A Strange Visit: Matthew 2:1-12 (I)

"In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, 2 asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” 3 When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; 4 and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: 6 ‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.’” 7 Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. 8 Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.”

9 When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. 11 On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road."

I. Introduction

As we look at this familiar story one more time, I would urge attention to the following points: (1) the Biblical (OT) traditions underlying this story; (2) the Magi as "scientific" people outside the faith community being drawn to worship; (3) the portrait of Herod; and (4) The (altered) quotation of the OT in v.6. The point that is most instructive for me is the ability of the scholars/wisemen/magi still to feel astonished when something new comes into their line of sight. The most arresting verse of the entire passage, in the Greek, is v. 10. The Greek emphasizes the quality of the wisemen's joy with four consecutive words (lit. "and they rejoiced with a joy, a great one, indeed an exceedingly great one"). Their seeking and finding the Christ was the result of following their training and their inclination. Rather than just taking minute observations of the movement of the heavenly bodies, they engaged their hearts in their enterprise, opening their lives and not just their minds to the fruit of discovery. These men are not only illustrations of the drawing magnetic of the Gospel to those outside of faith, but they demonstrate the spirit of inquiry, diligence and submission to truth that ought to characterize those of scientific temperament and action.

Let's turn to each of the four themes listed above.

II. Biblical "Echoes" in Matt. 2:1-12

The OT Scripture was a living book, or collection of books, to the NT writers. It shaped their religious education and filled their mental universe with images, stories, exhortations and psalms. The passage from this morning seems to draw strength from at least 3 OT texts/stories: (a) the visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon (I K. 10); (b) the vision of Balaam the Prophet (Num. 24); and (c) the general picture of Moses the vulnerable child and Pharoah the irrational ruler in the first chapters of Exodus. When you add to this a quotation from the OT, you have a story which evokes deep memories of the community of Israel.

The Queen of Sheba, from the East, came to visit Solomon with her retinue and gifts because she had heard stories of his greatness. She, like the magi of Matt. 2, would go away amazed at what she saw; it was greater even than was narrated to her. The verse in I K. 10 which corresponds to the exceedingly great joy of the wisemen in Matt. 2:10 is I K. 10:4-5:

"When the queen of Sheba had observed all the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built, the food of his table, the seating of his officials, and the attendance of his servants, their clothing, his valets, and his burnt offerings that he offered at the house of the Lord, there was no more spirit in her..."

As the Cowardly Lion says in the Wizard of Oz, after getting his courage from the Wizard, "Gosh folks, I'm speechless..." Indeed, as Jesus will say later, "Something greater than Solomon is here" (Matt. 12:42).

The story of Balaam might not only have provided some background for the "star" imagery of Matt. 2 but also the notion of the prophet as some kind of visionary or magician. The narrative is one of the most engaging in the OT, pitting the king of Moab (Balak) against the Israelite prophet (Balaam) in an attempt to curse the people of God (Num. 22-24). In his last prophecy, Balaam says, "I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near--a star shall come out of Jocob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel" (Num. 24:17).

Then, the entire complex of stories from Ex.1-4, in which Moses is born under Pharoah's rule, hidden in the rushes, has to flee from Egypt to avoid Pharoah's wrath and then, eventually, returns to Egypt after those who sought his life had died, provides a rich background for our story. Jesus will be a "new Moses" in Matthew 2-4, as he prepares to give the "new law" in Matt. 5-7.

III. The Magi

Speculation has abounded regarding who these men were (there is no mention of three wise men in the text; that is introduced later, probably based on the three gifts they bring). RT France, in his new commentary on The Gospel of Matthew, says that a magos in antiquity could describe three things: a magician, an astrologer and an interpreter of dreams (p. 66). Astrology was considered one of the "exact sciences" in antiquity, but magicians and dream interpreters were normally perceived as persons on the margins of life. Indeed dream interpretations relating to the royal family were outlawed in the Roman Empire, probably based on the fear that if someone "dreamed" that Claudius or Nero might be murdered then he just might be murdered. Magicians inhabited the fringes of respectable society, too. The earliest Christians distanced themselves from magic, with the story of Simon Magus (Acts 13) or the burning of the magicians' books in Ephesus (Acts 19) indicating the early Christian attitude towards magic.

The embrace, therefore, of the wisemen in this early tradition is rather strikingly opposite to the Acts stories. I think that Matthew's story carries significant theological weight for us in 2008. It illustrates for us the right attitude in which scientific scholarship is to be carried out--with an inquisitiveness that leads to action and, if the evidence confirms the hypothesis (i.e., the King of the Jews is about to be born), to worship. We have swallowed the notion in the West that scientific inquiry is to be carried out with a kind of critical detachment, as if the inquirer is above or superior to the phenomena s/he studies. All the work of hypothesis, testing, replication, theories, and, not least, acquiring federal funding, can make those in the various fields of science tend to hold back their hearts from the results of their work. But what if a study of chemical structures of the elements leads to wonder? What if the study of nature, and a discovery of new species of insects or trees or other living things simply brings awe to the investigator? Isn't that, indeed, the goal of all our inquiry? I am not a person technically trained in the study of trees or insects, but as I immersed myself in the worlds of these phenomena last year (in honor of the 300th anniversary of Linnaeus' birth), I began to be amazed by the remarkable lessons in life communicated to us by "mute" nature.

One more essay completes these thoughts.

3185