Matthew Ch2:1-12
In the time of King Herod after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East, Magi came to Jerusalem and they were asking, “Where is this child who’s been born the King of the Jews because we observed His star at it’s rising and we’ve come to pay homage to Him?”
When King Herod heard about this he was frightened and all Jerusalem with him and calling together the chief priests and the scribes of the people, he enquired of them where this Messiah was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea because it was written by the prophet, “You Bethlehem in the land of Judea are by no means the least amongst the rulers of Judah for from you shall become a ruler who is to be shepherd of my people of Israel.”
Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem saying, “Go and search diligently for the child and when you’ve found Him bring me word so that I may go and pay Him homage too.” When they had heard the King they set out and there ahead of them went the star that they had seen at it’s rising until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped they were overwhelmed with joy.
On entering the house they saw the child with Mary, His mother and they knelt down and worshipped Him. Then opening their treasure chest they offered Him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh and having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.
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Hope Is Born
Advent Prayer
Father, just as You sent John the Baptist to prepare the way for Jesus, help me to clear the path in my heart, too. Show me the distractions in my life that block me from all-out worship of You this Advent. Lord, I await Your coming! As I celebrate Advent––the first coming––I look toward the day where I will see You face to face. I imagine what it will be like. Give me a heart, Lord, that looks for Your coming on a daily basis. Help me to live my life where I'm constantly seeking Your presence. My offering to You today is my righteous life for I know I am only clean because of Jesus. Show me today how I need to be refined, purified, forgiven. Give me the strength to ask for forgiveness and to then change my ways.
Please take time to bring your worries and concerns before God, then
let us share together in The Lords Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come;
thy will be done;
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power and the glory,
for ever and ever.
Amen.
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Let us join together with the Salvation Army: Good Christian Men Rejoice
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The Magi
If God is God and Jesus is the Son of God, then Jesus is the only person in all of history who could have chosen the time, the place and the circumstances of His birth beforehand. And if that’s the case, if He deliberately chose what we now call Christmas as His way of becoming one of us, what was He trying to say to us through that choice? What does Christmas tell us about God? And what about the wise men, the Magi who came to visit Jesus. What was it all about? What were they doing there?
When you and I have a party at home, who do we invite to the party? I guess we invite people we want to invite. Let me ask you would you invite someone you didn’t like? Someone who offended you. Someone, who’s practices were questionable. Probably not.
You see, we like to be surrounded by people in our homes that we like, people who don’t offend us, people who don’t have a go at us, people who like us, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But that is why I find the story of the wise men, the Magi who came to Jesus after He was born, so fascinating. Take another look at it. Read again the story in Matthew Ch2.
Now, these wise men theses Magi from the east, (just as a side note, we don’t know how many there were, all we know is that they were wise men, Magi.) have you ever wondered what a Magi actually is? Well a Magi is someone who’s an astrologist, someone who’s into soothsaying, divination, in fact, it’s a kind of “occultish” stuff and they came from the East.
We have to ask at this point, what is to the East of Jerusalem? If you look at a map you will see that’s it’s Babylon. And let’s not forget that Babylon was indelibly printed on the minds of every Jewish soul and that’s because in 586/587 B.C. the Babylonians had come and destroyed Jerusalem and taken the whole of the nation of Israel captive as slaves, so the Babylonians, to the Jews of the 1st century were really bad people. People you would not invite to a party that you were going to have. So here were these Magi, these astrologers, soothsayers, who were into divination from Babylon a place the Jewish people detested.
Did you know that everything the Babylonians stood for was against the Old Testament law. Let me read you Chapter 18, verse 10 of Deuteronomy:
Let no-one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery or interprets omens, engages in witchcrafts or cast spells or who is a medium or a spiritist or who consults with the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to God and because of these detestable practices the Lord God will drive out those nations before you. You must be blameless before God.
So, what these Magi were into was absolutely detestable to God and yet, God invites them to the party. God invites them to come and worship His Son. Now, if you or I had been God, would we have invited them? Maybe not, because they were transgressors against what God said was right. But God did invite them and not only did God invite them, He went out of His way to go and get them.
How did He get them to come all the way from Babylon to Bethlehem? Did He send them a letter or a telegram or an email? Did He send them a prophet like John the Baptist? Did He send them the Scriptures? Did He send someone to scream in their face, “you’re very, very bad people?” He did not do any of those things. To these astrologers, even though He detested their astrology, God sends a star. You see, it’s this star that they observed as it rose in the East and they followed the star from Babylon to Bethlehem. What does that tell us about God? You see, these Magi were not Jews, they were not Gods chosen people, they were into things that were detestable and under the Old Testament law, they should have been stoned to death. They were Babylonians, they were evil and yet God invites them anyway. Not just an RSVP but through a star. You know what that tells me about God; He may well hate sin, but He loves the sinner. And that sinner is me, its you. Its all of us.
This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, Romans 3:22-23
He loves us so much more than He hates our sin. And that is why He went out of His way to bring these Magi to His Son, to worship Jesus. Now I think that’s so profound, but what does that say to you and me, here and now? It says, that we’re welcome too. In the Magi, God chose the worst of the worst. Those who could not have been anymore unacceptable or detestable to Him and He went out to get them, just like a shepherd would go to get that one sheep that’s lost.
I spent a lot of my life believing I just wasn’t good enough for God and sometimes even now, those feeling surface and inhibit my relationship with Jesus. But in this story of the Magi, God is saying to me, to us, ‘I sent my Son for everyone.’ Jesus came for all of us. None of us is good enough, that’s the point. But in Jesus our Saviour the door to God is wide open. Jesus came for me, He came for you, and I shout a hallelujah to that.
But what does all this say to the one who lives in a brutal world, a war torn place. What does it say to the one who doesn’t know if they’re going to have enough food. To the person who’s dying or living in oppression or suffering in any number of ways. What does God have to say to you today through Christmas? Well, its simply this: Everyone is invited to the stable to bow before the Saviour Of The World and have life in all its fulness.
If you’re like me there are some days, I am truly frustrated with man’s inhumanity to man. Some days I’m frustrated that I cannot do anything to end the physical suffering of those who live in a brutal world. But, the one thing I can do, is this. With all my heart I urge you to accept this Jesus as your Lord and your saviour this Christmas. This Jesus who was born into a genocide and who, ultimately, was assassinated on a cross, came for me, He came for you and he invites you to come to the stable and worship The King, just as he invited those wise men, those Magi to celebrate the birth of The Saviour of The World. Amen.
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As we come to close of our meeting together, let us watch or sing, We Three kings
The Lord bless thee, and keep thee:
The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:
The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.
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