their heads (Acts 9:7). This is similar to what we see in the encounter between the Magi and Herod. He obviously hadn’t seen this astral anomaly, nor had the Scribes and Pharisees. Hence, I think that the Magi followed a “star” that merely represented the light of glory that penetrated our dimension to guide them to the home of Jesus, the Lord of glory (Matt. 17:2; 1 Cor. 2:8). Put differently, they obediently followed the evidence that God the Father supplied so they could come and worship before the feet of the One they had waited so long to see. This, of course, leads to a personal question for you: Will you follow the evidence God has provided in the Holy Scriptures that points to Jesus as the Savior and the ultimate King of Kings?
The Magi did. They followed the strange light that moved constantly across the sky above them. They followed it as they walked down the dusty streets of Bethlehem, and then suddenly it stopped and hovered over one modest home. Imagine their joy and excitement as they knocked on this wooden door. “Who is it?” Mary could have said. “Oh, ma’am, it is a few Magi who’ve traveled for four months and over 900 miles to meet your son, the Messiah. Can we see Him?” Once that door opened, Mary must have been slack-jawed as she looked at the well-dressed men, their camels, and well-stocked and armed entourage of smiling men. In a few seconds, these men had a Holy Moment:
The Moment (Matt. 2:11)
11 And they came into the house and saw the Child with Mary His mother; and they fell and worshiped Him; and opening their treasures they presented to Him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh.
I don’t know where Joseph was at this point, but at least Mary was present . . . and fearless. Coming in, the men fell down and worshipped the baby because he was, as they had studied, the God-man. One by one, they humbly and with great honor laid costly gifts at his feet:
- Gold to represent His royalty as the final Davidic King of all Kings.
- Frankincense to represent His role as the final High Priest. This incense was part of the worship in the Temple of God in Jerusalem per the decree of Moses (Ex. 30:34-38).
- Myrrh, which was used in burial cloths in Israel, to represent His future sacrificial death for the sins of mankind. Concerning this, John writes about the preparation of the Lord’s body for burial: “And Nicodemus came also, who had first come to Him by night; bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds in weight. And so they took the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen wrappings with spices, as was the burial custom of the Jews” (John 19:39-40).
Interesting. These devout Gentilic believers worshipped at the feet of THE King and THE High Priest who would become THE Sacrifice for not just their sins, but for the sins of the world. What a moving Holy Moment this must have been as they beheld this particular baby. I’m sure you could have heard a pin drop as they placed their gifts rightfully before the one who’d give them, and all of us, the potential of embracing the gift of salvation that He’d purchase by His shed blood. What a moment.
From all of this, we learn this simple, special, and timeless truth:
God woos you so you will have an opportunity to worship the Savior.
Is God wooing you? Is this service a holy moment where you know that He is calling you to come to Him in saving faith? If so, then bow a knee before Him today and ask Him to save you as He saved these men of old.
And if you are a Christ-follower, I pray that God will give you a holy moment like this this Christmas, which will move you to offer special gifts to your Lord and Savior, Jesus.
[1] Harold Hoehner, Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1975), 13
[2] Dr. Budge, Babylonians Life and History, 36, 109-110.
[3] For a detailed discussion about the precision of Daniel’s prophecy in Daniel 9:24-27, I would direct you to Charles Feinberg’s excellent commentary: Daniel: The Kingdom of the Lord, 126-135.
[4] Charles Feinberg, The Minor Prophets (Chicago: Moody Press, 1982), 173.
