Our eighth lesson comes from Matthew chapter two, verses one through 11. Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem saying, where is he that is born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east and we are come to worship him. And Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born. And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet, And thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Judea, art not thou the least among the princes of Judah. For out of thee shall come a governor that shall rule my people Israel. Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, inquired of them diligently what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, go and search diligently for the young child. And when ye have found him, bring me word again that I also may come and worship him. When they had heard the king, they departed. And lo, the star which they saw in the east went before them till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother and fell down and worshiped him. When they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Probably all of you have in the last few weeks received a Christmas card depicting three men on a clear night riding on camels following a star overlooking Bethlehem. There are hundreds of pages of poems written around this event and songs that celebrate it. But what is the it that is celebrated? Why are our imaginations captivated by this journey of the wise men? Why the wise men in the gospel narrative? That's what we're going to seek to answer this evening. Why the wise men in the gospel narrative? And to answer that question, we need to explore in the first place who they were, and then how they came, and most significantly, what they brought. So those will be our headings for the evening. who they were, how they came, and what they brought. The first question we need to answer to be able to answer the question, why the wise men, is just who were these wise men? The famous Christmas carol, which we'll sing soon, We Three Kings of Orient, appears to answer that question. Three in number, kings from the Orient, or from East Asia. The problem is that they were absolutely not kings, Their number is unknown and they were almost certainly not from the Orient. In fact, biblical text provides very little information about these men and that in itself is significant. The text is keeping us focused on the main thing and not on the peripheral things. And our tendency is to veer to the peripheral things, isn't it? How many angels can stand on the head of a needle? And the text is directing us to the main thing. What is important here, it's not so much the precise identity and details of these men, but rather their journey, we'll see in a moment. and more than that, their gifts. Nevertheless, the text does tell us what we need to know about who these men were, and that's important for us to understand their journey and their gifts. We know that they were wise men, or in Greek, they were magi. These were Gentile scientists. These were the scholars of the day. They were often associated with the royal palace in service to the king. They were court advisors. They were interested in the nature of things. They wanted to know how things work. But more significantly, they wanted to find in nature the meaning of world events. And so they studied the stars, the heavenly bodies, in order to find the meaning of world events. These are men of the world. Worldly wisdom is their pursuit. They came from the east, very likely from Babylon, where you remember Daniel and his three friends were educated in the school of the Magi. Daniel himself became a Magi in Babylon. In fact, he became the chief Magi in Babylon, interpreting the dreams of the kings. And you remember the dream of a little stone, a pebble not made with human hands, toppling the mighty statue composed of four different metals, each representing a kingdom of this world. Not only did that stone topple them, it ground them to dust, the wind blew away, and that stone grew to fill the earth. In Daniel 7, he has a vision of the Son of Man receiving a kingdom from the Most High, the Ancient of Days, and there Daniel references the Oracle of Balaam from Numbers 24 that said, the utterance of the man whose eyes are opened, the utterance of him who hears the words of God, and has the knowledge of the Most High, who sees the vision of the Almighty. I see him, but not now. I behold him, but not near. A star shall come out of Jacob. A scepter shall rise out of Israel. A new kingdom, a new star, a new king. And this was very likely something that would have been kept in the school of the Magi through the centuries. It was a mystery to them. And for these Magi in our text who had studied the heavenly bodies to notice a new and strange star in the sky, they thought they were on the cusp of solving an ancient mystery. You see, they believed that the heavenly bodies, those cosmic forces of the universe, that they had direct bearing on human affairs and this appearance of a new object in the heavens was deeply significant for them. Now, quickly, a word about the star. You can read all kinds of things about what that star was or is and when it will return and we get, this is the periphery, right? We get too caught up in trying to figure out exactly what it was, and what we need to recognize is that in the ancient world, the classification of such things was much broader than they are today. Star could refer to any number of things in the night sky. It could have been anything from a new star, a comet, or even some supernatural light. The point is not what it was, but what did it mean? And these Magi were convinced that it meant that a new king has been born to the Jews and so they began their journey. Magi followed the stars moving across the sky until they came to Judea. They were intent on finding the Christ. And keep that in mind, this is in direct contrast to Herod and his Magi. They come to Judea, intent on finding the Christ, and it's here that they actually get lost. They made assumptions about the route to take once they had arrived in Judea, worldly assumptions that led them astray. And this is a lesson for us, because we, like them, and even like the Corinthians after them, are all too prone to be led by worldly wisdom. You see, worldly wisdom, human logic, told these magi that a new king obviously meant a royal palace. And a royal palace obviously meant a royal city. And so they went to Jerusalem. They went to Herod. And there they found no new king, but rather an old man. Herod called his own Magi, whose area of expertise was the scriptures and the literature of the Jews, and there they found in the prophet Micah a passage that we've read together this evening, but you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you were little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to me, the one to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting. Here was the place. and they came to find their way. And in fact, they came to find the way, the truth, and the life, not via worldly wisdom and logic, but by the scriptures. It was when the word of God became a lamp to their feet and a light to their path that they went the right way. And this is no less true for us, that if we're ever to know the way and understand the incarnation, the God-man, we need more than providential events like a star We need the book. We need the word of God. We need the Bible. But it's just at this point that we see another, if not different sort of getting lost, a different sort of wrong turn in the text. Herod and these magi of Jerusalem had the scriptures. They knew the scriptures. And yet their response to these pagan magi was, go and search carefully for the young child, and when you've found him, bring back word to me that I may come and worship him also. It wasn't to, well, hang on and let me saddle the horses, that I might go and bow before this king of kings. But you go, let me know what you find. And the wrong turn they made was this, they mistook their Bible knowledge for saving faith. Here are the Bible experts of the day who no more know the one whose word it is than the worst of pagans. And we in the church, privileged kids, kids, you are privileged to have grown up in the church. to be taught the Bible and catechized by that outstanding summary of the Bible, the Westminster Catechisms, we have to be careful not to confuse knowing facts with saving faith. They're not the same thing. Because if we truly know him and believe on him as the savior of sinners, then we'll be compelled to bow before him and worship. And this is exactly what these pagan magi did. They searched for him, they find him, and then we find them worshiping him. And as they bowed before the Lord of glory, wrapped in the dust of our humanity, they presented gifts to him. Verse 11, when they'd come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary, his mother, and fell down and worshiped him. When they'd opened their treasures, they presented gifts to him, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The gifts they brought were certainly gifts fit for a king, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. They were not cheap. Gifts fit for a king. But as we'll see, they were more so gifts fit for a sacrifice. Gold, it's always been a symbol of royalty. They were recognizing Jesus as king. They were recognizing his right to rule, not just in Judah, but the world. And this our Carol gets right. Born a king on Bethlehem's plain, gold I bring to crown him again king forever, ceasing never, over us all to reign. But Jesus' life, you know, very shortly after being presented this gold would soon become anything but kingly. Herod, jealous for his own primacy, sought the life of the Christ child. Mary and Joseph were forced to flee to Egypt in order to save their little one. You see, already the grave was beckoning. Being poor, how would they make it nearly two years in a foreign land? In the providence of God, these magi provided the means, gold for the king of kings. Frankincense, produced by mixing the fragrant resin of the boswellia tree with oil, it was an expensive oil that was used in temple worship to anoint the priest and sprinkle on the grain offerings, as well as the thank offerings. And in offering such a gift to Jesus, it pointed to Jesus Christ as our high priest. A priest was one who mediated between God and sinful man. He was one who carried the people as he bore their names upon him into the most holy place where God resided in the glory cloud above the chair of him. He was the one who offered sacrifices on behalf of the people that their sins might be atoned for, a way open for them to come to God. Christ, as our great high priest, is the one whose whole life was acceptable and well-pleasing to his father, who would not only mediate and offer a sacrifice for us, but who was himself that sacrifice. Frankincense to offer have I. Incense owns a deity nigh. Prayer and praising, all men raising, worship him God on high. Myrrh was a fragrant gum resin found in a thorny little bush in the ancient Near East. It was used in embalming. It spoke of death. As the carol goes, myrrh is mine, it's bitter perfume, breathes a life of gathering gloom, sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, sealed in a stone cold tomb. We get gold, we get frankincense, but myrrh is an odd gift for a little baby who is king of kings and lord of lords. It may well have been offensive, but when we understand who this Jesus Christ is and what he's come to do, it's neither odd nor offensive, but it is a gift of faith. Jesus Christ, born to die. The magi, in some way, are recognizing this, and they come in faith that those soft little hands which gripped Mary's fingers were made to have nails driven through them, that that sweet little head was made to have a crown of thorns thrust upon it. Here are gifts fit for a sacrifice. For this little one was the spotless lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world by bearing them on himself, by paying their penalty, offering perfect righteousness for wretched rebels. Surely, the prophet says, surely he's borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed. Paul, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich. And beloved, this is the gospel. God sent his son to us, gave him for us, and for our sins on the cross, he who knew no sin became sin for us, for he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. And when we trust in him, when we receive God's free grace, we receive God's free gift of salvation in Christ. As that other Christmas hymn goes, mild he lay his glory by. born that man may no more die, born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth. And this, beloved, is what Christmas is all about. And the question before you, then, is what will you do? Will you come by the way, the truth, and the life, the only way to the Father, Jesus Christ, the great sin-bearer, the great sin-atoning sacrifice, or will you rely on worldly wisdom to try to light your path? Will you rely on brute knowledge of the scriptures, apart from faith? One thing is for certain. If like the Magi, you come to him in faith, resting in his person as the God-man, and in his work as the Redeemer, dying upon a cross, rising from the dead, having stood in your place, having bore your sins, having paid the infinite penalty that you deserve, you'll be compelled to do one thing, to bow down and worship. Saints, let's stand together and worship the insert in your bulletin, we three kings.