The Magi’s Prescient Gifts (Full Version)
Chuck Sligh
December 20, 2020
A PowerPoint presentation for this message is available by emailing me at chucksligh@hotmail.com.
TEXT: Matthew 2:1-12 – “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, 2 Saying, 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. 3 When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born. 5 And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet, 6 And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel. 7 Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, enquired of them diligently what time the star appeared. 8 And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also.
9 When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. 10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. 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. 12 And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way.”
INTRODUCTION\
It’s traditional to give gifts at Christmas.
Illus. – One of my favorite types of Christmas gifts are white elephant gifts at Christmas parties. – Here are some great white elephant gifts you might be interested in:
• If you have someone in your life with a full beard and you also like ornaments, Lights Up Beard Ornaments might be a great gift option for him.
• Single guys listen up: If you want to save money on a wedding ring, here’s a great way to do it …with Matching Valentine Candy Rings.
• If you’re a guy from the South, raise your hands. – Well, I have the perfect gift for you: The Red Neck Back Scratcher.
• Well those are funny. – Here’s a serious one: a tree ornament we all want on our trees to commemorate Christmas in 2020: The We Survived 2020 Tree Ornament.
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, or Three Kings as they’re sometimes called? We actually know very little about them. Most of our notions about them are based on traditions, and not very reliable ones at that.
• We know from the Bible that they were men. JOKE – Someone said how different it would have been if it were “three wise WOMEN” instead of the “three wise men”: They would have asked for directions; 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.
• 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 think we know about the Magi is actually pure speculation. – For instance…
• Did they travel by camel which every Christmas card or picture you’ve ever seen shows them traveling by? Really, we have no idea whatsoever. It was common for people to travel such distances by camel, so this one is probably a pretty good assumption, but the Bible never mentions whether they travelled by camel, on foot, by donkey or in a flying saucer.
• We also really don’t really know how many of them there were. The idea that there were 3 is based solely on the fact of the number of gifts given. Actually, the earliest tradition is inconsistent as to the number of the Magi. The Eastern tradition favored 12. In the West, several of the early Church Fathers accepted 3 Magi. Various early Christian paintings in Rome depict 2, 3 or 4 Magi.
• 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 almost certainly a myth. – The earliest mention of their names comes from the eighth century.
What is not myth is what Matthew records in chapter 2 of his gospel—namely…
• that wise men from the east saw a star, and based on certain information we do not know about, realized it portended the birth of the promised Messiah of the Jews;
• that they consulted Herod, who in turn consulted the religious leaders as to where the Messiah would be born, which was in Bethlehem;
• that they went to Bethlehem and found Joseph, Mary and Jesus in a HOUSE, not a stable;
• that they gave Jesus gifts of 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.
One question that came to my mind this week in preparation of this sermon was what did Joseph and Mary do with these expensive gifts? We know that they must have been worth a considerable sum and must have overwhelmed Joseph and Mary. But we also know that years later, when they brought Jesus to be dedicated at the temple, they could only afford two doves for their sacrifice—the amount allowed for the poor. What did they do with all that wealth? – Did they just squander it because they had not gone through Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University, or might there be another explanation?
My investigation into the question leads me to believe the following to be the most obvious reason: that when God appeared to Joseph in a dream to flee to Egypt, they used their wealth to finance their time there. We don’t really know for sure because the Bible doesn’t even offer a clue, but this is as reasonable an explanation as any.
For the rest of this sermon I want to focus on the meaning behind the gifts. 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 key 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 (though, as I said, they weren’t kings at all), composed by an Episcopal minister named Henry Hopkins in the 1800s to help his nieces and nephews understand the true meaning of the Christmas story. The first verse and chorus set the theme and tone of the song and the remaining three verses explain the meaning of the gifts.
I. FIRST, THEY GAVE GOLD TO HONOR JESUS 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 who is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him.” (Matthew 2:2)
Gold as a fitting gift for a king is obvious. It’s been the primary store of value for thousands of years. Gold is rare and difficult to accumulate; it’s easy to work into shapes or very thin sheets; and it doesn’t rust or corrode.
All of these made it a significant store of value and we see it used for this purpose all throughout the Old Testament books of the Bible. For instance, you see it in the description given for building the temple and the Ark of the Covenant in Exodus 25, which were covered with gold. And Solomon’s vast wealth is described in the amount of gold he accumulated. The amount of taxes Solomon collected EACH YEAR in gold in today’s currency is about $1.4 billion dollars! This is real, tangible wealth.
It’s no wonder that gold was the Old Testament symbol of kings. So when the Magi brought gold to honor Jesus, they were proclaiming him king.
Remember that the target audience of the Gospel of Matthew was the 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 may have been 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 during His three years of ministry; and though He was brutally beaten, cruelly treated and crucified on a cross— Matthew juxtaposes this incredible thought: that this humble servant was indeed the long-promised King.
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 used to say, where John tells us this about Jesus: “And he has on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.”
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 made to the Jews in the scriptures as He rules this earth as its sovereign King!
II. SECOND, 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. The high priest of Israel burned the incense in the temple on the Day of Atonement. The smoke of the incense was intended to fill the Holy of Holies and hide God who dwelt on the mercy seat between the cherubim so that the high priest might be there in the presence of God without dying, for to see God was to die. But God the Father brought God the Son down to earth to become fully man without ceasing to be fully God.
We know that these wise men recognized Jesus’ divinity because we’re told in verse 2 that they had come from the east to worship Him, and when they found Jesus in Bethlehem, verse 11 says 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 was God. Yet that the promised Messiah would be God in human flesh is found several places 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,” as we saw last week, 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.
Christ’s deity is an essential truth to the Christian faith! It’s what the virgin birth was all about and why it was necessary. 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 not fully God while also being fully human, He would not have able to live a sinless life on earth as a man, and thus He would not be qualified to be 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?
The reason was that myrrh was an aromatic gum used for embalming the dead! Imagine receiving such a gift at your baby shower! Truly, what could be more antithetical to the previous gifts of gold and frankincense?
The gift of myrrh was strangely prophetic. It 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. Last Sunday we looked at the many scriptures where this purpose is accentuated in both the Old and the New testaments. Today we need go only to two places in the Christmas stories themselves where Jesus’ role as Savior is stressed:
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, who is Christ the Lord.”
A baby gift for a dying Savior is what the myrrh was meant to convey.
CONCLUSION
There are a couple of things that stand out boldly in the story of the Magi for me:
First is the contrast between the Magi and the leaders in Jerusalem.
When the Magi came to Herod, they asked in verse 2, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews?” Frightened of a potential competitor to the throne, Matthew tells us Herod was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him (verse 3). Isn’t that an odd statement? Wouldn’t you think the Jewish people would be overjoyed of news of a new king, especially since Herod was such a corrupt and vicious tyrant, and the child the Magi were searching for was the their long-awaited Messiah.
In hindsight, we wonder how they could be so stupid. But honestly, I doubt we would’ve been any wiser than they the people of that day. We’re sinful and short-sighted and fearful of change. We’re tempted to be willing to settle for less rather something better if it upsets our world as it is or portends uncertainty.
If the people in Jerusalem only knew what they had!
Illus. – 24-year-old Danny Simpson was sentenced to 6 years in jail for robbing $6,000 from a bank. But the gun he used in the robbery ended up in a museum. The 45 caliber Colt semi-automatic turned out to be an antique made in 1918 by the Ross Rifle Company. His pistol was worth up to $100,000 on the collector’s market. If Danny Simpson had known what he had in his hands, he would not have ended up in jail.
Many Christians live like this. They spend their lives searching for God’s power and presence, not realizing it’s already in their hands. Sometimes we feel we need a seminar or a revival service or something that will jolt us from our sinfulness and lethargy.
God can use those things, but we cannot live our lives from one spiritual high to another! We need to learn to access God’s ever abiding presence and power to handle the high tides and the low tides in the sea of our lives. God is right there with you everywhere you go, in everything you do, in every thought and action and reaction because…God is WITH us.
All we need to do is harness the presence and power of Christ in every moment. We can do this by a time in God’s Word every day and by a vibrant prayer life,…not just those planned seasons of prayer, but praying and seeking God’s wisdom and strength and power all during the day, every day. It’s listening to the Holy Spirit in every situation and responding as He would have you respond. This is what is meant by “walking in the Spirit”—the act of walking through life with an awareness of God’s presence and power and acting according to God’s leading in all the big and little things in life.
The second thing that stands out to me is this: these wise men gave precious and prophetic 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 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes 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.” – God gave His Son to die for our sins so we could have the free gift of salvation.
What an awful tragedy it would be for Jesus to die 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 go to 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 great salvation offered to you as a free gift because of Jesus’s sacrifice.
Come to the cross and be saved!
