Dr. Nolte continues that one of the things that I’d argue about the biblical text here is that it is not so much about the revelation. God reveal who the Messiah was and where the Messiah would be born with signs and wonders. Scripture is very clear about that. Just in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, it says more than 100 times that God has revealed who Jesus is by using the phrase: “to fulfill what was written in the (Old Testament) Scriptures”. I’m just saying that there is plenty enough proof in the holy Scriptures that we have. The fact that Christmas is about Jesus Christ cannot be disputed. We may have gone little overboard on the commercialism of the holiday, but the fact is that in our society, the core and heart of everything about this huge focus that we call “Christmas” is about the birth of the Messiah.
I’m not going to argue the revelation that the Messiah has come and Jesus is the King; the Messiah. I believe that that fact is confirmed. That even in our world today, we are proclaiming that Jesus is why we have Christmas. Jesus is the reason for the season. I don’t need to argue that, but I will argue that it’s more about the awareness and the response. The awareness that Jesus is the Messiah and how we response to it. There are different responses that the Messiah has come. Let’s look at the responses of those involved. First, Herod the Great- the king of Israel. When the Magi came and asked Herod, “Where is the one born King of the Jew?” (the promised Messiah), Herod was troubled and threatened. To protect what he had, he schemed to remove the threat. At the core, he thought that he was going to lose his possessions, prestige and control. Is it not often the same with us when we realize that Jesus Christ is the King of king and Lord of lords? That being in a relationship with God means surrendering our will to the will of God, under the lordship of Jesus Christ? That we are not in control and the owner of everything. We need to give over the steering wheel of our life to Jesus and allow Jesus to be in control. We resist, whether fearful or prideful, because we do not want to give up control.
The second response is from the Scribes, priests and scholars. Their awareness of who the Messiah comes directly from God’s Word. In all actuality, no matter who is involved, the revelation of the messiah comes down to the Word of God, which we still have. As Israelites, they knew of the prophecy of the coming Messiah and believed the promise of God. When the Magi asked King Herod, who then asked the Scribes, priests and scholars, then they opened the holy Scriptures to find the answer. Their response was to research and find out, then came back to Herod and quoted the Prophet about where the Messiah was to be born. They could perform an inquiry, teach or inform others, but did it really make a bid difference in their lives? In our spiritual walk today, it is not that we don’t know who the Messiah is and it is not that many of us don’t know a lot about Jesus. It is just that we don’t allow it to change us.
Thirdly, we have the response of the Magi. There is not indication that they were believers, but rich and scholarly astronomers/philosophers. They believed that the signs in the heavens (the starry night skies) were signs of kings and royalty. God used their beliefs and they interpreted what they saw as God revealing in the heavens and then they asked questions, as their awareness came from God’s Word. Their response was to pursue the answers. Based upon what God was revealing to them, they pursued to get the full answer by following the unique star. When they found the Messiah, they responded in reverence, joy and humility in worshipping the King.
In this story, it was about the awareness and the response, which there were three heart-responses to Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ. Herod was hard-heart. The Scribes were half-heart, but the Magi were whole-hearted. We may jump around from all of those responses. Today’s passage reminds us that the path to the joy, the wonder and the worship is the whole-hearted response to who Jesus is. My prayer for myself and for you is that our language would be the language of the Magi, which is this: “Where is He, that we may worship Him?”
In Christ, Brian
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