Matthew 2:1-12

For whatever reason the wise men from the Christmas story have really been intriguing me this season. Who are they? Where did they come from? Why do they matter? It just seems odd to me that there would be these three guys coming from a far to see baby Jesus. I think there’s a few things we know for certain about these guys. They weren’t Jewish. They weren’t part of the faith that Jesus was being born into, so when they come to Herod and say “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” we don’t really know how this relates to them, but for some reason they want to meet this king. In the earthly scheme of kingdoms and monarchies Jesus would no dominion over them. That being said, we know they have knowledge of Jewish culture. We get a glimpse of this in the sentence above. They obviously knew something of the Jewish prophecies to know to follow the star and find the “King of the Jews.” They came to worship Jesus. “And going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him.” Even though Jesus wasn’t their earthly king they knew enough about Jewish culture to recognize Jesus as someone worth kneeling before.

The story of the wise men reminds me that, as a christian, we need to look outside our faith circle from time to time for wise men. Like the Jews in this story I get so caught up in doing religion or in the business of doing church that I can’t see the forest for the trees. Sometimes the wise men of the world can tell me where our community needs help. Sometimes the wise men of the world worship God’s creation better than I do. Sometimes the wise men of the world can remind me to kneel before Jesus.

Another thing that strikes me about the wise men is that they came so far and had to go through so many Jewish towns and villages and they were all alone. The Jews at this time were begging for their messiah to come and ready to worship him, but it seems these wise men were the only ones looking for him. I think this serves as a good reminder in this season that we need to be looking for Jesus this Christmas. We get so busy this time of year celebrating Christmas that we don’t celebrate Jesus.

Matthew 1:18-25

For the New Testament reader this is the first instance that we have to have faith in something that seems unreal. A virgin pregnant by the Holy Spirit. That's a pretty incredible! Think of that as if you'd never heard of the Holy Spirit before. This intangible, unseen, never heard from, entity that's part of God but separate as well exists (that's a lot to believe in right there) AND came and made a virgin pregnant simply by it's power and God's will. Can this story get any more bizarre? It literally sounds like something from a sci-fi movie. Not only that, but the poor guy who was engaged (at that time they were called husband and wife at this point in the relationship) to this girl gets visited by an angel in a dream and tells him to stand by his girl and that this is God's plan and His doing.

I think we take for granted the impossibleness of this event because as christians we've heard about the Holy Spirit for most of our christian lives and we're numb to the Christmas story because we've heard it so often. Or perhaps we are too fixated on what is under the tree instead of what chose to die on a tree. Regardless, the spectacle that is the immaculate conception can be easily overlooked.

For Joseph there was no Holy Spirit. They hadn't talked about it in Synagogue much because God hadn't really sent it to His people yet. This had to take an enormous amount of faith on Joseph's part. If I were in Joseph's shoes I would doubt if the angel in his dream was real and that Jesus was really conceived by this Holy Spirit thing. Joseph had to believe the angel was real, the Holy Spirit was real, and that it conceived a child in his wife. That's three really big leaps of faith that is asked of Joseph on one night. And what about when Joseph figured it out (I imagine that it wouldn't take too long to figure something was special about Jesus)? How humbled would he have been?

I think for us it kind of works the same way. God get's us on a ledge outside of our comfort zone. An activity, relationship, position, etc. that makes us terribly nervous and asks us to have faith. To believe in more than we think we are capable of or really to believe that we are more capable through Him. It may not be send-an-angel-in-your-dream scale, but it is still something that requires you to have faith in God's plan. When we finally take the step and move forward in faith we're humbled to see what God has done through our actions. Like Joseph we had faith and were humbled.