Wise Men Seek Him

Matthew 2 records a story that is not repeated in any other Gospel. This is interesting in and of itself, but more so, since the focus of the Magi was to worship the new King of the Jews. And Matthew’s focus was to tell the story to the Jews, and to illustrate that the object of the story was actually the heir to the throne of Israel. I heard two presentations on this topic this Christmas season and frankly had not given it much thought before.

It is time to change. This is fascinating. There are several astute studies explaining the appearance of the star.
Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, 2 “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him.” 3 When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 Gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 They said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for this is what has been written by the prophet:
First, a meteorite is pretty easy to rule out. Herod and evidently very few others in Jerusalem noticed the “star.” A meteorite or comet would both be evident and the object of much wonder. The magi would have been able to ask about anyone about it.

It could have been a supernova. But that would not have “behaved” like this star did. Another option would be a supernatural event and all of the conditions would have been satisfied. But in that instance, the Magi would not have been anticipating it, and why would God have shown it to them, way over in what was ancient Babylon? They came to worship, but others could have been shown the miracle also. It seems to be implied that they were looking for something, and when they saw it, they knew it was the King of the Jews. How could this be?

And here, we run into a fantastic confluence (pun intended, it will be obvious later) confluence of events and circumstances that culminated in the Magi traveling to Jerusalem, then Bethlehem to see this wonder. It is pretty well accepted that they came from Babylon or that area.

Why were the wise men looking for a sign? I think that we can turn back to the book of Daniel for an explanation. Daniel 1:20 begins the explanation: (Daniel and his friends are examined by Nebuchadnezzar.)
As for every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king consulted them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and conjurers who were in all his realm. (Note: Magicians and conjurers watched the stars.)
Then the four of them became personal advisors to the Nebuchadnezzar. And we know from chapters 2, 4, and 5 that Daniel would interpret dreams and visions. He also had visions that consisted of detailed prophesies of what would happen in the future. We will only consider chapter 9 here. We will not explore it in depth, but just the relevant items to our study.

First Daniel is given a vision of 70 weeks, or 70, seven year periods: 490 years. The beginning of this would be from the “decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem.” We are not going to repeat the study of this timing, but you can check it out on your own. (See note below.) That decree to return home was given by Cyrus, the king of Persia. The command to rebuild and city and temple came later. (There is some dispute as to which command exactly was the one, but for our purposes that is irrelevant.)  The time line was to run for 490 years. Verse 24 outlines it as applying to Israel and Jerusalem and it would bring a culmination to the story that began back in Genesis when the Lord chose Abram, renamed him Abraham, and established a covenant for land and his offspring. Genesis 12 begins the narrative.

So Daniel was shown the final stages of God’s working with men, through Abraham and his offspring. Do you imagine that he was somewhat elated and rejoicing. Look at the wording in verse 24. Here is what will happen: it will
...finish the transgression, make an end of sin, make atonement for iniquity, bring in everlasting righteousness, seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place.

We again, will not exegete all of the details, but everything will be wrapped up. What a blessing. And it will only be 490 years from the “decree.” Or will it...?
Messiah will be cut off and have nothing,
You can figure out the timing, but it amounts to 483 years after the decree, the metaphorical clock will stop. Then some very disturbing events occur.

First, “the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary.” This has to occur after week 69 and before the 70th week, thus demonstrating that the 490 years are not consecutive. From Daniels’ perspective, the city and sanctuary were already destroyed. This implies that the intervening 483 years will find it rebuilt and now destroyed again. “And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined.” (We know this happened in AD 70.)

All of this sounds devastating, again. Daniel was less than 70 years removed from witnessing the first destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. Now it will be repeated. There is more:
And he (the prince) will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, (seven years) but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate.”

It sounds like things are going to become even worse than when Nebuchadnezzar decimated the city. Again, we will forego the explicit explanation, but this leads us into our story. We do not know if Daniel witnessed the command to return to Jerusalem. But we do know that he was an advisor to Cyrus, and he had counted the years, 70 to be precise, from the time that Jerusalem was destroyed and he had been taken captive. The command should be near. It was.

Now back to our story. I do not consider this to be too much of a conjecture. Daniel was the “top dog” of the “wise men” under Nebuchadnezzar and probably under the subsequent rulers of Media and Persia. Is it too far fetched to venture a guess that he taught his “followers” about Israel, and the Jews’ God? And he could point back to prophesy that had been fulfilled, up to his personal deportation from Jerusalem. So when he got the “new message,” he would have been impelled to share that with his team, and the message was passed down through the years.

Now would it be surprising that some “wise men” in Babylon were looking for a sign of the coming King? We can estimate that about 450 years have passed since the decree, and many generations had perpetuated the “watch.” Maybe only a few faithful ones remained, and they were the ones who noticed the star and had to go see for themselves. This could account for the number of seekers. We call them wise men, because they were seeking the Messiah, the King.

And what caused them such excitement? Again, several suggestions are proposed, but the one I like best is that two planets, Jupiter and Venus came so close to each other that they seemed to merge into one, very bright star. They did not eclipse one another, because that would have blocked the light of one. But coming so close to each other in conjunction would produce the brightest light in the heavens. Recall that they are actually billions of miles apart, but “line uup” in our perspective on earth as they orbit the sun.

And, because of the apparently odd behavior of planets in the sky, Jupiter appeared to circle around in the heavens and return to the place where it had appeared. (Retrogression is due to the earth and the planet both orbiting the Sun and our perspective changes.) This very unusual conjunction of Venus and Jupiter and the apparent circling of Jupiter was what attracted their attention. Nothing like this had occurred in their memory or records, so it is not surprising that they noticed it.

And, again in conjunction with the prophesy in Daniel, these extraordinary events captured their imagination and lives, for a while. Their “understanding of prophesy” is not stretching the facts, because Simeon, a devout Jew also “saw” this. Luke 2:25, 26
25 And there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel; and the Holy Spirit was upon him. 26 And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.
Somehow, perhaps using Daniel’s prophesy also, he had estimated the time of the Lord’s coming. The Holy Spirit could have used the same message to reveal the “time” to him. (The Lord uses the Scripture to instruct us today, too. What a blessing. But I digress.)

Did you notice the term for Simeon’s search? He was...”looking for the consolation of Israel.” What could that mean? Interestingly, it turns us back to Genesis 3:15. The key phrase is:
“And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

My mother quoted this verse often when a snake crawled into our farmyard. She would chop off its head with her garden hoe, declaring that old snakey would not get her heel. It was kept 4-5 feet away. My brother quipped that a snake in the yard was like Christmas. “Hoe! Hoe! Hoe!”

The Lord was talking to the serpent, who is identified for us in Revelation 12:9 and 20:2. He is the Devil, Satan. So Eve’s “seed,” or son would crush the serpent’s head and be injured, Himself.  Seems “interesting” that Christmas, or Christ’s coming would unite Genesis and Revelation. Now Easter is included. I think that conjunction was planned What a story.

So Simeon joined the crowd of wise men. (Just for the record, there were many in the OT, including Daniel.) Imagine their elation when they actually encountered the Baby. “This is HE!”

Let’s go one step farther. Luke 2:36-38 introduces
...a prophetess, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years and had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37 and then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple, serving night and day with fastings and prayers. 38 At that very moment she came up and began giving thanks to God, and continued to speak of Him to all those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

This is an additional “conjunction” as they “just happened” to be in the Temple when Mary and Joseph brought the baby. We could learn from Anna’s devotion, but look at her outreach. She spoke “to all those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.” Jerusalem was still there, but under Roman domination. Did she just want the Romans gone, or something more significant? Editorially, I do not think that she was thinking about a liberated Jerusalem in the condition it was then. An ordinary baby would not have elicited such a response.

But the “seed” from Genesis 3:15 surely would. Now we have wise women seeking Him. This story is getting better and better. It never grows old. We dare not ever let it grow common or routine or tedious. The delirious excitement we experienced during our early Christmas celebrations should grip us more powerfully than ever before when we consider what this means.

The wise men traveled many miles over the Middle Eastern desert to get there. Their homeland is variously identified as from Babylon (as we did here) or as far away as Iran. That varies from 500 to over 1100 miles. Either way, that was an arduous journey in those days. (And with the current political climate, it is not a “friendly” one today.) They were serious about finding the Messiah.

Here is another conjunction. Their route from Babylon to Jerusalem probably coincided with the one Abram followed when he left Ur, of the Chaldees, and transported his household to the promised land. I wonder if they pondered that.

Simeon and Anna had not traveled such a distance, but, apparently they had devoted a major portion of their lives in the quest. And now we get the opportunity to follow in their steps. Is there a conjunction that will guide us?

One last thought. From Genesis 3:15 to the birth, people were “looking for” the Savior. (Or Messiah) Once He went back to heaven His believers have been “looking for” His second coming. But what about the guys on earth when He was here? He was HERE! They could look for Him right there. So for all eternity, man has been watching for the Coming One. We are coming close to the end of that watch. He is coming again.

The wise men, Simeon, and Anna were seeking the Messiah to worship Him. Herod was seeking the Baby to murder him. What are you seeking? Who are you seeking and why? Christmas reminds us that He came, but more that He is coming again. Maranatha

Wise men seek Him.


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