"Jesus the King: Advent 3, 2001"
Matthew 2:1-12
December 16th, 2001
Robert Warren
Matthew 2:1-12 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him." When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked the where the Christ was to be born. "In Bethlehem in Judea," they replied, "for this is what the prophet has written: "‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.’"
Then Herod called the magi secretly and found out from the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him." After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.
Jesus is many things to many people. We have been exploring some of the many things that Jesus is to us as we have journeyed through the Advent Season this year. To the believer, Jesus is the Prophet of God, who came to tell us the words of God. He is our Great High Priest, who has come to bridge the gap between God and Man by offering the ultimate sacrifice for our sins. Today we will look at another title for the babe who was born in Bethlehem: Jesus is our king.
This is a difficult title for us to understand. Even though the prophets made it clear that the Messiah was coming to be a king, his arrival in the form of Jesus Christ was completely unexpected. If you were looking for a king, you would not be looking for someone like Jesus. Who ever heard of a king being born to a peasant woman? Who would have guessed that the coming King would be born in a stable like an animal? Who could have imagined that the king would be a carpenter? This was not the kind of king that the world was used to. Kings are born of noble birth. They are born on silk sheets in fine palaces. They spend their childhood being trained by philosophers and warriors in the fine arts of governing and conquering.
Kings lead mighty armies: Jesus led a ragtag bunch of fishermen.
Kings ride on noble steeds: Jesus walked the dusty roads of Judea.
Kings are followed by lords and ladies: Jesus was followed by sinners, tax collectors, prostitutes, and the sick.
Kings live in ornate castles: Jesus had no home to lay his head.
Kings wear fancy robes and jewels: Jesus had only one outfit, which was taken from him before he was killed.
Jesus does not strike you as the kind of king that the world expects. In fact, many of the scholars of Jesus’ time thought that there must be two Messiahs who were coming. The prophets made it clear that the Messiah would be a king, but they also made it clear that the Messiah would be humble and would suffer greatly. How can a king suffer in humility?
Did you ever wonder about the reaction of those Magi from the east? They saw the star of Jesus and knew that a King from heaven had come to the earth. They saw that it was rising above Israel, so they knew that the king of the Jews had been born. So, naturally they went to Jerusalem, the capital, heading for the palace of King Herod. They must have been surprised to find out that there had not been any new births in the castle; the king had not been born to King Herod. They must have been surprised as they asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him." They knew that he had been born because the start led them there, but nobody seemed to know who or where the new king was.
In fact, Herod was disturbed, and why shouldn’t he be? After all, he was the reigning king, and if a new king had been born outside of his family, it meant that he was going to be deposed. Matthew says that all Jerusalem was disturbed as well. If there was a new king born while the current king was still on the throne, it meant that there was going to be trouble. Our democratic country changes administrations quite easily (usually). A new president or congress is elected and power is transferred peacefully. But when you have a despotic king like Herod on the throne change only comes through armies and bloodshed. A new king meant that there was going to be a battle. So, Herod called together all of his scholars and asked them were the new king was supposed to be born, since the Magi had determined for him the time of his birth. They put their heads together, dug out the prophecies, and determined that the king was to be born in Bethlehem, a sleepy little town about six miles outside of Jerusalem. So, Herod sent the Magi off to find the king and instructed them to come back and let him know where the king was exactly, "So he could go and worship him as well." Of course, he planned to worship the newborn king with a sword...
Overjoyed to know exactly what town the king was supposed to have been born in, the Magi headed off for Bethlehem. Now, just try to imagine their faces when they came to the house where Jesus lay, went in, and instead of finding a royal household or a conquering army they found a peasant household. They must have been dumbfounded! The king was this young child? The King of the Jews was going to be descended from a poor, teenaged woman and her carpenter husband? I’m sure they checked their charts and the prophecies over and over and scratched their heads in wonder that this was the king they were searching for! But, when everything was said and done, they realized that no matter how incredible it might be, this was the king that they were looking for, so they did what came natural to those in the presence of a king: they fell down and worshiped him, showering him with costly gifts. I would love to have seen their faces when they found out that this child was a king, but I also would have loved to see the reverence in their faces as they worshiped the child.
The world is faced with a similar dilemma today: will we worship Jesus as king? Like the people of Jesus’ time, there are a lot of reactions to the idea of Jesus being a king. Some people find it hard to believe that Jesus is a king at all. After all, he ruled no nation during his lifetime, he led no armies, he conquered no foreign land. He lived the life of a common man and died the death of a criminal. He commands no one by force to follow him, content to let the world choose to serve him or not. These people hear that Jesus is the king and they scoff at the idea of someone so meek and mild ruling over the world.
Some in the world today act like Herod did, threatened by the idea of Jesus being a king. Those who have earthly power don’t like the thought that a new king has come, seeking allegiance for the people of the earth. Those who rule the world through wealth, power, or manipulation are threatened at the idea of King Jesus, because Jesus promises to turn the world upside down, tearing down the forces that rule this world now. The kingdom that Jesus rules over is alien to the powers of this world. When Jesus stood before Pilate, the representative of the kingdom of Rome, Pilate asked him point blank, "Are you the king of the Jews?" Jesus answered him, saying, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place." The kings of the world do not respect Jesus’ kingdom of love, peace and grace. These people reject Jesus as a king because his kingdom is not of this world.
But there are some who come to Jesus like the Magi did. These are the wise men who are searching for a savior and find it in the one the prophets foretold: Jesus Christ. What is it like to be searching for the King of the Jews? There are three things that I want to draw out from the scripture.
First, we have to seek for Jesus. The only reason the Magi found Jesus was because they were searching for him. They had studied the skies and knew that the star which appeared was foretelling the coming of the King of the Jews. Perhaps they were from Persia, which was formerly known as Babylon, where the Jews had been held in captivity. If that were the case then they probably had copies of the Old Testament which told them that a Messiah was coming. In any case, these foreigners knew that the King of the Jews was coming before the Wise Men of Israel did. When they saw the star announcing his arrival they rejoiced. Leaving their home, they sought out the newborn king so that they could worship him. Regardless of what the king looked like or was to be, they came bearing gifts.
Finding a new king is not an easy thing, especially when it means you must go into lands that are foreign to you. The Magi did not know what they would find when they came upon Jesus, but they were willing to seek him out. In a similar way, if we seek Christ the King this Advent season we will have to be willing to search for him. That means that we will have to examine God’s Word for the truth found within. We will have to spend time in prayer, not just reciting a wish list but having intimate conversation with him. We will have to go to him in worship, for we only find the King Jesus when we are praising his name. In fact, the entire Christian walk can be described as a lifelong search to find our king. Wise men still seek Jesus, and the Advent season is a great time to renew our search for Jesus. During this time of the year we sing songs about him, see plays retelling his birth, hear the scripture about his birth, and see pictures of the manger where he was born. Let this be a time when we renew our search for Jesus to be the king of our lives.
Second, we have to be willing to lay gifts before the king that we find. These Wise Men were from a foreign land and served another king. Their citizenship was in another country and their loyalty was to another code of laws. Yet, they forsook all of that to come find this new king. They knew that the king who had been born was special, better than all the earthly kings who came before him. And so when they found him, they gave him precious gifts, representing their loyalty and worship. The Magi counted the cost and realized that if there was a new king, he was to be worshiped. And so they came with precious gifts to represent their worship: incense, gold and myrrh, valuable and rare gifts. No matter that this was a foreign king. No matter that they owed him nothing. No matter that the king was a child. As a king fit to be worshiped, they came to worship sacrificially.
It’s no different for us when we meet Christ. When we see him, we have to be willing to worship him. Before we find Christ, we worship a different king. We worship our sin, our selfish desires, our misguided priorities. Before we find Christ, we belong to a different king. We are subjects of the king of this world, who rules us with sin and evil. But when we find Christ, I mean truly find him as the king of our life that he is meant to be, then we must worship him with precious gifts.
We may not have gold and incense and myrrh. But we can give him our devotion, our worship, our lives. If you claim that Christ is your king, then you are called to worship him. That means that he gets the first fruits of our time, our wealth, and our devotion. We can place none above him. He is not truly our king if there is any who gets more of us than we do. But, he will not force us to bow to him, not now anyway. He wants only those who come to him willingly, desiring to lay their lives before him in true devotion. The Advent season gives us many opportunities to worship the king. Through all of our worship services and family traditions we have the chance to bring our gifts of love to Jesus; our gifts of worship and devotion.
Finally, we must make Jesus our only king if he is to be king at all. Jesus made it perfectly clear; you can not serve two masters. If you claim to have a king he must be your only king. The magi had to make a decision: would they obey the new king that they had found or the king of the world. After they had found Jesus and had worshiped him they were warned in a dream to go home by another route because King Herod planned to kill Jesus. King Herod was the ruler of the land, but they had found a new king. So, they obeyed the king Jesus and went home by another way, making it possible for Jesus to escape with his family to Egypt. Their commitment to this new king was real and complete, even if it meant disobeying the king of the world.
We are called to no less, though there are many kings who clamor for our obedience. The Christian today is called to follow many kings of this world. The king of pleasure, the king of greed, the king of pride, the king of complacency, the king of indifference, and the king of pluralism. Our world says that it is foolish to claim only one savior, when their are so many to choose from. I was absolutely shocked when as I read this weeks Newsweek. None other than Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary General, said this: "The idea that there is one people in possession of the truth, one answer to the world’s ills or one solution to humanity’s needs has done untold harm throughout history." Allow me to repeat that, because the implications are chilling. The head of the United Nations is saying that there is not one truth, that there is not one answer to the world’s ills, that there is not one solution to humanity’s needs. I beg to differ with such a respected man. There is one truth, there is one answer, there is one solution. There is one king. There is only one king. The problems with the world are not caused by too few kings to worship, but by the fact that the world does not worship the one true king. If we all were to bow to Jesus and live according to his law of peace, grace, forgiveness, and mercy the world would be a much better place. The chaos of this world is caused by so many people bowing to so many gods: the false gods of violence, greed, pride, jealousy, hatred, and relativity.
If you are going to call Jesus your king, you must renounce the claims that all other kings have on you. The problem with most Christians today is that they are trying to serve too many kings to the detriment of serving the one true King Jesus. We can not serve Jesus and money, Jesus and lust, Jesus and ourselves, Jesus and our jobs, Jesus and other religions, Jesus and anything. It is either all Jesus or no Jesus. If there is anything in your life that commands your time, attention, or devotion other than Jesus than you are not truly worshiping God with all of your heart, soul and mind. The Advent season is a time to examine your life and determine if there is anything that is taking you away from a true, solitary worship of Jesus. If you are still listening to King Herod, or King Money, or King Sin, then you must renounce them and cling to the one true King Jesus. It is not an easy thing to seek God as our king. To be sure, he is easy to find for those who seek him, but it is hard to realize that finding him means worshiping him with all of our heart, soul, and mind. It means laying down control of our own lives. It means renouncing the idols that we had formerly worshiped, the ways of life that had formerly ruled us. Being a Christian is not just a title that we give ourselves, it is a lifelong commitment to a benevolent yet powerful king
Jesus came to be a king. But his kingdom is not of this world. His kingdom is in this world, but not of it. His subjects are those Christians who seek him, worship him, and serve him only. His castle is the church, which is composed of those who claim him as their only king. His land is in heaven, since this world will be destroyed in anticipation of the time when the New Earth is the home of his eternal castle. The invitation for you today is to seek him with all your heart, to worship him with all that you have, and to serve him with all that you are.
Pilate, speaking for the kings of this earth, said to Jesus, "You are a king, then!" Jesus answered, "You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me." Are you a Wise Man or Woman? Have you sought the king Jesus by asking him to be king of your life? Do you worship the King with all the gifts that you have to offer? Have you made him your one and only king, the only king with any authority in your life?
