“Where is He who has been born King of the Jews?
For we saw His star in the east and have come to
worship Him.” —
Matthew 2:2
Over and over the Bible baffles our curiosity about just
how certain things happened. How did this “star” get the
magi from the east to Jerusalem?
It does not say that it led them or went before them. It
only says they saw a star in the east (verse 2), and came to
Jerusalem. And how did that star go before them in the little
five-mile walk from Jerusalem to Bethlehem as verse 9
says it did? And how did a star stand “over the place where
the Child was”?
The answer is: We do not know. There are numerous
efforts to explain it in terms of conjunctions of planets
or comets or supernovas or miraculous lights. We just
don’t know. And I want to exhort you not to become
preoccupied with developing theories that are only tentative
in the end and have very little spiritual significance.
I risk a generalization to warn you: People who are exercised
and preoccupied with such things as how the star
worked and how the Red Sea split and how the manna fell
and how Jonah survived the fish and how the moon turns
to blood are generally people who have what I call a mentality
for the marginal. You do not see in them a deep cherishing
of the great central things of the gospel—the holiness of
God, the ugliness of sin, the helplessness of man, the death
of Christ, justification by faith alone, the sanctifying work
of the Spirit, the glory of Christ’s return and the final judgment.
They always seem to be taking you down a sidetrack
with a new article or book. There is little centered rejoicing.
But what is plain concerning this matter of the star is
that it is doing something that it cannot do on its own: it
is guiding magi to the Son of God to worship him.
There is only one Person in biblical thinking that can
be behind that intentionality in the stars—God himself.
So the lesson is plain: God is guiding foreigners to
Christ to worship him. And he is doing it by exerting
global—probably even universal—influence and power
to get it done.
Luke shows God influencing the entire Roman Empire
so that the census comes at the exact time to get a virgin to
Bethlehem to fulfill prophecy with her delivery. Matthew
shows God influencing the stars in the sky to get foreign
magi to Bethlehem so that they can worship him.
This is God’s design. He did it then. He is still doing it
now. His aim is that the nations—all the nations
(Matthew 24:14)—worship his Son.
This is God’s will for everybody in your office at work,
and in your neighborhood and in your home. As
John 4:23
says, “Such the Father seeks to worship him.”
At the beginning of Matthew we still have a “come-see”
pattern. But at the end the pattern is “go-tell.” The magi
came and saw. We are to go and tell.
What is not different is that the purpose of God is the
ingathering of the nations to worship his Son. The magnifying
of Christ in the white-hot worship of all nations is
the reason the world exists.
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