Everybody excited about Christmas? Oh, so good, uh, so good to open up God's word during the season. If you're new here, my name is Ricky. I'm one of the pastors here at the church, and, uh, I am— man, I am so excited that for the next couple of weeks we are going to be spending time with the wise men, uh, the wise men part of the Christmas story. We're going to be opening that up this Sunday, and then Christmas Eve and Christmas Day we're going to spend with them as well, kind of one whole story.
So I want to invite you to turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 2. And you may feel like, okay, yeah, I've seen the wise men, I see them in the nativity, I was downtown, they were there. And I have two— I have two things that you need to know up front in this message. First is I'm gonna kind of ruin the wise men for you a little bit, because a lot of what you know about the wise men is just totally wrong. And it's gonna— and you're gonna look at your nativity never the same way again after, after this exploration of the text.
But the good news is the wise men represent a misunderstood but strange and beautiful and compelling part of the Christmas story that I think a lot of people do not know. And so I'm really excited to open up God's word as we discover this or rediscover this together.
So we're going to begin reading the text in Matthew chapter 2. Beginning in verse 1. And as we read, let's remember this is not just like an old story, old legend. This isn't Santa Claus, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. This is God's very word.
Verse 1: Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, Wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, 'Where is he who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.' When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. And they told him, 'In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.' Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, 'Go, search diligently for the child, and when you've found him, bring me word that I too may come and worship him.' And after listening to the king, they went on their way.
And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. And when they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. This is God's word. And Lord, I pray that as we open this up, Lord, may you Give us new eyes to see this very familiar part of the Christmas story. And I pray that each and every single person would feel the effect of this text and this invitation on their hearts today. In your name we pray. Amen.
Well, as I said before, I— before we open up the story, I do need to ruin the story a little bit. You probably have a beautiful nativity set up in your living room or near your tree or maybe in your front lawn. My parents have two different kid-friendly nativity sets, and they have the little barn and the little star and the angel and the shepherds and the wise men with the camels with their little gifts. And we've lost the baby Jesus. We don't know where he is anymore. So, or maybe my parents have hid him and he's gonna like appear on Christmas. That'd be fun. But everybody probably has something like that, right? Yes, a lot of people have those. All right, so you have that. It's wrong.
So here's why it's wrong. First, they weren't three kings, right? The song, Three Kings of Orient Are— no, they're not. They're not kings. And their names were definitely not— if you have a little sign that says this in your living room— Gaspar, Balthazar, and Melchior, right? If you've got a little— you take Balthazar out every Christmas. Oh, it's little Balthazar. No, that's not true. Just legendary. They weren't kings at all. They were, as we'll get into this, astrologers, magicians. Probably somewhere between occult magicians and star observers.
Second, there were not 3 of them, or at least probably there weren't. They brought 3 gifts. So, but as anybody knows, if you have 3 gifts under your tree, they could be from 1 person, they could be from 5 people, they could be from 10 people. We all pitched in to get you blank, you know? So we don't know how many there were, just a group of them.
Third, this is the part that I hate the most, I'm sorry. They didn't ride camels. So the little Precious Moments figurines with the camel and the little guy, no. Because they're from the East and very likely from Babylon, the Persia area, and what is Persia famous for? Not for camels, but horses, right? Beautiful Arabian horses. So they probably brought horses, beautiful horses.
And last, and this is the real kicker, they were not there when Jesus was born. In fact, they probably arrived 1 to 2 years later. It would seem the text suggests that the star appears either when Jesus is born or afterwards, and they arrive 1 to 2 years later. So you're seeing with the shepherds and the angels and Mary and Joseph and the wise men, they were not there. So put them way far, 2 years away in the other room. If you want an accurate nativity, right? And they didn't even arrive at the manger. That's the worst part. They just show up at Joseph's house. So imagine just on a random day when they finally arrive, Joseph and Mary answer the door and there's a bunch of Persian astrologers. That's Christmas. Merry Christmas, everybody.
But now that I've ruined Christmas, I think now we're prepared to, like, take in the story as it actually is. And the story I love because it is far more beautiful and moving and strange and powerful and compelling than I think any of us really think it is. Rather than just being a story about an interesting group of people a long time ago, this story, if we understand it, actually is a story that involves all of us, that we enter into this story. And I think you'll see what I mean as we go.
So here's the way the text works. There's a statement, and then there's a question for all of us. The statement is this. God comes to all. God comes to all, that's the good news of Christmas. And the question in response to that is, will you come to him? God comes to all, will you come to him?
6 · The pastor exposits Matthew 1's testimony to the virgin birth and the name Immanuel to establish that the incarnation represents God himself coming near — not sending a representative, but taking on full humanity including being born
First section, God has come to all. Now the first thing we learn here is that when God comes, he comes up close to us. Now that statement, right, verse 1, now after Jesus was born, says matter-of-factly, almost in passing, one of the most theologically shocking statements that has ever been written by humans, right? Jesus was born. Now, it's interesting first because of who Jesus is. In Matthew chapter 1, the angel tells Joseph, don't fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for, or because he will save his people from their sins. So Jesus literally means God saves. God saves. So the kid's going to be named God Saves. That's a big name for a little guy, right? God Saves. And what it means is this child will be the embodiment of God's salvation, as we'll learn according to Matthew chapter 1, that long genealogy. He is the Messiah, the promised king, the one through which God will save.
But notice that Jesus' identity is even more notable than just a famous conqueror or hero. The angel tells Joseph the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. And then Matthew quotes Isaiah saying, behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which means God with us. So we have these two pieces of information. He's conceived by the Holy Spirit without a human father, and he also is going to be the embodiment of the phrase God with us.
So here's what's amazing. The Savior that comes is not just sent by God. It's not God is up here and then he kind of sends a Savior and it's like, all right, I sent a hero down there. No, God himself comes as the hero. God himself comes as the Savior, and he comes— and this is what's theologically insane— after Jesus was born. So how thoroughly is God related to his humanity? And sometimes we get this picture of Jesus being kind of like a God inside of a, like, a human robot that he's just walking around. Hello. And that's not it at all. He's fully God. He doesn't give that up, but he's also fully man, so fully man that he's born, right? That is how close God comes to humanity. So the point is this: when God comes to save, he comes up close. He doesn't stay distant. He puts on flesh and blood. He becomes fully man.
7 · The pastor uses David Suchet's boarding school experience to illustrate the difference between distant awareness of family and the intimate reality of being brought home — paralleling God's proximity in the incarnation
And I think we innately feel this every Christmas, right? It's the difference between getting a Christmas card from somebody and then seeing that person in your Christmas card walk through the front door on Christmas Day. Right. I was reading an interview with the actor David Suchet, who's a famous British actor, Sir David Suchet, famous for playing the Belgian detective Poirot for many years on PBS. If you're a PBS fan like us, and he's talking about in this interview how he grew up in the era of boarding schools. So imagine this at age 8. He was sent away to boarding school, which is just kind of what people did, I guess, in that era. And he describes those years as honestly pretty miserable. So imagine being age 8, age 9, at boarding school all of a sudden. I have a 10 and an 8-year-old. I can't imagine one of them going away. Actually, sometimes I can. That's— yeah, but, but imagine permanently going away. And this little 8-year-old, he would get letters from his family, I'm sure. He would get presents from his family, gifts. He would know that he had a family. But in boarding school, that thing, that's far away, far off. But he would describe how at boarding school, the best time of the year was when they began to put up Christmas decorations. And the holiday Christmas season would begin to kind of grow and bubble up. And then on that last glorious day, they'd be released from boarding school. And sent back to their homes. And the family that, right, he had kind of in his mind, like, I know I have a family, all of a sudden became a real family. Then he walks through the door and embraces them, right? Not distant, but up close. That's what Emmanuel represents in the Christmas story, that God comes to earth, not distantly, but up close.
8 · The pastor applies the doctrine of God's nearness in Christ to counter feelings of divine distance, asserting that the incarnation means God enters not just the world's story but each individual's story with saving intent
And this is what I wanna encourage you with. Maybe today in this Christmas season, you feel that God seems distant from your life. Maybe you think, here's my life and here's God up here. Or even, here's my story and here's the Christmas story, great, and maybe there's a little bit of connection, but it seems pretty distant. No, no, no, what you should be getting from the Christmas story is that God comes into our world. He comes into humanity's story. He comes into even your story. He continues to enter people's stories, your story in particular today, not just to observe, not just from a distance to do something, but up close to seek and save, as the Gospels say. He comes up close, and second, God has come with open arms.
9 · The pastor identifies the Magi as likely closer to occult practitioners than respectable astronomers, noting the shocking theological disjunction between Matthew 1's Jewish genealogy and Matthew 2's pagan visitors
Now this is where we're gonna get into the identity of the wise men. We've said that they are not kings, and that's true, they're not kings. So what are they? Well, imagine a spectrum between like, modern-day astronomers where they got star charts and have little notebooks and are tracking planetary movements on one end of the spectrum. And then the other end of the spectrum is like, you know, your weird astrologer cousin that wants to know what sign you were born under and has like maps and crystals and, you know, that kind of stuff. And even maybe further than that, kind of occult stuff, right? Tarot card reading stuff, some of the the Mexican occult traditions that come out at different times of year if you have family in Mexico, right? If that's a spectrum and you're wondering, okay, where are the Magi? Well, they're probably more toward the, we could say, the bad side of that spectrum. And yet they are part, a key part of the Christmas story. So how did they get there? Well, it's even more amazing when you look back at, Matthew chapter 1, if your Bible's open there, you can see this long genealogy, right, that starts Matthew chapter 1. The book of genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. So there's— he's— Matthew is establishing the credentials of Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, as the king, as a king in the line of David, a king in the line of Abraham. And you establish this was Joseph kind of being his father is part of this line. And so you expect after chapter 1 to arrive at a very Jewish scene because, I mean, obviously he's the Jewish Messiah, and yet it's a bunch of pagan astrologers. So what in the world? How did they get into this story and what does it mean?
10 · The pastor explains how the Magi connected Old Testament prophecy (Numbers 24:17) with astronomical phenomena to conclude the Messiah had been born, while acknowledging that the text doesn't specify the nature of the celestial sign
Well, these astrologers who are tracking star movements and all these things, they must have known about some of the Old Testament prophecies that give them a hint at the coming of the Messiah. For example, Numbers 24:17 says, references, a star shall come out of Jacob and a scepter shall rise out of Israel. So somehow they've got some of these texts and they've got what's going on astrologically in the sky, and they put the two together and think and conclude A star has risen over Israel and the Jewish people, and a king has been born in Israel. Now, I know everybody wants to know, what does it mean? You know, I was talking to somebody in the first service and they had a— they were referencing this documentary where it's talking about the alignment of two particular planets. I've heard other people reference a comet or a supernova, and there's kind of more or less compelling answers to what exactly the sign was. But the short answer is Matthew 2 doesn't tell us. All it tells us is that there was enough between what they'd read and what's going on in the heavens that they conclude a Jewish king, that the Jewish king had been born.
11 · The pastor traces how the Babylonian exile providentially left the Old Testament in pagan hands, showing that God sovereignly arranged for even Israel's conquerors to receive an invitation to the birth of his Son
How did they have those texts, though, in the first place? Right. How did somehow they end up with the Book of Numbers? Well, this is where the story gets really interesting. They're from the East. Now, remember, that's the area of Babylon or Persia. And remember that centuries earlier, when Israel went into exile, they brought with them the Old Testament as we know it, right? The Law of Moses. And so when Babylon conquers his people and brings all of them to Babylon, they, they brought with them, in a sense, the Word of God, the Old Testament. And even when Israel leaves and goes back to their own land, the word of God apparently was passed down. The Old Testament was passed down generation to generation, it seems. And it does seem by most of the kind of the implications of the text that these people knew to look for the arrival of the Jewish Messiah because they had something of the Old Testament. And here's what— why theologically that's incredible. It appears that through his providential moving of history, God saw fit to leave an invitation to the birth of the Son of God in Babylon, inviting even that pagan nation. Remember, not good guys, right? Quick recap. They conquered Israel, took them all into exile. Even them. Invited to the birth of the Son of God, the Jewish Messiah. Right?
12 · The pastor emphasizes the shocking grace of God inviting religiously disqualified pagans to Christ's birth, establishing the inclusive scope of the gospel invitation
This is amazing when you think of who the Magi were, right? These were pagan astrologers, dream interpreters, tarot card readers, right? If these people wanted to lead a Bible study at Cross of Grace, we would say no, right? No. Like, I'd love to do a Bible study, and also I have all these crystals and tarot cards over my house. We're gonna— it's gonna be a no from us, right? We're like, well, I'm just gonna do a quick séance before we jump into the Bible. No, we're not gonna do that. No, right? These are not the people that you think, okay, yeah, for sure, they get front-of-the-line invitations to the birth of God. These are enemies, these are outcasts, these are far off, these are pagans. And yet they're invited, because when God comes, when he comes close, He opens his arms to all, all that will come to the birth of his Son.
13 · The pastor uses Scrooge's nephew from A Christmas Carol as an illustration of persistent, grace-filled invitation extended to someone utterly undeserving and hostile
One of my favorite Christmas stories is A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, and it's the story of Scrooge, of which there's a million variations now. But my, my MVP of A Christmas Carol is not Scrooge or any of the particular ghosts. It is a surprise character that is my favorite character in A Christmas Carol, and it is Scrooge's nephew. And the reason I love Scrooge's nephew is at the beginning of the book when Scrooge is acting all mean and he won't turn the heat on and all that stuff. The nephew shows up to invite Scrooge to Christmas dinner. And literally this— I was reading the Dickens text recently, and literally the exchange goes like this, where the nephew says, "Won't you come to my house for Christmas dinner, Uncle?" And Scrooge says, "Oh, I will come." And the nephew's like, "What, really?" "Yeah." And Scrooge goes, "I will come over my dead body." And you're just like, "Geez, man." And he, look, in our culture today, he falls firmly into the category of cut the toxic people out of your life, right? Right? If you're listening to, like, inspirational Instagram stuff or social media stuff, it's like, he's the perfect guy. He doesn't like you, he's mean, he's mean to others, he's terrible, he's the worst, he doesn't give to charity, he won't turn the heat on, nobody gets a day off for Christmas, terrible employer, all that stuff. And yet what you get the impression of is that the nephew goes every year and invites him to Christmas dinner, only for Scrooge to slam the door in his face. Right.
14 · The pastor identifies the congregation (and all humanity) with the Magi as spiritually undeserving recipients of God's gracious invitation, making the Christmas story personally applicable
And we watch that and we're like, oh, Scrooge is the worst. Now, look, when you look at the biblical text and how the Magi are invited, they are the Scrooge in a sense that gets invited to Christmas dinner. They're the Scrooge that gets invited to the birth of God's Son. And if we look at ourselves rightly, We are that Scrooge that gets invited to the birth of his son. We, just like the Magi, are outcasts and exiles, right? People who've turned away from God in various areas of our life, far away from him. And yet God comes close to us to invite us, regardless of our background, regardless of what we have done, to the birth of his son.
15 · The pastor emphasizes God's cosmic sovereignty in orchestrating both the celestial sign and the star's specific guidance to Jesus' location, demonstrating that Christ's coming is the central event of all history
And then last, just this is the last kicker here, is that God in this story bends the universe to bring his son and invite us to his son. This is not a passing whim. This isn't like, well, I'll throw him a bone, you know, maybe I'll leave a sign in Babylon. No, no, no. What you get the impression of in this story is that God is bending history and space and time to draw and bring these astrologers to the birth of his son. Now, again, we don't know what this astrological sign is, this sign in the heavens. It could be the planets aligning. It could be some other thing. It could just be a supernatural light that nobody can explain in the sky. But whatever it was, one of the folks I was talking to after the first service, they were talking about how it seems compelling that maybe it's the alignment of the planets that never occurred before and will never occur again in this particular way as it moved through the sky. And they came up with wonder and said, "I can't believe if God did something like that, he must have been planning it forever from the beginning." And I'm like, "Yes, he was, right? From the very beginning, God set in motion a plan in the heavens for this moment." And even further, there's this crazy moment where, again, we don't even know how that first thing happened, but the second thing is when they get to Jerusalem, there's some kind of a sign that leads them to where Jesus lives, right? Now that, I don't know what bending or breaking or using the laws of physics to do that. The point is this: God is bending the universe toward his work of sending his Son and inviting everyone to him. That is, this is not a passing part of history. This is the centerpiece of history.
16 · The pastor directly addresses doubts about God's sovereignty by pointing to the Christmas story as a revelation of God's benevolent purposes — that his sovereignty is exercised for our good in inviting us to Christ
And of humanity. So maybe you have a hard time trusting God as God this Christmas season. Maybe you think, well, why did blank happen? Why didn't God use his sovereignty? Why did God allow this to happen in his sovereignty? But, but I hope right here in the Christmas story you can see God's heart and the— and what drives his sovereignty, what drives his work in the world, him bending the universe for our good to invite us for our good to the birth of his Son.
17 · The pastor distinguishes superficial Christmas sentiment from deep gospel joy rooted in Christ's life, death, and resurrection, using David Suchet's conversion testimony to illustrate mature joy that understands why the child came
Now, let me summarize this this way. Christmas is one of those seasons where it can feel subjectively joyful, right? We have lights around, we have warm drinks, we've got family, we've got gifts, and all these things can make us have an experience of joy. But the real joy of Christmas goes far deeper. David Suchet, in that same interview, It shares how he thought he knew what joy was when he left boarding school and finally got to go home for the holidays. But it was later in his life, at about age 40, that he heard the message about Jesus, understood it, and became a Christian. And out of that, understood, this is what he says, he understood Christmas truly for the first time. And he compares the two joys of, of coming home from the holidays and the joy he has now in Christmas. And he, this is a bit of a paraphrase, but he says this essentially. He says, "In Christmas I see now that God was born for a reason, to save us, to save us ordinary people and to give us the chance of a new life with him." This was real joy. This was saving joy. This was mature joy. And this, I think, is the joy the wise men found when they found the child. Meaning that all of this stuff on the surface of Christmas is meant to point to something deeper and truer, that God has entered our world and invited us to his Son, that he might, this child, grow up and live the perfect life that none of us live, to die in our place for our sins, to cover our sins and shame and failures. And to rise again so that we might, those who believe in Christ, are united with him so that we might rise to new life as well, right? That's why this child came. That's why God drew near to us, and that's why God invites all to the birth of his Son to see what he has done, that they may be saved and united by faith to him. God has come to all.
18 · The pastor pivots from the theological claim that God comes to all to the personal question of how individuals will respond, introducing the three responses found in the text
So then the question, the second half, is this: won't you come to him? Won't you come to him? Look, this is not just something that happened 2,000 years ago. This text, this story gives each one of us a question. Wherever you are this morning, however you think about Christmas, whether you've been a Christian for decades or maybe you're not even sure if you're a Christian, the question for you is this: won't you come to him? The invitation is there. And we see the 3 different responses to coming to Christ in this text.
19 · The pastor exposits the shocking indifference of the scribes who correctly identified Bethlehem as the Messiah's birthplace but never investigated whether the claim was true, simply returning to ordinary life
And the first response is, Surprising. Their first response in the text is indifference. Now, I see that in the text where Herod assembles, it says he assembles all the chief priests and scribes of the people, meaning probably all of the scholars that worked with him that he knew well, his team, his guys, his scholars. He assembles them and says, okay, so here's what's going on. These astrologers from Babylon or Persia, they think A king has been born, probably the Messiah or something. So if that was going to happen and they're showing us some kind of star charts or whatever, if that were to happen, where would that be? Where would the king be born? And so they go and they look through the Old Testament and they find the text about in Isaiah about Bethlehem. Right. And this leads them to conclude if the Messiah has been born or when the Messiah will be born, it will be in Bethlehem. And Herod says, "Thank you." And here is one of the most unbelievable parts of the text to me. Okay? These are Jewish scholars, the best of the best, right? They know their Old Testament. And so somebody comes and says, "Hey, I think the Messiah might be born, the one that we've been longing for for centuries." And they're like, "Cool. Where might he be?" And then they go and look and they say, "Okay, we know exactly where he was born." And then they just go back to work. They just go home. They just are like, okay, well, honey, how was work today? Well, it was kind of interesting. This guy claimed the Jewish Messiah had been born, and so we looked it up and turns out it would have been in Bethlehem. So anyway, you know, let me see if the Jerusalem Warriors are doing on TV tonight. Let's see how they're doing, you know, right? I mean, do you just think like No, no, no, no, no. If that's true, if the Messiah has been born, that, that God has been preparing to send for centuries, for which we're longing for deliverance from, and we know where they are, how could you just walk away? How could you just go back to life? And yet that's exactly what we see.
20 · The pastor uses O'Donnell's commentary to indict modern church indifference, showing how familiarity with the Christmas story produces the same spiritual apathy the scribes demonstrated — knowing about Christ but prioritizing lesser things
Now, listen, I'm tempted to be judgmental in my heart towards these guys. I'm like, come on, these guys are the worst. Well, one of the commentaries I read this week, O'Donnell, turned the question back around to me. And so I was pretty cut by this. And so now you get to enjoy this as well. This is O'Donnell. He says this: There are also lots of people like that in the church. If you quiz them on Bible trivia, they do just fine. But if you informed them God in the flesh is just 5 miles down He's right up the street. Would you care to join me to meet him? They would shake their heads and say, ah, not this time. You know, the NFL playoffs start today, or the World Cup final, or I'm sorry, it's the last day of this unbelievable New Year's sale, or I'd hate to miss my Sunday afternoon nap, maybe next time. What indifference. We live in a world of indifference. People may pack the pews each Sunday, but live as though there is no king upon the throne but them. And see, here's one of the problems growing up. I grew up in El Paso, right? I love El Paso, and it's very, like, has a long Catholic background, and so people are doing posadas and things like that. We're full of the stuff of the Christmas story, and we get used to it. Used to it. And so it comes around once a year and we kind of go, oh, this is so kind of sweet and wonderful. And then we just go back to our lives, right? And here's the insanity of that according to the text, right? If you could think of it this way, if somebody announced Jesus has returned and he, I don't know why, but chose to return in Cloudcroft, we'd be like, I think I can make it to Cloudcroft, right? I might have to take a half day off work, but I think I could go see him, right? He's only going to be there for a week, for a day. We're like, ah, I think I can make time, right? He just came back. This isn't the full, everybody's going to heaven now. But he's coming back to check in. He's in Cloudcroft. I'm like, ah. And yet, the commentator O'Donnell is pointing out that so often, the reality is that God has come and entered the world. And we so often respond to that with indifference. We respond to that with, "Well, I have other things to do. I've got other priorities." And if we can shrug when faced with the message of Christmas, I don't think we fully understand it.
21 · The pastor exposits Herod's character — outwardly impressive with significant religious achievements but inwardly ruthless and paranoid, willing to lie and murder to protect his throne from any perceived threat
Second response that we see in the text is not indifference but opposition. Now, I know if you know the Christmas story, you know Herod is the bad guy, right? And so when Herod comes on the scene, we're like, "Boo!" Boo! Da, da, da, da. That's Herod's theme, right? Sounds a lot like the Imperial March. And so he enters the story. But notice this. When he enters the scene, he doesn't immediately seem like a bad guy. In fact, Herod was a pretty impressive ruler of the Jewish people. Now, he was religiously suspect in some ways, but he built many theaters. He built many public works. Did a lot of building projects in the land of Israel, restoring some of its former glory. He even did probably one of the greatest good deeds you could possibly ever do, right? If somebody does this thing, you'd think, you know what, they might be kind of suspect, but that was pretty good. And his great claim to fame is he restored the Jewish temple. And you think, okay, you can forgive a lot for restoring the Jewish temple. He might be weird and crazy, but there's maybe, maybe he really loves the Lord. Maybe there's something in his heart that he genuinely wants to see the worship of God flourish. But Herod also was ruthless. He killed his wife because he thought she was disloyal. He killed not one but multiple sons that he thought were going to overthrow him. Now, listen, kill one family member. Okay, maybe we can forgive that. Once you get into the multiples, you're like, this is not good. Not good, Herod. And he continued to be for his whole life paranoid about somebody trying to take his throne. And so what you see here is he lies to the Magi. And later in the story, he massacres dozens of male infants that were born in the city of Bethlehem on the off chance that he'd be able to eliminate this threat to his rule.
22 · The pastor identifies Herod's opposition as rooted in accurate theological understanding that Christ's lordship demands he relinquish control, then universalizes this as the nature of sin — refusing to surrender the throne to God
So why does he do this? Well, he does it because Herod understands who Jesus is and what that means. You might think, oh, he just misunderstood Jesus. He didn't really understand he was a messiah. No, I think he did. I think he did. I think he understood that if Jesus was real, it meant that he had to step off the throne. If Jesus was real, it meant he had to give up ruling, and he did not want to do that at any cost. He might say, oh, listen, I love having a good temple for God, and I love having him live near me, as long as he doesn't threaten my throne. I'm happy to go over there and do some worship, but as soon as God comes over here to my throne, uh-uh, it's a no. And listen, that is the essence of what sin is according to the Bible. Sin is basically saying, no, no, the throne is mine. And I refuse to get off of it, right? Every time we— the reason the Ten Commandments push on us so much is because what they really push on is, are we willing to let God sit on the throne, that true biblical justice govern us from God, or do we make the rules? Do we stay on the throne? And what we see is when everybody's fighting for the throne, the world is a profoundly broken and unhappy place. The reason that there's so much loss and bloodshed and grief in the world around us is that all of us, in some ways, are fighting for that throne.
23 · The pastor applies Herod's opposition pattern to contemporary believers who compartmentalize their lives, willing to give God certain areas while defending hard-line territories where Christ's lordship is refused
O'Donnell again says this: Jesus is a real threat to anyone and everyone who thinks seriously about him. If Jesus is king, it means you're not. It means your dethronement. It means your submission. It means you can't lead your life any longer by the dictates of your unrepresented immoral desires, meaning just what you want to do. If Jesus is who he says he is, you either love him or you hate him. And look, if you truly understand who Jesus is, maybe you've even grown up to church, right? Maybe somebody invited you today, maybe you've sat in church for years, but you realize that there are some hard lines in your life and you're like, okay, as long as God draws and colors in within the lines that I've drawn in my life, I'm okay with him, right? Just like Herod being okay with, okay, you can have the temple as long as I can have the throne, right? You can have Sunday morning, God, as long as I can have the rest of life. As long as my dating life or sexuality gets to be lived out according to the way I want it to be lived out, or my career or my marriage, right? Maybe it's even God's calling you to forgive somebody. And you'll say, I'll do anything, but I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to forgive that person. I'm not going to reconcile with that person. I'll do all of this, but I'm not going to give this area to the Lord. These are the hard lines. And so if God's willing to color within those lines, great, we have no problem. But as soon as he starts saying, I want to sit on the throne, I'm out. And if we're honest, there's a little bit of that in all of us.
24 · The pastor exposits the Magi's dramatic response of pursuit and worship, detailing the extraordinary cost of their 800-mile journey undertaken not to gain anything but to worship the newborn king
So what's the third response we see? The third response is beautiful, compelling, strange, and wonderful. The third response is pursuit and worship. This is the response of the Magi, right? They— imagine the Magi. They see this sign in Persia somewhere. They discuss, they debate, and they conclude the Jewish Messiah has been born. We see the signs, we have the text, we get it. So then what's their response? It could be indifference. Great, go back to life. That's interesting, we'll make a note. It could be opposition. Hey, if this guy's really in charge, we don't want the Jewish people rising and running the world. We gotta go oppose him, we gotta bring an army. But instead, they come in pursuit. They come in pursuit 800 miles, probably from the Babylon area to the area that Jesus is born. This would have been, even with good Persian horses, a 40-day trip. They had to travel with attendants. They had to make camp along the way. They, they would— this would have been an enormously expensive undertaking, right? I don't know if you have noticed this, but holiday travel this year is incredibly expensive, right? My wife and I just took a trip down to see her brother get married in Guatemala. And so we're counting up all the miles and dollars and we're like, you know, right? And that was just for a few days, right? These guys are saying, listen, I'm gonna take 3, 4, 5 months off work. I'm gonna take all my stuff. I'm gonna travel with my attendants over to Israel, spend a ton of money, and then come back, right? Who does this? Why would they do this? Well, they tell us why they've come to do it. Look at their simple answer to Herod. We have come to worship him. They didn't come to get something from Jesus. They already had power and status and wealth, likely. They came to give those things up. They came to worship him.
25 · The pastor argues that the Magi's worship makes perfect theological sense — if Jesus is the creator offering reconciliation, then giving up everything to meet him is the only rational response to the deepest longing of the human heart
Now, how does that make sense? In some ways, you could think, well, the indifference makes sense, the opposition makes sense, the worship doesn't make sense. How does that make sense? Because they understood Jesus. They understood that if Jesus represented the creator of all come in human form, to his creation, would you not give up everything at the chance to see the face of your creator? Would you not give up everything to see, to meet the one who painted the El Paso sunsets and the skyline, who hung every star, who holds the universe together by the word of his power? If he arrived, would you not go to him? Is there not something deep inside your soul that says, I long to know and be known by my creator. And further, if that God is coming with an offer of reconciliation, wouldn't you go to him? If he is offering, in a sense, to wipe your ledger clean, to allow you to live life without guilt and shame, to live life without being afraid of what will happen on that last day when you stand before God. If that's the kind of God, if this is the kind of God that would invite even pagans to the birth of his Son, maybe these wise men harbored a hope that even they, as far-off pagans, could be brought near to the God of Israel, the God who made them, who invites them with an offer of reconciliation. If that's true about Jesus, Why wouldn't you come? How could you not come? When you look at it that way, their response is the only response that makes any sense. That the thing that our hearts long for, that we carry around, that every time we see that thrill of Christmas joy and hope, and only to see it wither away and fall away and the world go back to a cold, gray, windy El Paso winter, you know, after, in January. And we think, man, I wish it could be Christmas every day, right? That lives in each of our hearts because we long for the original creation. We long for the era where we walked with God. That's what Jesus represents. He offers to reconcile us to God and bring us back to him. Therefore, the Magi, they'll do anything. They'll relocate their lives, they'll give up their wealth, they'll do whatever it takes to gain that.
26 · The pastor applies the sermon to those who have never fully come to Christ, inviting them to respond to the text itself as God's sign drawing them to saving faith
And so, a couple applications here. One, if you today, maybe you've even grown up in church, but you today realize you've never really come to Jesus, you've never really come to Jesus, you've acknowledged Jesus, you've seen Jesus, you've nodded your head at Jesus, but you've never given up everything to come to Jesus. But maybe that's because you've never understood who Jesus really is, what he represents. That he represents joy and peace, he represents forgiveness, he represents restoration and wholeness, the hope of eternal life with God. If you've never fully understood that in the core of your being, you've only ever experienced Christmas on the surface, but not that kind of deep joy that David Suchet is talking about, you today can come. This Christmas is an invitation for you, right? You don't need an astrological sign in the heavens. This right here is your sign. The text is God drawing you to himself. Won't you come? Won't you come, friend?
27 · The pastor applies the sermon to professing Christians, calling them to identify and surrender areas of indifference or opposition, using the Magi's costly pursuit as the model for whole-life discipleship
And if you're a Christian, maybe you've gotten used to living life on the surface of kind of Christmas, those lights and okay, great, great, great, and then indifference or opposition or resistance. But there's something about Christmas that you're not willing to go all in with, to give up everything to pursue and follow him. Let this Christmas be a call back to you. To come follow him no matter what the cost. Relocate your life like the wise men.
28 · The pastor applies the sermon evangelistically, calling the congregation to pray for opportunities to invite others to Christ this week, using Scrooge's nephew as a model of persistent invitation
And the last thing I would just say is this: there's so many around us that need this invitation. There's so many around us that long for peace and wholeness, that long for forgiveness and restoration, that long for Jesus even though they don't know it. And this is a perfect week, this is the perfect season to pray, maybe start just by this week praying for God to give you an opportunity with one friend or a family member or neighbor to point them to Jesus. Maybe you could be that nephew of Scrooge that just never gets tired of knocking and inviting people to Christmas.
29 · The pastor uses the extended backstory from A Christmas Carol showing that Scrooge's nephew represents his beloved deceased sister who once rescued him from boarding school, making the nephew's persistent invitations a continuation of the sister's loving pursuit
Let me sum this up by going back actually to A Christmas Carol because I love the nephew in A Christmas Carol, but I didn't realize until this week when I went and reread the text what this nephew represents. So this nephew actually, well, is a critical character in the story that I never saw before. Now, the Ghost of Christmas Past shows Scrooge his life and one of the few happy memories of his childhood, 'cause Scrooge, like David Touchet, was sent to a boarding school and had to live at the boarding school. Except, unlike David Suchet, Scrooge never got brought home for Christmas, 'cause his dad was the worst, right? His dad was just grumpy and mean, and so he just left him alone at school while everybody went home. Until one Christmas, the doors of the school opened, and this is what Dickens says, "It opened, and a little girl, much younger than the boy, came darting in, putting her arms around his neck, kissing him, and addressed him as her dear, dear brother." I've come to bring you home, dear brother, said the child, clapping her tiny hands and bending down to laugh. To bring you home, home, home. Home, little fan? returned the boy. Yes, said the child, brimful of glee. Home for good and all. Home forever and ever. Father is so much kinder than he used to be. The home is like heaven. He spoke so gently to me. He said, yes, you should. And he sent me in a coach to bring you. And you are never to come back here. But first, "we're to be together all Christmas long and have the merriest time in all the world." So Scrooge watches this scene. The ghost says, "Always a delicate creature whom a breath might have withered," said the ghost, "but she had a large heart." "So she had," cried Scrooge. "You're right. I will not gainsay it, spirit. God forbid." "She died a woman," said the ghost, "and I think, had I think, children." 'One child,' Scrooge returned. 'True,' said the ghost. 'Your nephew.' Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind and answered briefly, 'Yes.' So Scrooge has this sister that he loved, who her invitation is his happiest childhood memory, only he loses her in adulthood, and he becomes cold and bitter, through all of these other things and through hardening his heart, and yet this very nephew is the one that comes every Christmas and knocks on the door of his business and invites him to Christmas dinner, and Scrooge says, "Over my dead body."
30 · The pastor completes the A Christmas Carol illustration by showing Scrooge's final acceptance of the invitation and immediate welcome, using it to picture the reception awaiting those who respond to God's invitation
And in the same way, I think Matthew 2 would remind us, God comes every year, in a sense, knocks on the door of our hearts and says, "Won't you come? Won't you come to Christmas?" And here's the end. Of the story. At the very end of the story, Scrooge is transformed, and we read this: He passed the door to the house a dozen times before he had the courage to go up and knock. But he made a dash and did it. "Is your master at home, my dear?" Scrooge said to the girl. And then he goes in. And they, the family, were looking at the table, which was spread out in a great array. "Fred!" said Scrooge. 'Why, bless my soul!' cried Fred. 'Who's that?' 'It's I, your Uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner.' And then there's this heartbreaking line: 'Will you let me in, Fred?' Dickens comments, 'Let him in? It's a mercy he didn't shake his arm off.' Scrooge was at home in 5 minutes. And you see, this closing of A Christmas Story is this man Scrooge, who longed for his sister, found his sister's embrace once again through her son. And in that nephew, Scrooge once again finds his family.
31 · The pastor concludes by directly applying the Scrooge illustration to the congregation's response to God's Christmas invitation, promising immediate and joyful welcome to those who come
And let me just say it this way: so stands the invitation of God, friends. Every year, every Christmas, God comes to the door of your heart and knocks. Will you get up, follow him, and like Scrooge, stand at the door and say, "Will you let me in?" I think the Lord will shake your arm off. I think you will be at home in 5 minutes, and I think this may be the Christmas that you truly and finally reach the deeper, truer joy of Christmas. Amen.
32 · The pastor closes with prayer, asking God to help the congregation see past cultural Christmas to the deeper reality of God's invitation and to respond with the wonder and pursuit of the Magi
Would you stand and let's pray. Oh Lord, we pray for our own hearts today. Lord, we pray that you would help us to see the true meaning of Christmas underneath all the lights, underneath all the happy stuff of our culture. Lord, there is something deeper and truer and brighter and more beautiful. The truth that God himself comes to us and the truth that we are invited to come to him. Lord, I pray that whatever that looks like for us today, whether we've never come before and this is the Christmas where we come fully and finally home through Jesus, or whether we've heard the Christmas story a million times, and as Christians, it's grown a little cold and stale in our hearts. Lord, I pray that we would feel like the Magi, the wonder that we, even us, would be invited to the birth of your Son, to your Son, to forgiveness, to peace, to hope, to restoration, to eternal life. And I pray that then we would do whatever it takes to get there. May we this Christmas find ourselves in the embrace of our heavenly Father at the door of his house. Amen.