Wise Men Still Seek Him-Part 2

“And when they were come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down, and worshipped Him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto Him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.”  Matthew 2:11

Picking up with the account of the wise men’s trek to seek the new King, Herod had sent them on their way demanding that they return and provide him with the location of Jesus for he claimed that he wanted to go and worship Him, too.  In this account, we see the providence of God at work here.  Herod, a very wicked and suspicious person, trusted these wise men, strangers to him, to comply with his demand.  He didn’t even send his own men to follow them.  I suppose Herod’s ego made him think that no one would dare defy his command.  There is no indication that the wise men doubted Herod’s sincerity as he pretended to be happy about Jesus’ birth.  The wise men continued on their journey following the star.

These visitors from Persia were eager to find Jesus, but apparently no one in Bethlehem or even in Jerusalem, except Herod, were interested in coming to see the new King.  Even at this early age of Jesus, He was already being rejected by the very ones He came to save.  The wise men followed the star until it stood still over the house in which Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were lodging.  Upon entering the house, the wise men fell down and worshipped Jesus.  They also presented gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, which is where we get our tradition of giving gifts at Christmas, but I doubt any of us think about those first gifts of Christmas so long ago when we are ripping wrapping paper and enjoying our new stuff.

These three gifts would provide not only financial help to Jesus’ family, but symbolically illustrate Jesus’ future.  The gold was symbolic of Christ’s kingship.  Kings required gold to be paid to them as a tribute.  Frankincense honored Christ’s divinity.  Burning incense represented the holy, sweet fragrance of the sovereign and holy God.  Myrrh was a gum resin that was used as a perfume, for embalming, and in the holy anointing oil and thus symbolized the future crucifixion that Jesus would suffer as the perfect Sacrifice for man’s sins.

After the wise men left Bethlehem, they camped out, intending to return to Herod, but, in a dream that they all had while asleep that night, they were warned not to return to Herod.  They took a different route home avoiding Jerusalem.  Herod, anticipating their return, soon realized that they were not returning to him, and he became irate at being mocked by the strangers from Persia.  He couldn’t let it go.  He came up with an idea in an attempt to destroy the new King of Israel by ordering his men to kill all children two years of age and under.  Herod was indeed a hateful and revengeful man.  Joseph was also warned in a dream to take Jesus and Mary and flee to Egypt until God said that it was safe to return to Israel.  After Herod died, God told Joseph to return to Israel, but he was still fearful when he heard that the new governor was Herod’s son, Archelaus.  God again warned him to flee to the land of Galilee, the city of Nazareth, a fulfillment of prophecy which foretold that Jesus would be a Nazarene.

It is difficult for our finite, human minds to wrap around such a horrific event as the deaths of all these children at the hands of Herod.  The 18th century Bible commentator, Matthew Henry, tries to help us put this into perspective.  He wrote, “It was no unrighteous thing for God to permit this; every life is forfeited to His justice as soon as it commences; that sin which entered by one man’s (Adam’s) disobedience, introduced death with it; and we are not to suppose anything more than that common guilt, we are not to suppose that these children were sinners above all that were in Israel, because they suffered such things.  God’s judgments are a great deep.  The diseases and deaths of little children are proofs of original sin.  But we must look upon this murder of the infants under another character: it was their martyrdom.  How early did persecution commence against Christ and His kingdom!…What they got in heaven, they were abundantly recompensed for what they lost on earth.”  As horrible as that event was, for the last 50 or so years, millions of babies have been slaughtered through abortion which is sanctioned by our government.  There are apparently too many Herods among us and certainly not enough Josephs who are willing to seek the Savior and stand for righteousness.