Throughout this sermon series, I interacted heavily with The Great Christ Comet by Colin Nicholl.
“Matthew
1 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”
Revelation
1 A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. 2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. 3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. 4 His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born. 5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. ”
I want you to imagine a man who enjoys the patriotism of the Fourth of July but considers the story behind the holiday to be little more than a myth. He believes that the fourth of July was a date chosen near the summer solstice, which is the day of the year in which the sun stays in the sky the longest in the Northern Hemisphere. Cultures around the world have long marked this event and this man believes that this patriotic holiday of the Fourth of July is simply our American version. He thinks there might be some bits of history behind the Founding Father stories. Perhaps there really was a man named George who did lead a few men in battle. Perhaps a few of these so-called British soldiers did wear red coats. On the whole, however, this man considers it all to be a made-up legend.
My guess is that you would be utterly dumbfounded by such a man. You would point to the signing of the Declaration of Independence and its continued impact on the world. You would ask him to tell you his account of the origins of America. You would ask him what he makes of the biographies that were written about George Washington shortly after his death.
The man would tell you that it doesn’t matter. He would tell you that he doesn’t need to believe the stories behind the Fourth of July to celebrate the Fourth of July. He celebrates the spirit of what that great day represents.
What I have just told you, if you haven’t already guessed, is the way in which most people celebrate Christmas. They consider the stories behind this celebration to be little more than myth. They consider it to be a cultural celebration of the winter solstice, the day in which the sun is in the sky for the least amount of time in the Northern Hemisphere. They think this holiday has more to do with a festival of the sun than it does with an event that you could see were you to travel back in time. They think there might be some history behind this Jesus. There may have been a man who did good and yet was treated badly, but we need not believe in him to celebrate the spirit of what he represents.
Just as the man who doubted the stories behind the Fourth of July should be asked some simple questions so those who doubt the stories behind Christmas and the gospels should be asked some simple questions. How do they explain the continued impact of Jesus Christ all over the world? How do they account for the rise and the spread of the church? What do they make of these biographies that were written about Jesus shortly after his death?
The great majority of people celebrate Christmas without giving a thought to the history behind any of it. “The great majority of people,” wrote GK Chesterton, “will go on observing forms that cannot be explained; they will keep Christmas Day with Christmas gifts and Christmas benedictions; they will continue to do it, and someday suddenly wake up and discover why.”
Most people in our culture need to discover the reason why they celebrate Christmas. Perhaps you are among them. Please consider that if God did indeed take on flesh to be born as a baby in this same world in which you live, that would put a claim on you; that would be put a claim on the whole world. If this Christmas story is what it proposes to be, then this Christian way of life is the sensible way to live. If this Christ of Christmas is who he says he is then the hope that he offers is real. If this is all a very powerful work of fiction, then the hope that it offers is bogus. If the gospel accounts of Christmas are fraudulent, even the spirit of Christmas is a sham because you can’t have the hope of Christmas without the Christ of Christmas. You can’t have the season without the reason.
If, however, the Son of God did become a little baby then this Christ of Christmas deserves not only to be celebrated, he deserves to be worshipped. If the Son of God was, in fact, born in this world, he deserves to be worshipped by the world. That is what we will see this first week in our study of the wise men and that is the claim of this sermon: If the Son of God was born in this world, he deserves to be worshipped by the world.
We will see this in two points. First: the authenticity of the account. Second: the star of the king of the Jews.
First: the authenticity of the account. People might take the gospels as legends, but the gospel writers don’t present them as such. They seemed to think that they were writing history. They tell their readers the times and dates of certain events. In our passage for this morning, Matthew writes, “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod.” The gospel writers used the w’s of journalism: who, what, when, where, and why. They seemed to think that they were writing news.
They were not writing myth or mere stories. As one literature professor put it, “I have been reading poems, romances, vision-literature, legends, myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know that not one of them is like this [gospel]. Of this text there are only two possible views. Either this is reportage [like a newspaper]… or else, some unknown writer in the second century, without known predecessors or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern, novelistic, realistic narrative… The reader who doesn’t see this has simply not learned to read…” The fact that, that professor was CS Lewis makes that statement no more and no less convincing. What he is saying is simply fact.
People who dismiss the gospels as myths are simply not being honest with the evidence. The gospel writers wrote as reporters. They interviewed people. They did their homework. They wrote these works as news, which, of course it is; it is the good news. Matthew presents it as such. ‘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 in the east and have come to worship him.”’
It will do no good to dismiss this star as a mere literary creation for the sake of good storytelling. We need to give this account the benefit of the doubt, in part, because no faithful Jew or Christian would invent a story like this. “Most devout Jews and Christians despised astrologers and would not normally have been inclined to trust their testimony,” writes New Testament scholar Colin Nicholl; “you would not have expected someone fabricating a nativity narrative to choose astrologers as among the first to welcome the newborn Messiah into the world.”
This is not a story that any Jewish writer like Matthew would have invented. This star needs to be treated as an astronomical event just like Halley’s Comet or Hale-Bopp. You need to ask yourself what kind of light in the heavens would so capture the attention of these magi that they would follow it across the countryside. You need to ask yourself what kind of light would later return and guide these same men directly to the house where the Christ child lay.
These historical details about the magi and the star most likely found their way into Matthew’s gospel by way of Mary. Matthew knew Mary. She lived for many years after Jesus’ resurrection with Matthew’s fellow apostle, and gospel writer, John. The gospel write Luke interviewed her as well, which is how he knew that, “Mary treasured up all these things [that had happened around the time of Jesus’ birth] and pondered them in her heart.”
Mary had plenty of opportunity to ask these magi about their journey. If men came to bring your baby costly gifts, you would ask a few questions about how and why they found you.
As to why these men were so captivated by this star, Matthew makes clear that they were magi; “during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem.” Magi were trained in many arts including astrology and astronomy. Today there is a clear distinction between astronomy, which is what is done by scientists in an observatory, and astrology, which you can access in the horoscopes in most newspapers. One is a science while the other deals with dark forces, but these two were one in the ancient world and the magi were trained in the way of the stars. We will be studying some specific information about stars in this series, and when we do, remember that these magi knew this information and far more the way that you know the ins and outs of your own line of work.
The magi cared so much about the stars because they believed the stars foretold the future. They believed certain astronomical phenomena represented matters such as favorable planting, earthquakes, and especially politics. These men paid close attention to the night sky and it is no surprise that they would in fact see this star that we will study.
These magi from the east were most likely from Babylon. Babylon was a center for this sort of thinking. As we will see, these magi clearly had a fair bit of knowledge of Judaism and there were a good number of Jews who remained in Babylon after the exile.
The people of Babylon were familiar with Judaism the way that people in Dearborn, Michigan are familiar with Islam. People who live in and around Dearborn are far more familiar with the beliefs and practices of Muslims than you or I because they interact with Muslims on a daily basis. The people of Babylon interacted with Jews on a daily basis. They knew the Jews were expecting a Messiah. These magi believed this star marked his birth.
Now what we have done to this point is merely give these words of Matthew their due, ‘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 in the east and have come to worship him.’
These words must not be taken as myth. Matthew intended them to be read as history. We have done so because if the Son of God was indeed born into this world, then these magi had good reason to search for him and you have good reason to search for him. If God has indeed taken on flesh and lived in this same world in which you live, that could change everything. When you read what this Christ said and when you take seriously what he did, you will see that he has changed everything. The world rightly marks his birth as the turning point in its history. The magi saw that in the stars and so they came to worship him. Only you can answer as to whether you take him seriously.
The magi studied the heavens and discovered that this king of the Jews had been born. We see what they saw in our second point: the star of the king of the Jews.
There was something about this star that led these men to believe that the Jewish Messiah had been born. As they said, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”
There have been a number of theories over the years as to the nature of this star. Some have argued that it was a mystical experience which only these magi saw. As we will see, that interpretation falls flat. Others have argued that this star was, in fact, a combination of Jupiter and Saturn in the night sky, but that doesn’t do justice to the manner in which this star guided the magi to the exact home where the Christ child lay.
Now a comet would behave in the fashion Matthew describes. It could go on ahead of the wise men and guide them from the east. Its tail could point like an arrow from the sky down to the house in which the Christ child lay. The ancients did believe that comets foretold regime changes such as the one the wise men expected, and Herod feared. They also referred to comets as stars. A comet is the most likely candidate and the magi believed this comet marked the birth of the king of the Jews. “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”
There is another account of Jesus’ birth in Scripture that is told in terms of the stars. It is found in Revelation 12 and was written by the apostle John, with whom Mary lived for years after Jesus’ resurrection. John writes, “A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.”
The woman in the sky is the constellation Virgo and the dragon waiting to devour her child is the constellation Hydra, which is next to Virgo in the night sky. In many portrayals, Virgo has a crown of twelve stars and Hydra has seven heads. It seems that John was writing the Christmas story with the stars.
Please pull up the first slide to give us a picture of these constellations.
What we see here is the stars that make up Virgo at her most basic. Of course, those familiar with the night sky imagine her more like this: please bring up the second slide.
John tells us that this birth took place when the moon was under Virgo’s feet. This position of the moon was, in ancient astrology, a symbol of conception or childbirth.
In John’s vision of the sky, he speaks of a baby in the womb of Virgo. When the come came from between Virgo’s legs, as a baby would, the magi knew that this new king had been born. The ancients believed that what was happening in the heavens was, in fact, connected to what was happening on the earth. John was writing this vision of the night sky to also tell us the Christmas story in terms of the stars but also to tell us what was happening the heavens as Mary gave birth.
This baby in the night sky was the comet that grew larger and larger in Virgo’s womb as the comet came closer and closer to earth. When the comet was born from Virgo was heading for Hydra. John wrote about this saying, “The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born.” Please bring up slide three.
Now, of course, the ancients imagined Hydra to be much more like this, please bring up the fourth slide. They imagined Hydra with seven heads, which is how John described this dragon of the heavens. Next week we will give more attention to this dragon.
Now we need to consider why the magi interpreted this comet in these constellations as the sign of the king of the Jews. A growing comet within the womb of Virgo would be quite notable because Virgo was the virgin; you can still see that in her name. The night sky told the magi that the virgin was with child. Now remember, this astrology is unfamiliar territory to most of us but the magi handled these matters the way you handle the details of your own job. As these magi watched this comet grow over time, they would have searched for any references to virgins giving birth to a child. Considering their familiarity with Judaism, these magi would have soon come to Isaiah 7:14, “the Lord Himself will give you a sign: the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son.”
Now, I imagine that many of you are familiar with this prophecy, but you might not be as familiar with its relation with the night sky. King Ahaz had rejected God’s offer of a sign in either, “the deepest depths or in the highest heights. God offered Ahaz a sign in order to bolster Ahaz’ faith just as he would later offer Hezekiah the sign of moving the sun back in the sky to bolster Hezekiah’s faith. Hezekiah accepted God’s astronomical sign. Ahaz rejected it. God, in turn, rejected him, but told him that there would, one day, be a sign of a virgin conceiving and giving birth to a son.
Isaiah’s prophecy then tells of the people who would go off into exile. You can read Isaiah 7-9 when you get home. They would, in Isaiah’s words, “roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward [as in towards the sky], they will curse their king and their God. Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness.”
The people look for a sign but see nothing. There is, however, a promise. “Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress… The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;” please here the language of the stars here; “on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned… For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
The magi interpreted this comet emerging form the womb of the virgin Virgo as the sign of the child born from the womb of Isaiah’s virgin. This prophecy made clear to the magi that this newborn king was not merely human; he was also divine; he was everlasting Father; he was mighty God, and so the magi from Babylon came to Jerusalem asking, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”
The magi came because they believed that the stars heralded the birth of the Son of God. We have reasons for believing that the stars could herald the birth of the Son of God. A God who could create 10 billion galaxies with 100 billion stars in each of these galaxies and planets rotating around each of those stars could easily put a comet on a trajectory that would pass through Virgo shortly before a virgin gave birth to His Son. A God who could create a planet like ours—a goldilocks planet in a goldilocks universe as scientists call it because everything is just right for life—a God who can create a planet like this can so time the rotation of our planet and its orbit around the sun in such a way to give the magi a view of that comet.
Christmas tells you that God is concerned about our tiny world, which is one of hundreds of billions of planets in our galaxy alone. He was not only willing to take on flesh and be born on this planet, He was also willing to make this star visible at just the right time on this planet to mark this incarnation.
This comet through these constellations that brought the magi to Christ is a reminder that the God who upholds the universe is the Father of Jesus Christ. The universe isn’t governed solely by cosmological constants and gravitational forces. It is governed by God. He uses it to tell us something about Himself. “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.” The nights before and after God’s Son was born, the skies revealed knowledge about Christ’s birth.
We will study more about what the magi saw and how they interpreted it, but what we have studied is sufficient to explain why they came to Jerusalem asking, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”
It is also sufficient to explain why you should worship him. There was, at the time of Herod, a child born in Judea who is also God. The magi understood that and so they came to worship him. If you understand who he is, you will worship him.
Now perhaps you are here this morning and you’ve never really understood Christ. It is clear that you’ve never understood Christ because you’ve never really worshipped him. You have observed Christmas celebrations, but you’ve never come to worship like those magi did. You need to ask yourself what it will take for you to worship him. Will this comet be enough? Will his teachings be enough? Will his claims to be God be enough? Will his miracles be enough? Will his death for sinners be enough? Will his resurrection from the dead be enough?
“The great majority of people,” wrote GK Chesterton, “will go on observing forms that cannot be explained; they will keep Christmas Day with Christmas gifts and Christmas benedictions; they will continue to do it, and someday suddenly wake up and discover why.” I hope that you wake up today and discover why.
The Son of God was born into this world of ours. His birth was marked in the heavens. His birth is the turning point of our history. This isn’t a legend. This isn’t a myth. This is the world in which we live, and God loves this world in which we live. He showed it by sending His Son that whoever believes in him might not perish but have eternal life. Amen.