Matthew 2:1-12 … Epiphany … 05 January 2025 … Wise Men, Gifts, Herod, Christ

2 Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, [a]wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, 2 saying, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.”

3 When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.

5 So they said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet:

6 ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
Are not the least among the rulers of Judah;
For out of you shall come a Ruler
Who will shepherd My people Israel.’ ”

7 Then Herod, when he had secretly called the [b]wise men, determined from them what time the star appeared. 8 And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the young Child, and when you have found Him, bring back word to me, that I may come and worship Him also.”

9 When they heard the king, they departed; and behold, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came and stood over where the young Child was. 10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. 11 And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

12 Then, being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country another way.

Intro —

Why Church Calendar

1.) Recital theology

11 I will remember the deeds of the Lord;

yes, I will remember your wonders of old.
12 I will ponder all your work,
and meditate on your mighty deeds.  (Psalm 77)

The Church calendar gives us the means to recite our theology and our History. If familiar with the Church calendar we can become a people who are anchored in our undoubted catholic Christian faith. When we are involved in this recital theology as connected to the calendar we are involved in a kind of catechism.

2.) Importance of History

The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of history.

George Orwell

We want to use the Church Calendar to remind us of our History as a Christian people. And so we spend this time seeking to ground these New Testament texts in the history of God’s people. The purpose is that we will be both theologically and historically grounded.

When we celebrate Epiphany, for example, we look at the History of God’s people looking forward to the coming of Christ and then we speak of that fulfillment and then we add that we now look forward to a future coming of Christ.

3.) Muscular Christianity

As a Christian people we desire to measure time in a Christian fashion and not as a people who think the measuring of time is neutral. If we will not measure time as Christians we will measure time as non-Christians. Why should we note President’s Day or MLK Day and not mark Epiphany or Advent?

4.) Church Calendar not Absolutized

There is no intent to absolutize the Church Calendar. We ourselves do not find ourselves tied to it. We will deviate to address other issues that need to be spoken to but neither do we find ourselves required to ignore a means that can work to help us to ground us in Christian thinking habits.

There is no Romanism or mysticism in observing the movement of time in Christian terms.

 

Epiphany

Greek — epiphaneia, “manifestation, revelation, striking appearance”

In the West, Christians began celebrating the Epiphany — that is the visitation of the Wise men in the 4th century. Even up until the 19th century, January 6 was as big a celebration as Christmas Day. However, with the increasing removal of Christianity from the public square increasingly Epiphany as a day of celebration was pushed into the background.

If in Christmas we celebrate the birth of the sinless Christ child to Mary in Epiphany we celebrate the work of the Father in making His revelation known to the peoples. With the accentuation on these Gentiles from the East bearing gifts. Epiphany becomes tied up with the truth that the Gospel is God’s gift for all the Nations. In finding the Gentile Nations in worshiping the Christ child we have a prophetic word from Isaiah  49 affirmed

6He says, “It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also make You a light of the nations So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

That Epiphany was connected to the idea of Christ for the Nations was seen in how each of the traditional three wise men became characterized as coming from different continents. Because of the three gifts mentioned it has traditionally been held that there were three Kings though the text nowhere tells us that. The three Kings (Melchior, Caspar and Balthazar) represented Europe, Arabia and Africa respectively.

There is an insight that we can gain here if we take this long held church tradition as true. The insight as to do with a proper understanding of the way particularity and universality work. The nations, in these wise men come to worship Christ and Christ receives the worship for people in every tongue, tribe, and nation. All men from all tribes, clans, races, and nations are commanded to come to Christ just as these esteemed men came. However, in coming they did not lose their national identity. They came, if Church tradition is correct, as Kings representing Europe, Arabia, and Africa. Men from every tribe, tongue, and nation as in their tribes, tongues and nations. There we find all the nations in their nations gathered around Christ to worship Him. Those who gather to worship Christ have a unity that does not sacrifice their particularity. It is the principle of the one and the many.

Anyway, it is appropriate that these Kings should come as the covenant is going to be expanded to include the nations. Israel will refuse her Messiah but the nations own Christ and the reputation of Christ is enlarged by the swarms of people groups that come to worship Christ.

Now we have these Magi and they are bearing gifts. We shall look at the gifts in turn but first let us note that there very presence was anticipated by Scripture. All of what we are seeing here is a fulfillment of OT prophecy regarding the Messiah. Remember Matthew is one of the more Hebraic of the synoptic Gospels and he returns repeatedly to the OT. Many believe that Matthew is seeking, in His Gospel, to reveal Christ as the faithful Israel as compared to faithless Israel. As such he pays close attention to the Old Testament. With the recording of the coming of the Magi Matthew may have had in mind Psalm 72,

10 [m]Let the kings of Tarshish and of the [n]islands bring presents;
The kings of Sheba and Seba offer [o]gifts.
11 [p]And let all kings bow down before him,
All nations serve him.
15 So may he live, and may the gold of Sheba be given to him;
And let [u]them pray for him continually;
Let [v]them bless him all day long.

Or alternately Matthew may be appealing to Isaiah 60,

“Nations will come to your light,
And kings to the brightness of your rising.

“A multitude of camels will cover you,
The young camels of Midian and Ephah;
All those from Sheba will come;
They will bring gold and frankincense,
And will bear good news of the praises of the Lord.

So Matthew is seeking to connect the prophecies of the OT to their fulfillment in the NT, something he does repeatedly in his Gospel. Sometimes Matthew does it explicitly. Sometimes he does it implicitly.

Whom we call “Wisemen” the text refers to as “Magi.” R. T. France in his commentary tells us that Magi was originally the name of a Persian priestly caste, but later, this title was used widely for magicians and astrologers.

These magi were high ranking statesman in the kingdom of Babylon, and then the Mede and Persian kingdoms.

Herodotus, the ancient Greek Historian, tells us that the magi were trained in the arts and sciences. They were the university professors and the political power-players all rolled up into one.

No Persian prince ever became king without having been tutored by the magi, and only when the magi determined the heir to the throne to be ready would the prince be crowned king. They were essentially Kingmakers and these Kingmakers present themselves to Herod to speak of the one who has already been born King of the Jews.

Let’s turn to the gifts for a moment;

 

The Church understood the gifts brought by the wise men as having symbolic significance.

Gold being a chief representation of value in the ancient world it was used especially in the context of royalty — men and gods. In the Old Testament, we find the Ark of the Covenant being overlaid with gold (Exodus 25:10-17).  Also in Solomon’s temple, we find it decked out with 3000 tons of gold.

Gold, therefore, represented the royal and divine standing of the Messiah. He was both very God of very God and King of Kings.

Frankincense represented his divine birth

Frankincense is an aromatic white resin or gum used in incense, oils, and perfumes. It is obtained from a particular type of tree in Arabia. The way it is harvested from these trees is by making incisions in the bark and allowing the gum to flow out. It is highly fragrant when burned and was therefore used in worship, where it was burned as a pleasant offering to God (Exodus 30:34).

4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Take for yourself spices, stacte and onycha and galbanum, spices with pure frankincense; there shall be an equal part of each.

It is interesting that this incense made with frankincense was to be used only in worship. Anybody caught wearing it would be cut off from the people.

Here we may find, at the very beginning the hint of the fact that Christ would be himself our pleasant offering to God as our burnt offering sacrifice.

Myrrh represented the humanity of Jesus by suggesting his mortality

Myrrh was also a product of Arabia, and was obtained from a tree in the same manner as frankincense. It was a spice and was used in embalming. It was also sometimes mingled with wine to form an article of drink. Such a drink was given to our Savior when He was about to be crucified, as a stupefying potion (Mark 15:23). Matthew 27:34 refers to it as “gall.” Myrrh symbolizes bitterness, suffering, and affliction. The baby Jesus would grow to suffer greatly as a man and would pay the ultimate price when He gave His life on the cross for all who would believe in Him.

Taken all together it is interesting what is going on here that whereas in the OT the examples are of Faithful Israelites being proven superior to foreign wise-men (Gen. 41, [Pharaoh’s dream] Ex. 7-10 Pharaoh’s Magicians vs. Moses] Daniel 2 [Nebuchadnezzar’s forgotten dream]) here instead it is the foreign wise men who are superior to faithless Israel thus again hinting at the eventual unfolding of the Gospel where unfaithful Israel is displaced by the Gentile Church as God’s people.

When we take the text as a whole we see that what is going on here is a contrast between the illegitimacy of Herod’s rule as well with the Jewish wise men whom Herod at appointed with the legitimacy of the Messiah and His Magi wise men. There is a fairytale quality to this, and in saying that I mean zero disrespect.

Once upon a time there was a wicked pretender King who ruled over a people to whom he was not related by blood nor by faith. A violation of this people’s law book. While he was usurping this throne the true heir to the throne was born in an obscure and impoverished village to poor peasant parents. While still a toddler the child was visited by Kings from the East in fulfillment of a long known but forgotten prophecy. These Kings from the East had been guided by a supernatural star in the sky which they had long studied in anticipation of their trip. Upon arrival to worship the true King they stop and visit the pretender King who feigns interest only with the purpose of killing the child with the purpose of keeping his own wicked throne secure.

As a brief aside it is interesting the means that God uses to make known His Son. We often speak of God making Himself known via natural revelation and special revelation. In the arrival of Christ we see both of these means being used. To the Shepherds God’s uses what we would term as Special Revelation providing an Angelic band to make the announcement to them. However, to the Wise men every indication is that their discovery was in keeping with a kind of Natural Revelation whereby they studied the matter out consistent with astronomy and on the basis of that natural revelation the Wise men came to worship the Messiah.

Purpose of the Wisemen’s visit

All they wanted to do was Worship the King.

But their were hurdles to that worship they sought to bring and the main hurdle was a chap named Herod. Let’s talk about him a wee bit.

Like many of the Jews today, Herod, though known as “the King of the Jews” was no Jew. He was an Edomite …. a descendent of Esau.

The text reveals that Herod was troubled at the news the Magi bring of the birth of the King of the Jews. And when Herod was troubled all Jerusalem was understandably trouble with him because the man was, like many politicians, a psychopath. This is proven by his murdering of his wife Mariamne I due to his great jealousy against her. In his final 2 years of life, Herod’s paranoia of being overthrown became so terrible that he murdered three of his sons. This helps us to understand this man who will soon order all the young boys to be killed in Bethlehem in order to try and kill the true King of the Jews … the Messiah.

This fake King who lived on the scale between sociopath and psychopath had been told that the King of the Jews was already born. His paranoia is driven by the fact that he knows he is a pretender King ruling over a people who the OT had clearly taught were to be the ones ruling over the Edomites. Going back some two millenium Jacob had been blessed by his Father under deceptive circumstances,

“Let peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may your mother’s sons bow down to you.” Genesis 27:29a

But now the sons of Jacob were bowing down to Herod the Edomite whom Rome had finally granted him his life-long wish to carry the title, “King of the Jews.”

For 1900 years there had been this sibling rivalry between Esau and Jacob and their descendants and now Herod the Edomite … the usurper, in the time of his dotage and the last years of his reign … hears that the true King of the Jews has been born.

We should note here a word about God’s providence. The might and plans of the wicked find them plotting and scheming but when God moves to accomplish what He will, nothing can stop His providence. Not even a maniacal and mentally ill King Herod. This is why Scripture teaches that God sits in heaven and laughs at the plots of the wicked against him.

We should also note again how worthy of Worship Christ remains. It should be our prayer that we would realize that every week as we gather to worship Christ we are, in some sense, repeating what the Magi came to do. Are we all in to worship Christ as they were?

We should also thank God that He receives our worship for the sake of Christ who imputes His righteousness to our worship so that it is heartily received. We are not turned away from worship because Christ is our the one who makes us fit for worship and who makes our worship fit to be received.
 

 

 

 

 

Sundry Quotes Surrounding The Slavery Issue

“The negroes were already slaves in their own country — slaves to masters whose authority was absolute — and had been such for time immemorial…. Chiefs built their huts of human bones, and drank the blood of their enemy from human skulls, and yearly offered up whole hecatombs of human sacrifices; and on the death of every head man of the tribe, hundreds of his slaves were butchered over his grave, that they might accompany and serve their dead master in the other world.”

Daniel Robinson Hundley
Social Relations in our Southern States

Published 1860

 

Honestly, the descendants of those slaves who made it to America should be like Joseph in the Bible and understand that God intended their slavery for good even if others intended it for evil.  There is much that the descendants of Africa have for which to daily thank God. One of which is that their forefathers didn’t end up dead in Africa before being brought to the new world.

“No race gets blamed more for the slavery of Africans than whites, yet no race has done more to abolish the slavery of blacks than whites. No race is seen more as victims of slavery than African descendants, yet no race has more promoted slavery of its people than black Africans.”

Isaac Bishop

Defending Dixie’s Land — p. 365

 Perhaps the descendants of black slaves should first be demanding reparations from African nations and tribes?

“Slavery, as everybody knows, was forced upon the colonies by the arbitrary and despotic rule of Great Britain.”

Albert Taylor Bledsoe

 

“When American slave ships first came to Africa, slaves were already a booming African export. Africa’s #1 export was slaves, even before white men came to purchase slaves. Most African slaves had been sold and sent West to Arab Mooselimbs and Asia. Some countries in Africa had as much as 75-90% of their population enslaved by fellow blacks. Further only 6% of the slaves imported to the Western world from Africa between 1640-1820 came to America; most went to places like Brazil, Cuba, the Caribbean, etc.”

Isaac Bishop

Defending Dixie’s Land — p. 362

 

I suggest America paying reparations to slaves right after Africa and the Mooselimb world pay reparations to slaves.

This whole “reparations thing” is just one more shakedown.

On Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation (EP)

“Where he could have freed slaves he did not. Where he did free slaves, he could not.”

Wm. Seward
Lincoln Sec’y of State
The London Spectator reported on the Emancipation Proclamation on 11 October, 1862;

 

“The Union government liberates the enemy’s slaves as it would the enemy’s cattle, simply to weaken them in conflict. The principle is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he can’t own him unless he is loyal to the US.”

 

“The whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these new [western territories]. We want them for the home of free white people.”

Abraham Lincoln

16 October, 1854

One more piece of evidence that the cause of the War Between the States was NOT slavery. In modern terms the North was “racist” for wanting to exclude blacks from the new territories while the South was “racist” for wanting to own blacks while living in the new territories.

The cause of the Civil War is found in the answer to the question, “What type of Federal Government shall we be ruled by?” Would we be ruled by a top down consolidated Nationalistic Federal Government or a Confederated Union of States where the Federal Government was to have delegated and enumerated powers that were limited and defined? The War of Northern Aggression answered the question for us, until such a time that the legality of the US Constitution can be restored.

“The Slave trade is the ruling principle of my people. It is the source and glory of all their wealth. The Mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph of an enemy reduced to slavery.”

Black African King — King Gezo of Dahomey
1840

Upon hearing of the United Kingdom’s ending of the Slave trade The King of Bonny (now in Nigeria) was horrified at the conclusion of the practice and said,

” We think this trade must go on. That is the verdict of our oracle and the priests. They say that your country, however great, can never stop a trade ordained by God himself.”

On The Issue Of Who Is Downstream From Whom

It is only partially true that “politics is downstream of culture” and this because politics is itself an expression of culture. Saying that politics is downstream of culture is like saying that politics is downstream of politics or culture is downstream of culture.

Culture is not exactly the same as politics nor politics exactly the same as culture but they are so involved in one another it’s difficult to say that “politics is downstream of culture,” as if we can only fix politics once culture is fixed.

The real kicker here is that both culture and politics are downstream of another reality. Both culture and politics are downstream of theology. If it is true that “as a man thinketh in his heart, so he is,” then clearly politics and culture, when examined closely are nothing but the products of what a man thinketh about God. All of our politics and our culture are byproducts of how we think about theology. Indeed, not only all of our politics and our culture but everything that is part of what we call “culture.” From the fashion world, to economics, to art, to social theory — all of it is an expression of how we think about God. Change how a people think about God and you’ll change their culture and everything that comprised their culture. As such everything is downstream of theology. Theology remains the queen of the Sciences. This is especially so for people who deny that theology is the queen of the sciences for it is their theology that is informing them that theology is not the queen of the sciences.

When we cut culture or politics off from theology (as if we could) the result inevitably is a man centered culture and in a man centered culture/politics  the result will be that man, considered either individually (anarchism) or collectively (statism) will become the god of the culture so that theology with man as God will remain the queen of the sciences. Everything is downstream of theology.

Because this is true nothing can be tweaked downstream of theology in culture or politics that does not mean that a change in theology upstream has been tweaked as well. All of life is nothing but our theology being lived out and put on display.

All of this explains why I find R2K so insufferable. R2K owns a theology that says the common realm must be Christian theology free. R2K denies that the common realm can be theologically Christian and by denying that they have affirmed, by necessity, that the common realm must be theologically heathen. Now, they will try to cover this with the idea that a non-Christian theology that is acceptable to all (going by the name of Natural Law) but this desperate denial by R2K that there exists “Christian families,” or “Christian education,” or “Christian law,” or “Christian nations,” or “Christendom,” or “Christian culture” only leaves to us the theology of polytheism and pluralism to govern the public square. In R2K land the absence of Christianity in the common realm is the presence of Christianity in the common realm. In R2K land the common realm is neutral not governed by any particular God’s law — except the law having the most force behind it in order to enforce the definition of natural law that must be embraced by the common realm. However…. that law which ends up having the most force behind it so that is is accepted as the definition of Natural Law is the force that is the God that is driving everything downstream.

How we think about God …

What is His character/attributes
What does He desire
What is true of those He claims are His
By what standard does He govern
Whose glory is He interested in
What does He call sin

Will incarnate itself into both politics and culture and everything else because it is always the case that in our gods we live and move and have our being.

All of this is in turn influenced by who God created each of us to be as belonging to our particular tribes, tongues, and nations.

All this to say that politics is not preeminent as if culture is downstream of politics. All this to say that culture is not preeminent as if everything is downstream of a culture that is theologically independent. All of this to say that everything is downstream of theology.

If we want to change our culture. We have to change our gods.

The Stranger Within Our Gates …. Kipling Updated

The Strangers within our gates
Strangers, they must remain
Lest God’s people become the aliens
And their inheritance wear iron chains
Lest alien gods become ascendant
And their children become our bane

The Strangers within our gates
Are now more than we can contain
As seen in the unrest witnessed
In the New Orleans’ hurt and slain
As seen in the growing replacement
That would end the the current reign

The Strangers within our gates
Propositions he may maintain
But absent from his chest and roots
Is the patria he cannot retain
His blood is cold to our ways
He’s sings the songs with his refrains

The Strangers within our gates
Is not uniquely the current bane
The traitor and the treasonous
Are voices that yet remain
Are voices that loudly support
The idea that were all the same

Party Politics & The Pervert Vote

As people are increasingly defined and controlled by their sexual lusts it will be the political party that caters to the fulfillment of those perverted lusts who will come to control the apparatus of the State. Politicians who offer to make perversion consequence free will be the Politicians elected to run the immorality state BUT as they offer sexual freedom as the promissory bait in exchange for votes what they are really selling is the hook of Political tyrannical control.

Constituents who can not control their passions are Constituents who will need to be controlled by the State as passions, once set free in the sexual domain, will not be able to stay within their boundaries in other domains.

Another reality that arises out of this political yielding to those controlled by their sexual lusts is the moving to the left of the Overton window. Sodomy, for example, is now openly embraced by both major parties. In my lifetime, a candidate who was outed for being sexually unfaithful to his wife, having gotten divorced could never be elected to any significant seat. However, now, with the political yielding to those controlled by their sexual lusts adultery and divorce are “ho-hum.” Sodomy among conservative Republicans is also “ho-hum” as seen in the fact that nobody arched an eyebrow by Trump’s nomination of a sodomite who has kidnapped children to be Secretary of the Treasury. And while Republicans aren’t yet ready to start nominating open Trannies to posts (like Biden did) it is just a matter of time before Trannieism is mainstreamed in Republican politics. It won’t be long before you see Republicans saying; “Oh, you can vote for her(m). She/He is a conservative Trannie.”

The fact that I am correct in all this is seen in recent Presidential politics. It was fairly well known that Barry Sotero (Barack Obama) was light in the loafers. They didn’t call him “Bathhouse Barry” for no reason. Still, all this was denied and it was realized that if it were true he could never be open about it and still be elected. However, with the coming of Donald Trump, the deal was sealed. Here was a man who had children by three different women and whose current wife’s porn shots were prominently displayed on the N.Y. Post front page and yet Trump was elected not once, but twice — and that on the back of Evangelicals voting for him. (In fairness to Evangelicals, all they had to vote for were criminals …. so better the criminal you like then the criminal you don’t like.) The point here is that perverted sexuality or sexual habits just don’t make much of a difference in presidential electoral politics. That is a vast shift occurring in my short lifetime.

Really, we are entering a time that could rightly be called a “Sexocracy.” It is a time where sexual normalcy, as defined by biblical standards, will be considered prudish and intolerant. It will be a time whereupon the sexual perverts having been let out of the closet, the sexually normal will be pushed into the closet so that heterosexuality will eventually become that “love that dare not name its name.”

All this to say that the arc of history, protestations to the contrary, are not working in the direction of traditional Western mores. We can expect a continued expansion of our perverted Sexocracy.

But… God is not mocked. Whatsoever a nation seweth, that it shall also reap.