Worshiping The Newborn King

Please open your Bibles to Matthew 2:1-12 which we will read in a few minutes.

Do you love the Christmas story? Not the story about the Grinch or Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer or even The Miracle on 34th Street, but the story of the Son of God.

The story that is the fulfillment of prophecies made centuries before the birth of Jesus.

The story of those very prophecies being fulfilled in the birth of Jesus.

The story of the incarnation, the Son of God becoming the Son of Man.

Not just taking on the form of a human but actually becoming human while still remaining fully God.

This is just another “incomprehensible” aspect of God.

Like the incomprehensible Trinity; One God in Three Persons; the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, three and yet one.

And, so, in the incarnation, we are given yet another incomprehensible fact; that the Son of God became 100% human as the Son of Man while still remaining 100% God as the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, the Triune Godhead.

And how did this happen?

It happened when Jesus was born of a virgin over 2,000 years ago.

Today we’re going to look at a few of the events surrounding the incarnation of Jesus and we will try to draw some conclusions about the people involved.

With that in mind lets go ahead and read Matthew 2:1-12.

When we think about the story of the Magi that is within the story of Jesus’ birth what do we usually focus on?

Where was the star?

What was the star?

Was it a conjunction of planets?

Was it some star that the Lord created for just this time and then it died?

Was it some supernatural phenomenon that was guided by the Lord?

Why did the Magi follow it in a general sense before they came to Jerusalem?

How did it change when they came to Bethlehem so that it pointed to the exact house where Jesus was?

What else do we think about?

The Magi …

How many were there really?

What country did they come from?

How did they know what the star meant?

How long did the journey take?

Why did they choose to bring gold, frankincense and myrrh?

But to me, this is the amazing part of the story within the story:

Matthew 2:11a NIV

“On coming to the house, they saw the Child with His mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped Him …”

Wow! Here are men of great wisdom, wealth and most likely, power. They have been to see King Herod. They did not bow down to King Herod. They did not worship King Herod. They just stopped in at the palace to ask directions; like Herod’s palace was some kind of information desk.

But after they ask directions from the King who got the answers from his underlings they go outside and they see the star and this star goes and stops right over a specific little house in the unremarkable village of Bethlehem and when they go inside they see the Child and the bow down to the ground and worship Him.

These Magi must have found the information about the star in the ancient Scriptures which we call the Old Testament and these ancient Scriptures were most likely taken to their land during one of the periods when the Israelites were taken away in captivity to Assyria or Babylon or Persia. Wow!

And so when the star arose they looked into the Scriptures and pursued the One whom the Scriptures were about and worshiped Him!!!

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In another story within the story of the birth of Jesus; Jesus, the Son of God and the Son of Man and in this story we see angels announcing the birth to shepherds!

Shepherds! Despised shepherds; the worst of the worst and the least of the least.

Shepherds had absolutely NO social standing but the Lord God Almighty sends His angels to them to announce the birth of the Messiah, Jesus the Christ!

Now, this was NOT something that happened every night out in the sheep fields.

I love how the KJV says, “They were sore afraid”!

Does that mean that they were so afraid that he caused physical pain?

And, the Youngs Literal Translations says it this way, “The feared a great fear”!

Luke 2:10-14 says,

“But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a Baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.’

“Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom His favor rests.’”