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INTRODUCTION
Christmas is the season of hope.

In the weeks leading up to Christmas if you could measure hope with some kind of instrument like a weather balloon you would find the atmosphere crackling with hope.

?I hope I get an iPod for Christmas.?
?I hope I get Tickle Me Elmo.?
?I hope I get a Lexus.?

This kind of hope is a wish for something good that is sometimes fulfilled but often not. While we may be disappointed if we don?t get what we hope for the consequences are usually not devastating.

New Years is also a season of hope, but this kind of hope is usually less trivial.

?I hope I get to keep my job this year.?
?I hope I beat my cancer this year.?
?I hope we are blessed with a child this year.?

Hope.

Even the sound of that word can lift your spirits when you?re down. Hope keeps you going when life seems to be going nowhere or going in the wrong direction.

Hope gives you something to cling to when you?ve lost your job, or your health, or someone you love. Hope is a spark inside your soul that tells you that tomorrow things will be better.

Hope is like having an anchor in the future.

But the problem with hope is that it is nearly always based upon uncertainty. For example, we may say ?I hope it will not rain tomorrow.? That kind of hope is a wish, not a certainty. We can hope all we like for something, and all the indications may be that it will come true, but life is unpredictable and things can change at the last moment and dash all our hopes.

However, the Bible teaches about a unique kind of hope that is never a wish. It is always based upon an absolute certainty. You can hope for these things with the utter confidence that they will happen. It?s the kind of hope that the Wise Men of the Nativity Story had. The hope of the Wise Men was based upon what God had promised. And, since God always fulfills His promises, we can look forward to it with absolute hope.

So what were the Wise Men hoping to find when they traveled all the way to Bethlehem in that first Christmas season? They were hoping to find the King who will bring an end to war and suffering and injustice. They were hoping to find the King who would bring everlasting love and joy and peace to this world.

But how did they know He was coming? And what did a star have to do with their search? And what has all of this to do with me?

It has to do with me because hope is one of the strongest motivators in the human soul. Even hope built on the slightest possibility of something good can keep you going. But the best kind of hope is hope that is anchored to a certainty. That?s what Biblical hope is all about! The Bible talks a lot of about hope in order to encourage us when life goes wrong.

This kind of hope is always inextricably tied to Jesus. If we believe in Him we have the hope (certainty) of eternal life. If we follow him, we have the hope (certainty) of His guidance, protection, provision and care every day of our lives. Jesus is the anchor that links us to the promises of God that lie in the future for God?s people.

This lesson was illustrated for us by the Wise Men, or Magi, who visited Jesus when he was a child. The Magi arrived in Jerusalem after a long, expensive and difficult journey. What brought them to Jerusalem was not a wish but a certainty. They were certain that the king of the Jews had been born and they had come to worship him.

The Wise Men teach us that . . .

? God is the source of hope
? Jesus is the fulfillment of hope
? We gain hope when we follow Jesus

GOD IS THE SOURCE OF HOPE

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem
Matthew 2:1 (NIV)

Much of what has been written about the Magi is based upon speculation or traditions that may have no basis in fact. For example, they were not kings but were rather advisors to kings. Another example is that tradition that there were ?three? of them (probably because of the three gifts presented) but we really don?t know how many there were. Scripture isn?t specific about the number of magi ? there could have been three, or even fourteen. Even though there are some things we don?t know about them, here are some things we do know about the Magi?

The Magi were from either Persia or Babylon. The word Magi comes from the Greek word magoi which is in turn a Persian word for a select set of priests. These priests functioned as the religious, civil, and political counsel to the kings of Media and Persia. In time their power grew to the extent that they became the ?king-makers? whose duties included the election of the king of the realm. Their education included a mix of astronomy, astrology, science, and religion.

They studied the stars and the influence of the stars on the lives and destinies of people and nations. They were also interpreters of dreams.

There are three observations I can make fairly confidently about these men.

1. They were Gentiles.
That simply means that they were non-Jews and were of non-Israeli heritage.

2. They were scholars.
They were men who sought to advance their learning.

3. They were influenced by Jewish history and were open to spiritual things.
It is on this last point that I want to dwell on for a bit. For the magi the tale began with the appearance of a star. In their country in the East these magi had seen a star that was obviously out of the ordinary. More than likely these magi consulted some of their textbooks and writings to discern what the significance of this star would be. As they consulted these texts they would have come across something recorded by one of their own – a magi, like them who in the past had an experience that was recorded in their learned texts. This magi was known as Belteshazzar (Daniel 1:7) and in the time of one of the greatest kings of Babylonian history, Nebuchadnezzar, this man served as chief magi (Daniel 5:11). To the Jewish people and to many of us here today this man is better known by the name Daniel and an entire book of the Bible records the events surrounding his life. What is significant about Daniel is that because of the position of favor God had given him in the courts of the Kings of Babylon and Persia. Daniel, as one of the learned ?king-makers?, would have had many of his teachings and words recorded and studied by the magi who came after him in history. Thus what we find recorded in the Bible was more than likely also recorded in the books found in the house of the magi.

This is important because what the magi in our story today learned of God would have been learned primarily through the prophet Daniel. Although as a young man Daniel had been taken to Babylon as a prisoner of war, because of his faith in God, he had risen to become an advisor first to the king of Babylon and then later the king of Persia after the Persians conquered Babylon. Daniel and his friends Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego served in the same role as magi did in advising the kings. They had such a powerful influence on Persian culture that centuries later these wise men would have read something significant that would bring them to the newborn King of the Jews.

What is it they read? Speaking through the prophet Daniel, God told the world that His King (Messiah means anointed one) was coming.

“Seventy ’sevens’ are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy. “Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ’sevens,’ and sixty-two ’sevens.’ It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. After the sixty-two ’sevens,’ the Anointed One will be cut off and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed.
Daniel 9:24-26 (NIV)

In your notes I?ve given reference to where you can learn about the steps taken to draw the conclusions I?ll speak about here ? to remain focused I?ll leave it to you to examine on your own if you want to know the reasoning behind what I say.

In this passage, the angel Gabriel (the same angel who visited Mary) told Daniel that the King would come 483 years after a decree was issued to rebuild Jerusalem. Given Daniel?s position as the chief advisor in the Persian court it seems likely that he told the rest of the advisory council about this prophecy and that it was recorded in some fashion.

Whether the magi read this in their own books or studied the Septuagint ? the Greek translation of the Old Testament ? it is through this message Daniel received and passed on that they came into contact with the messianic hope.

The Persian king Artaxerxes Longimanus was the one who issued the decree to rebuild Jerusalem on the date we now call March 5, 444 B.C. By calculating the years that had passed since the issuing of the decree the Magi were able to estimate that the coming of the Anointed One was drawing near. I believe that the fact that these magi made such a difficult journey in order to worship this King strongly suggests that they at some point had come to believe in the God of the Jews.

(By the way, Daniel?s prophecy came true to the day! As Gabriel had prophesied, 483 years after the decree was issued, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey and allowed the crowds to acclaim Him as the Anointed one!)

Since the Magi were looking forward to the coming of the King, God sent them a supernatural signal that confirmed the arrival of Jesus: a unique star.

Regardless of whether God used an existing astronomical phenomenon or created one for the occasion, its function on behalf of the Magi was supernatural in that it announced the birth of the King.

We are not sure how they put the star together with the birth of Jesus. Perhaps in the readings of the Greek Old Testament they came to the prophecy of Balaam and to that cryptic reference in Numbers 24:17:

“I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel?
Numbers 24:17 (NIV)

The star may easily have been a supernatural creation of God. The whole narrative of the birth of Jesus is accompanied by supernatural phenomena such as the appearance of angels. Or it may have been a natural phenomenon that others had seen but had not associated it with the birth of the Messiah.

However He did it, God used the star to signal to the Magi that the King had been born. The hope of the Magi was strong enough to compel them to undertake a costly and difficult journey to find Him. Their journey may have covered 1,000 miles and taken four to five months.

Notice that they went to Jerusalem. The star had guided them to Judea and yet they had no idea where to begin looking for this ?King?, so they went where it most made sense ? the capital of Judea! Jerusalem during this time was at the peak of its fame and power. The city was the center of commerce, pleasure, and religion. In its streets were people from all kinds of different nations. The Magi probably thought, ?Surely, here we?ll find out where this King is!?

We know from scripture that when they arrived they upset the whole city because of their question about a new King. Their question eventually led them into the court of the existing King of Judea at that time, a man appointed by Rome to serve in the office. Herod was a brutal tyrant in that day and with the news of the magi?s inquiries he set out to find out more about this ?new King? they were talking about.

In the process, some religious scholars were summoned to help determine where this new King would be born and through the prophecy of Micah 5:2,

“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”
Micah 5:2 (NIV)

?they were able to pinpoint the location as being Bethlehem. Of course, before seeing the Magi off, King Herod asked them to return once they found the child and gave a lie as his reason for his request saying he wanted to be able to go and worship the child.

Next is the part of the story I want to zero in on. After they left Herod?s palace we are told they are once again guided by the star to exactly where the child lay. Here?s an observation I?d like to make ? not only was God the source of the hope of the magi ? but through them God was also giving an opportunity for the city of Jerusalem to know of that hope too! How do I know this? The Magi were directed by the light of the star as far as Judea but then that?s as far as they could go with it?s direction. God certainly could have taken them directly to Bethlehem and we know that from the fact that after their audience with Herod, the Magi were directed by the star not only to Bethlehem but also to the exact place where Joseph, Mary and the baby Jesus were. I don?t believe its coincidence they went to Jerusalem. I wonder if there was anyone in that huge city who heard the Magi?s question and decided to go and check out Bethlehem for themselves?

The point I want you to get out of this section of the story of the Magi is that God was the source of their hope. He guided them by the provision of His word (as delivered through Daniel) and by His star.

As it was for the magi, God?s Word is available to guide every one of us. The Bible was written by God to guide us into a relationship with Him and to guide us as we live in relationship with Him. Just as the Magi studied God?s Word so we too gain great benefit by personally immersing ourselves in the pages of the Bible. Further I believe that God has a star shining for each one of us that points us to Christ. For some the star may be an answer to prayer, for some it is a miraculous healing or provision by God. However there are more people directed to Christ when ?the star? is seen in the church ? in the lives of individual men, women, and children who are sold out to Christ and His gospel and let God?s light shine through them, drawing those who are seeking ? in! Remember, however, that although the star captivated the magi ? it was not the star that they worshipped. But it was the star that pointed them to the one they wanted to worship. The star was only an ?indicator? of the presence of greatness. It was not great in of itself. The Magi pursued the star because they believed, they hoped it would lead them to the one who was the cause for its magnificence and light. But listen to this?they were not satisfied until they found the King who caused the star to shine.

And that King is Jesus. He was the fulfillment of the hope of the Magi and indeed is the fulfillment of the hope of all people He forgives our sins and grants eternal life to all who believe in Him.

JESUS IS THE FULFILLMENT OF HOPE

After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.
Matthew 2:9 (NIV)

Bethlehem is about four miles south of Jerusalem. Up until now the star had led the magi from the east to the west. Now it seems like it took a left turn and headed south! Some think it was a reappearance of the Shekinah glory of God that had led the children of Israel through the wilderness and that it even may have emitted a beam of light to reveal the house.

Whatever happened, the star guided the Magi to the house where Jesus and his family lived.

The Magi did not find Jesus until some months after he was born and found him in a house not the stable. A clue to this fact is that Herod asked the Wise Men when they had first seen the star and then sent his soldiers to kill every Jewish boy under the age of two years. This doesn?t mean that Jesus was two years old but that Herod allowed enough room for error to be certain that he killed this challenger to his throne.

In a moment we are going to watch a film clip from the movie The Nativity Story which shows the Wise Men arriving at the manger. Nativity Scenes usually include the Wise Men around the manger because they present a synopsis of the whole Christmas story. The makers of the movie The Nativity Story chose to portray the Wise Men at the manger for the same reason ? they wanted to keep viewers focused on the beauty of the whole birth narrative.

When they arrived, the Magi bowed down and worshipped the child! They had not come just to satisfy their curiosity but to worship Him as they would worship God.

They then presented their gifts as an act of worship of the child (the Greek word for presented indicates an offering made to God). The fact that they gave three gifts does not mean that there were only three wise men. There could have been just two or many more than three.

The three gifts the Magi brought foreshadowed the person and ministry of Jesus.

Gold for His royalty. In the Scriptures gold was a symbol for royalty and also signified the glory and deity of God. It and was thus an appropriate gift to give to God the Son.

Frankincense for His deity. This was a sweet incense that was used in connection with some of the offerings in the Temple, it?s aroma rising to God as a prayer.

Myrrh for his humanity. Myrrh was an embalming ointment which would be wrapped in the garments of the deceased. It signified the fact that Jesus was born to die.

Furthermore, these gifts also had a practical value, for they provided for the family during the time when they had to flee to Egypt.

Then the scripture records that after presenting the gifts, and after being warned in a dream, the magi did not go back to Herod

From the magi we have learned that God is the source of hope and Jesus is the fulfillment of hope?

WE GAIN HOPE WHEN WE CHOOSE TO FOLLOW JESUS
The Bible doesn?t say anything more about the Magi. We don?t know if they went back and shared the news of this King. We don?t know if this was, in their view, the most important journey of their lives or just another visit to impress future royalty. But what we do know, is that, regardless ? they made this journey in search of Christ ? in response to the pulling on their hearts by the light of the Star placed by God to announce His son?s birth. What stands out in their story is that although there surely must have been many people who had seen this star ? it was only these magi who recognized the significance of its light and only them who pursued the one who caused it.

What are you hoping for this Christmas?

? A cell phone?
? A new house?
? A Porsche?

Did you know that God has hopes for you this Christmas? And that no matter how extravagant your hope may be, what God hopes for you is far, far, far more valuable!

Here are some of the things God hopes for you:

God hopes you will believe in his Son Jesus so that He can give you everlasting life.

God hopes you will let him safely guide you each step of your journey through the coming years.

God hopes you will believe in Jesus? second coming.

The Wise Men found Jesus. You can find Him and receive the gift of eternal life today!

The ultimate hope of every human being is that there is life after death. People who battle a disease like cancer hope for remission or cure. But even if we are cured, of one disease, we will all eventually die. The Christmas season tells us emphatically that Jesus came to give us life everlasting.

Listen to Jesus? very own words:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16 (NIV)

Jesus was born to die – and when He died on the cross it was to take the punishment for our sin. But Jesus did not stay dead. He rose from the dead to offer all who believe in Him resurrection life. Jesus has already entered into heaven to open the way for us.

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.
Hebrews 6:19-20 (NIV)

The sanctuary behind the curtain is the place where God lives. When we believe in Jesus our souls have Him as our anchor in heaven.

The overall lesson we learn from the Magi is that we gain what we hope for when we follow God?s direction in life. God speaks through His word and reveals Himself through Jesus (Hebrews 1:1-4).

Through the Bible God guides us more directly than He guided the Wise Men. He wants you to let Him safely guide you each step of your journey through the coming years. God has given us something far more powerful than a star to guide our way. He has given us His Holy Spirit to lead us step by step through life. As we keep in step with the Spirit, He produces qualities in our lives that only God can give:

Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
Galatians 5:25 (NIV)

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
Galatians 5:22 (NIV)

As we follow Him, God the Spirit guides us in living lives that are fruitful, joyful and eternally meaningful.

The Wise Men found Jesus at His first coming. When He comes again will He find you watching for Him?

The Magi were watching for the first coming of Jesus. The New Testament writers tell us to live like Magi who are watching for His second coming.

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
1 John 3:2 (NIV)

The hope (certainty) of eternal life should motivate those who believe in Jesus to live morally pure lives. We do this not to earn a place in heaven but to live like citizens of heaven while we are still on earth.

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope–the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.
Titus 2:11-14 (NIV)

The blessed hope is that day when Jesus returns to bring an end to all suffering and death. Jesus came the first time, just as the Scriptures said He would. That?s why we know that Jesus will come again!

The Wise Men worshipped Jesus with their gifts. We have been given gifts with which to worship Him.

The Magi demonstrated their faith in Jesus by bringing Him gifts. We have gifts to give Him as well.

The first gift He wants is the gift of ourselves. Paul tells us to offer our bodies to Him as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1).

We have financial gifts, which we give to Jesus every time we give to someone who is in need.

We have spiritual gifts to offer, which we give to Jesus by serving one another (Romans 12:3-8).

The Magi followed the directions of God?s Word to Jesus and submitted to Him as their King. Let us follow in the footsteps of the Wise Men and worship and serve our king!
{show clip from The Nativity Story (scene where Magi arrive at stable and worship the child)}

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Tags: Christmas, hope, Jesus, second-coming, star-of-bethlehem, The Nativity Story, wise-men

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 10th, 2006 at 1:28 pm and is filed under Christmas, Podcast, Sermons, Sunday Morning Service. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.