The True Story of Christmas: The Mysteries Behind the Wisemen

Welcome to our ancient future story, navigating Scripture through the Eyes of Family, where I share with you biblical stories like a family member would share a story around a dinner table. As children of God, we are a part of God's family and His family story has a lot of history. Each week we will take one story and talk about it the cultural, historical, geographical and sociological impacts. We will be looking at these stories through the perspective of our ancestors, through the lens of ancient times, in hopes of learning more about our family. This is our ancient future story. Welcome back to our ancient future story. I'm Vic and I am so excited to conclude our Christmas story with you this week. Over the last few weeks we have talked about John the Baptist, mary and Joseph, the night that Jesus was born, and today I want to talk about the Wisemen. As we conclude the Christmas story, it may seem a little weird that we have waited until January to talk about the Wisemen, but I think it is very interesting that the Wisemen didn't actually come the night of the shepherds, but the Bible doesn't exactly tell us when they arrived to worship the child, only that they did. Often we understand the Wisemen as the three guys who came from the east to bring their gifts to Jesus. But it's a little more in-depth than that and a little more fascinating and a little more amazing than we ever thought possible. There are some pretty cool things about the Wisemen from the east who cared so much about this Hebrew baby being born, and why they followed a star in the sky. This is one of my favorite things about the Christmas story and I am so excited to share it with you today. So grab your cup of coffee or something to drink and let's get ready to dive into this true story of Christmas. The Wisemen Our story opens with. After Jesus was born, during the reign of King Herod, wisemen from the east came to Jerusalem looking for the one born king of the Jews, because they saw his star and have come to worship him. When Herod heard this, he was deeply troubled. There was another king in Israel when he had to know, so he called the chief priest and scribes to search the scriptures for the place that Christ would be born, and they read from Micah 2, which says O Bethlehem of Judah, you are not just a lowly village, for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people, israel. Then Herod summoned the wise men and asked them to confirm what time the star appeared in the sky. Then he sent them to Bethlehem and told them to return after finding the child so that he could go and worship him too. So the wise men headed to Bethlehem and the star they had seen in the sky rose and went before them to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced and going into the house they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then opened their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh and, being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way. When they had left, the angel warned Joseph in a dream to flee to Egypt with Mary and the child and stay there until he tells you otherwise, because Herod wants to kill him. So Joseph got up and packed up Mary and Jesus and headed to Egypt until the death of Herod. When Herod realized the wise men had outwitted him, he was furious and ordered all boys two years old and younger in Bethlehem to be put to death. He did this in accordance with the timeline the wise men had given him. After Herod had died, the angel appeared to Joseph and told him it was safe to return to Bethlehem. So Joseph got up and packed Mary and Jesus and headed back to his homeland. But when he heard Arcleus was ruling in his father's place and again being warned in a dream, he withdrew to Galilee, to a city called Nazareth. And that's the story of Christmas. The Messiah has entered the world and everyone, from lowly shepherds to Gentile kings have come to worship Him. Now lets talk about a short story in Jerusalem, us First location. Our story takes place in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, but starts on a journey from Persia in the East. At this time, the Persian Empire spanned from modern-day Iraq to modern-day Pakistan, and just inside the Western border was this elegant city of Babylon. Now, you may remember Babylon from the Old Testament. This was the place that the divided kingdom of Israel was taken during the exile. This was the place of King Nebuchadnezzar, of Shadrach, meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace of Daniel and the Lion's Den. This all happened in Babylon, and anytime the Bible says that someone is from the East, this is what they mean. The East is Babylon. So the wise men from Babylon in the Persian Empire came to see this child, which leads us to the second thing I think is fascinating. Persian wise men howled at. The wise men from a city 900 miles away from Jerusalem know about much less care about a baby being born to a young married couple. Well, for that we have to go back to Daniel and the story of Israel exile to Babylon. King Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem in about 597 BC. He then forced all the Jews in Babylon to live in captivity. Daniel was one of the people who was moved. A quick backstory on Daniel he's the son of King David and Abednego, so naturally the king wants him in his courts. This is where we get the story of Daniel's fast when he refuses to eat from the king's table. But him and his friends get stronger than all the other men and Daniel becomes an advisor to the king. One day in the second year of King Nebuchadnezzar's reign, the king had a dream that he did not understand, so he called all the wise men to see if they could interpret the dream. The wise men were consisted of magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and astrologers, but none of them could tell the king what his dream meant. However, word got out that the king couldn't understand his dream and that Daniel had wisdom and that he could interpret the dream for the king. So the king calls Daniel and Daniel rightly interprets the dream. Nebuchadnezzar is so impressed, he puts him in charge as the chief wise man. So now Daniel is the supervisor of all the magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and astrologers in Babylon. This position makes him the third person in charge in the kingdom, which is wild in the first place. But Daniel does not spoil this opportunity. When Nebuchadnezzar dies through a very gruesome death, his son, belchazar, takes over. One night, belchazar is hosting this elegant banquet with everyone there and this hand appears out of nowhere with writing on the wall. And again, like his father, belchazar calls all the wise men, the magicians and enchanters and sorcerers and astrologers and get them to interpret what the wall says. What does this mean? Again, none of them are able to answer. But Daniel can interpret it and he tells the king Belchazar that his kingdom and his reign is over because of the way he has treated Yahweh and therefore, this very night he will be overthrown by Mede and Persia. And that very night, just as the writing on the wall had said, belchazar was slain and Darius the Mede takes over the throne in Babylon. Now Darius keeps Daniel and two other administrators to oversee the 120s satraps, aka local governors of the Persian Empire. So again, we see Daniel rising through the ranks. Now, during this. Daniel is impressive and the king Darius wants to make him ruler over the entire kingdom, which is why the other administrators scheme to get him thrown into the lion's den in the first place. Historical fun fact Darius the Mede came to power around 539 BC. His son, xerxes the first, is the king in the story of Esther. Xerxes the first had a son, artaxerxes, who was the king that Nehemiah served and eventually appealed to in order to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. This will be important in a moment. So Daniel is serving the king's court as an administrator over the governors of Persia for King Darius the Mede when, in Daniel 9, 25 through 27, he has a dream and is visited by the angel Gabriel, who tells him about the anointed one who is to come Now. The anointed one in Greek is the word Christos or Christ, but in Hebrew the anointed one literally means Messiah, the prince. So Gabriel, the same Gabriel who speaks to Mary, the mother of Jesus, tells Daniel, almost 500 years earlier, of the promised Messiah. In this chapter, chapter 9 of Daniel Gabriel lays out the timeline for the Messiah, and I'm going to run through it with you really quickly, and I know this is going to be a lot of math, but I promise it is something so, so amazing. So stick with me. Gabriel says there will be seven sevens and then 62 sevens before the anointed one meets his demise. So there has been some debate whether or not the sevens are sets of sevens, like if it's weeks or days or years. Most scholars have come to agree that these sevens are sets of years. In other words, the seven sevens would be seven sets of seven years or seven times seven, which would equal 49 years plus 62 sets of sevens, or 434 years. Now it's important for us to know that during this time, the world based their calendar around the lunar cycle, so the calendar had 360 days, versus today where we have 365 based around the solar cycle. So we need to add the 434 years with the 49 years and we get a total of 483 years. Now here's where it gets interesting, because now we have to multiply that 483 years not by 365 days, but by 360. So that would give us about 173,880 days. So roughly, if we multiply that by 365, we get 476 years and 25 days in our calendar. So why does this matter? Gabriel said that the time of the demise of the anointed one would be 476 years and 25 days after the word went out about the rebuild of the temple, artiserxes approved Nehemiah's mission to rebuild the temple in roughly 445 BC. So that means the demise of the anointed one, the Messiah, will be 476 years and 25 days later, which is roughly 33 AD, exactly when Jesus died on the cross. So, through Daniel moves through the ranks of Debu Kanesar to Cyrus the Great and becomes chief wise man. So he's over all the astrologers and being born Hebrew. And definitely after Gabriel speaks to him about the promised Messiah, he shares the timeline of the Messiah. So, knowing the death date of the Messiah, daniel told everyone he was in charge of about the promised Messiah. So the astrologers were likely keeping record of the skies. When they saw his star, they knew the Messiah had been born. So I want to take a few minutes and talk about this star. How did they know it was his star? Well, this star was not one star but a combination of stars and planets. Remember, the wise men were astrologers. They knew the skies intimately and they knew not only the movement of the stars but of the connection to the gods. So the Bethlehem star was the perfect alignment of Jupiter, venus, regulus, leo and Virgo. Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system and is also the name of the highest god in the pagan Roman world. This is why Jupiter is called the king planet. Regulus is a massive star. Its name means little king. It's located in the sky as the eye of the constellation Leo, and for those of you who don't know constellations, leo is the lion and the little king star, regulus, is the eye of the lion. And what tribe is represented by the lion? Judah, the very tribe that was exiled to Babylon 500 years earlier. So we have this king planet, jupiter, the king star, regulus, and the lion of Judah. Now, venus is famously the Roman equivalent of the Greeks, aphrodite, the goddess of love, fertility and birth. So we have the king of Judah born, and then, just east of the constellation Leo, is the constellation Virgo, which is most often associated with virginity. So the skies are telling the story. Jupiter, the king planet, regulus, the king star, venus, for birth, all align in the eye of the lion Leo, next to the constellation Virgo, to emphasize the virginity. To the untrained eye, these planets aligning look like a very bright star in the sky. But to the wise men, who were experts of the sky, astrologers trained for generations under the teachings of Daniel, this crazy happenstance of stars would have been unheard of. And they knew, just as Daniel had prophesied. The anointed one, the Messiah, the prince, king of the Jews, was born. And they knew it because the sky told them so. The king of Judah is born to a virgin. I love that God always speaks to us in a way we can understand, even to Gentile kings. So the wise men learned about the Messiah from Daniel. They saw his star in the sky, but then they brought gifts, but not just any gifts. They brought gold, frankincense and myrrh. Now, what is interesting about these gifts is they were intentional. The gold is a symbol of kingship for the child, frankincense is a symbol of deity, of the child, and myrrh is an abominable oil symbolizing death of the child. Isn't it interesting how these gifts show the destiny of the baby, the God king destined to die. So why these gifts? How did they know to bring these specific gifts? Well, they knew from the stars that the baby was the king. They knew from tradition that frankincense was burned as a Roma to the gods, emphasizing the deity of the child, and because Daniel's prophecy they knew this child would die. Okay, so now we know who the wise men are, how they knew which star to follow and why they brought their gifts, but let's talk about when they arrived. When wise men arrived there's some debate on this. I was always told growing up that the wise men showed up two years later, and the main reasons for this were because of the house, the child's and hered killing all the two-year-olds and younger, while other scholars have argued know, the wise men showed up 12 days later and that's why we celebrate epiphany, because that's when the wise men arrived, but we really don't know when they arrived. However, knowing what we do know about the Katamala, the guest room, it's entirely possible that Mary and Joseph moved back into the house after Jesus was born and when the wise men showed up, they showed up to the house they were staying in. However, this picture makes me laugh because, knowing what we do know about the hospitality in this culture, they would have overextended themselves to show hospitality to these kings, to house them, feed them and welcome them to Bethlehem. So these kings from Babylon have come to see this child. Now the other part of the argument is about the child. Child is a general term for a person under the age of 13, because at the age of 13, they would have had their bet or bar mitzvah and be considered an adult. Now you may be asking if the wise men showed up 12 days later, why did Herod kill everyone two years old and younger? And it's a great question and there are two possibilities. The first is Herod was ruthless and kind of known for excessive murders, especially when there was a threat to his throne, so he could have just ordered everyone two years old and younger to ensure he got the right one. But the other option is, when the wise men arrived, herod asked them to tell him when they saw the star in the sky. So if he believed, the child was born when the star first appeared, two-year-olds and younger makes a little more sense. So, as we have discussed in previous episodes, jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament through covenants and prophecies and the law. So each time we meet together let's talk about how this points to Jesus. So our story today is about the wise men seeing the star in the sky. That points directly to the location of the promised Messiah, jesus, the king of Judah, born to a virgin. The message is clear even in the stars Yahweh has become a man. So before we go, I want to close our time together by reading the scriptures from which our story comes from today, in Matthew, chapter 2. I hope that as we listen and read this chapter together, that you will embrace all that we have learned and that this passage will be illuminated for you. Let's read he asked them where the Messiah was to be born In Bethlehem, in Judah. 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 shepherd my people, israel. Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time of the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said Go and search carefully 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 when they rose went ahead of them Until it stopped over the place when the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. Upon 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, frankincense and myrrh and, having been warned in a dream Not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another way. When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. Get up, he said, take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him. So he got up and took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod, so until it was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet Out of Egypt. I call my son. When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and in its vicinity who were two-year-olds and younger, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah, then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled. A voice is heard in Rama Weeping in great mourning, until weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted Because they are no more. After Herod died, an angel at the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child's life are dead. So he got up and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Arcleus was reigning in Judea In place of his father, herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So it was fulfilled that was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.