After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” ... After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.
Luke 2.1-2,9
Over and over the Bible baffles out curiosity about how certain things happened. How did this "star" get the magi from the East to Jerusalem? It says they saw his star and came to Jerusalem. And how did that star go before them in the little five mile walk from Jerusalem to Bethlehem? How did the star stop over the place where the child was?
The answer is, we do not know. There are numerous efforts to explain it in terms of conjunctions of planets or comets or supernovas or miraculous lights, but the truth is, we just don't know.
I want to exhort you not to become preoccupied with developing theories that are only tentative in the end and have very little spiritual significance. In fact, I will risk a generalization to warn you: People who are exercised and preoccupied with such things as how the star worked and how the Red Sea split and how the manna fell and how Jonah survived in the fish and how the moon turns to blood are generally people who have what I call a mentality for the marginal. You do not see in them a deep cherishing of the great central things of the gospel-the holiness of God, the ugliness of sin, the helplessness of man, the death of Christ, justification by faith, the sanctifying work of the Spirit, the glory of Christ's return, and the final judgment. They always seem to be taking you down a sidetrack with a new article or book.
What is plain concerning the matter of the star is that it is doing something that it cannot do on its own: it is guiding magi to the Son of God to worship him.
There is only one Person in biblical thinking who can be behind such intentionality in the stars-God himself. So the lesson in plain: God is guiding foreigners to Christ to worship him. And he is doing it be exerting global-probably even universal-influence and power.
Luke shows the God influencing the entire Roman Empire so that the census comes at the exact time to get a virgin to Bethlehem to fulfill prophecy with her delivery, and Matthew shows God influencing the stars in the sky to get the magi to Bethlehem so that they can worship him. This is God's design. He did it then, and he is still doing it now. His aim is that the nations-all the nations (Matthew 24.14)-worship his Son. This is God's will for everybody in your office at work, in your neighborhood, and in your home.
At the beginning of Matthew we have a "come-see" pattern. But in the end, the pattern is "go-tell." The magi and saw. We are to go and tell. In both cases, the purpose of God is the ingathering of the nations to worship his Son. The magnifying of Christ in the white-hot worship of all nations is the reason the world exists.
This is a excerpt from 'Joy to the World-Daily Readings for Advent' by John Piper.
Comments