The Magi’s Prescient Gifts
Chuck Sligh
December 11, 2011
A PowerPoint presentation for this message is available by emailing me at chucksligh@hotmail.com.
TEXT: Matthew 2:11 – “And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.”
INTRODUCTION
This morning we gave gifts of appreciation to all those who have ministered in our church in some capacity over the last year at Grace Baptist Church.
It’s traditional to give gifts at Christmas.
Illus. – Friday night we had our combined homegroups Christmas party and we had a white elephant gifts exchange. – I got the BEST gift of the whole group. (SHOW OSTRICH GIFT; PUSH THE BUTTON AND IMITATE ITS NECK MOTIONS.) (NOTE: This got a lot of laughs)
Gift-giving at Christmas is thought to have started from the Magi’s gifts for Jesus at His birth. Who were these Magi, or Wise Men from the East, or Three Kings as they’re sometimes called? We actually know very little about them. Most of our notions about them are based on tradition, and not very reliable ones at that. We know from the Bible that they were men.
JOKE – I’m sure you’ve heard the joke about how different the visit to the Holy Family would’ve been had they been the “three wise WOMEN” instead of the “three wise men”: They would have asked for directions; arrived on time (hmm, not so sure about that one); helped deliver the baby; cleaned the stable; made a casserole; and brought practical gifts. When I told Susan this joke, she added that they would have remembered the baby’s name, his length and how much he weighed.
Don’t get too smug ladies.
JOKE – The other side of the coin is what they would have said when they left:
• “Did you see the sandals Mary was wearing with that gown?”
• “That baby doesn’t look anything like Joseph!”
• “Can you believe that they let those disgusting animals in the house?”
• “Want to bet on how long it’ll take until you get your casserole dish back?”
A popular idea is that they were astrologers, but actually that’s a myth too.
JOKE – One Alabama preacher had his own view of their occupation. – He believed they were firemen because the Bible says they came from “afar.”
Actually, it’s now generally believed that the Magi were a priestly caste from Persia.
Most everything else we know about the Magi is pure speculation. – For instance…
• We don’t really know how many of them there were. – The idea that there were three is based solely on the fact of the number of gifts given.
• The idea that they were kings comes from the early church father Tertullian because the Old Testament had prophesied that kings would worship the Messiah, mixing up His first and second comings.
• The idea that their names were Melchior, Baltazar and Gasper is pure myth.
What is not myth is what Matthew tells us in chapter 2 of his gospel—that wise men from the east saw a star, and based on certain information we do not know about, realized that it portended the birth of the promised Messiah; that they consulted Herod, who consulted the religious leaders as to where the Messiah would be born, which was Bethlehem; that they went to Bethlehem and found Joseph, Mary and Jesus in a HOUSE, not a stable, so it must have been some time after Jesus’s birth, that they gave Jesus gifts gold, frankincense and myrrh and worshipped Him, and that after being warned in a dream they returned to their own country another way instead of reporting to Herod as he had instructed them.
It’s the gifts that they gave that I want to focus on for the rest of this sermon.
Why did Matthew include this story?
• Remember that everything in the Bible is there for a purpose. One purpose is that this story magnifies the importance of this humble birth.
• But I think the best explanation for why Matthew recorded it is to understand the meaning behind the gifts. The gifts they gave at the most famous baby shower in history tell us wonderful truths about who this little baby was and what He was destined to do.
The meaning behind the gifts is wonderfully and accurately captured in the well-known Christmas carol, We Three Kings, composed by an Episcopal minister named Henry Hopkins in the 1800s to help his nieces and nephews understand the true significance of the Christmas story. [Ace Collins, Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001), 178-179.] The first verse and chorus set the theme and tone of the song and the remaining verses explain the meaning of the gifts.
Let’s examine the meaning behind these gifts:
I. THEY GAVE GOLD TO HONOR HIM AS KING.
The second verse of We Three Kings goes “Born a King on Bethlehem's plain / Gold I bring to crown Him again / King forever, ceasing never / Over us all to reign.”
We know they recognized Jesus as the king of the Jews because when they came to Herod, they asked, “Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.” (Matthew 2:2)
Remember that the target audience of the Gospel of Matthew was Jews. Many times in the Old Testament, the promised Messiah is portrayed as a King who will rule the Jews and the world with His headquarters in Jerusalem. Though Jesus was born in a humble stable or cave of some sort; though He grew up, not in a palace, but in a poor carpenter’s home; though throughout His life He was poor and without even a place to lay his Head; and though He was brutally beaten, cruelly treated and crucified on a cross—Matthew juxtaposes this thought: that this humble servant was indeed the long-promised King.
Remember that later when He was crucified, Jesus did not stay on that cross. He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven and is now at the right hand of the Father. And Revelation 19:16 tells us “the rest of the story,” as Paul Harvey would say, where we read this about Jesus, “And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.” And Revelation 17:14 says, “These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings…” Someday Jesus will fulfill every prophecy He made to the Jews as He rules this earth as the sovereign ruler of the world!
II. THE WISE MEN GAVE FRANKENCENSE TO HONOR JESUS AS GOD.
The next verse of We Three Kings says “Frankincense to offer have I / Incense owns a Deity nigh / Prayer and praising, all men raising / Worship Him, God most high.”
Frankincense was an aromatic incense used in the worship of God in the Temple. We know that these wise men recognized Jesus’s divinity because we’re told in our text that when they found Jesus, they “fell down, and worshipped him.” This is all the more remarkable when you realize that the vast majority of Jews never did and still do not, acknowledge that Jesus is divine.
Yet that the promised Messiah would be divine is found throughout the Old Testament: Isaiah prophesied about the Messiah this way in Isaiah 9:6 – “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” Earlier in his prophecy, Isaiah said this about the coming Messiah in Isaiah 7:14: “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” The title “Immanuel” means “God with us.” Jesus was “God with us” in human flesh. There are many other Old Testament scriptures that allude to the deity of Jesus.
The deity of Jesus Christ is an essential truth to the Christian faith! It’s what the virgin birth was all about. It’s the major theme of the gospels as well as much of the rest of the New Testament. You cannot even be saved if you deny the deity of Jesus Christ.
Why is it so important?—Because if Jesus were fully God while also being fully human, He would not have able to live a sinless life while on earth, and thus He would not be qualified to serve as our substitute on the cross when He died in our place for our sins. Which leads us to our final gift.
III. THE WISE MEN GAVE MYRRH TO HONOR JESUS AS SAVIOR.
The fourth verse says, “Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume / Breathes of life of gathering gloom / Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying / Sealed in the stone-cold tomb.”
Why all the gloomy language for a baby gift—references to sorrow, bleeding, dying, a stone-cold tomb?—Because myrrh was an aromatic gum used for embalming the dead. The gift of myrrh foreshadowed the purpose for which God the Son came to this earth. The infant child the shepherds saw in the stable was born to die. The baby Jesus the wise men came to see was born to go to the cross as the Lamb of God who would take all our sin upon Himself so that we might have eternal life.
This theme is repeated over and over again in the Christmas story. The angel of the Lord told Joseph concerning Mary in Matthew 1:21 – “And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.” The angels declared to the shepherds in Luke 2:11 – “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.”
I could give many verses declaring this purpose, but Paul says it best when he declared, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.” (1 Timothy 1:15)
CONCLUSION
Matthew 2:1 describes these Magi as “wise men.” No wonder! They knew the baby Jesus was the long awaited Messiah. They recognized that this baby Jesus was GOD IN THE FLESH. And they recognized that HE CAME TO DIE for the sins of the whole world.
These wise men gave precious and prescient gifts to Jesus, but they were nothing compared to the gifts God offers to us. God gave us His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins.
• John 3:16 says that “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
• In 2 Corinthians 9:15, Paul says, “Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable [inexpressible] gift” (speaking of Jesus).
• And all through the New Testament, eternal life is offered as a free gift, as in Romans 6:23 – “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The wages, or the just penalty, for our sin is death—physical death on earth and eternal death in hell. But God gave His Son to die for our sins so we could have the free gift of salvation.
What a horrible tragedy it would be for Jesus to die on the cross for your sins and to offer you eternal life and forgiveness of sins and then for you to spurn that free gift and turn away from it—and spend eternity in hell for refusing God’s wonderful gift. No wonder the writer of Hebrews warns in Hebrews 2:3 – “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation.…”
The great nineteenth century Baptist preacher, Charles Spurgeon, said, “If you haven’t looked at Christ on the cross, you’ll have to look at Him on the throne—with great trembling. The sacrificial death of Christ will be brought before the eyes of all who refuse to accept His free gift of forgiveness and eternal life. In Bethlehem He came in mercy to forgive sin. In the future He will come on the clouds in glory to establish justice. What will we do without a Savior? On the day of judgment there is nothing we can do if we have not trusted Christ.”
Don’t neglect such a great salvation offered to you as a free gift because of Jesus’s sacrifice. Come to the cross and receive Jesus Christ as your Savior.
