Our Constant Star: Day 17

Read & Journal

Read Matthew 2:1-12 today. Mull over what you’ve read and use the following prompts to guide your meditation. 

• What does this familiar passage teach you about Jesus or his character? Include any new insights in the list you’ve been compiling in your journal. 

• Do these verses reveal anything about why Jesus came to earth, leaving the Father’s throne? 

• Does the prophecy in verse 6 seem familiar? Why or why not? 

• Why is it important that Matthew tied this particular prophecy with Jesus’ birth? Explain. 

• Consider Herod’s response to the wise men in verse 3 and the fact that the chief priests had to tell him about the prophecy from Micah 5:2. What does that help you understand about Herod? 

• When have you treated Jesus and the way of life he calls us to like a threat? How has following Jesus called you to let go of ways you once lived, thought or acted? 

• When have you been so focused on the wrong thing that when God began to move, you resisted him? What have those experiences taught you about following Jesus? 

Ponder

And earth and sea and sky revere

The love of Him who sent You here.

Long before Jesus was born, the prophet Micah was prophesying about him. Jesus, the Messiah, would be born in Bethlehem, a ruler who would shepherd his people. It was a Messianic prophecy most people who studied the Jewish Scriptures would have recognized, but Herod didn’t. 

Of Idumaean descent (in the line of Esau), Herod should have been at least somewhat familiar with the prophecies about the Messiah. As installed ruler and “king of the Jews” who professed a conversion to Judaism (Blomberg), Herod shouldn’t have had to ask for further clarification. While the earth and sea and sky may have revered the news, Herod was confused, “deeply disturbed” as the Christian Standard Bible puts it, and terrified. Even after the chief priests explained truths he should have known, Herod didn’t see God’s fulfillment of Messianic prophecy as a reason to celebrate. Instead, he saw it as a threat to his own royal position and authority. 

But look again at verse 3 and note who else was deeply disturbed by the news of the Messiah’s birth: ”everyone in Jerusalem” (NLT). Let’s pause for a moment and consider a few details we can glean from this passage. The wise men or Magi were Gentiles, likely from Babylon and “students of the stars” (Weber). They had been watching the sky and noticed an unusual star. Seemingly knowing the Jewish prophecies about the Messiah, they had followed it. They had been watching and waiting, so when God began to unfold his plan of salvation, they understood the implications. When they saw Jesus, they responded with worship. 

Herod and the Jews, on the other hand, the people to whom the prophecy had been given, were too busy with other things to notice God’s plan of salvation unfolding. The people who were supposed to be on the lookout for the promised Messiah were deeply disturbed when they got the news that he’d already been born. 

The Jews had the prophecy, but they missed its fulfillment.

The wise men watched and waited in anticipation; the Jews focused on the here and now.

The wise men came to worship Jesus; Herod came to shore up his own power. 

The wise men were overwhelmed with joy to see the Messiah; Herod and all of Jerusalem, the center of the Jewish faith, responded with indifference at best and fear and mistrust at worst. 

The promise given all those years ago had been fulfilled, and the Jews didn’t seem to notice or care. Again and again across the years, God had been pointed to his plan of salvation, offering up bits of information about the Messiah, but rather than watching and waiting for it to be fulfilled, the Jews had become mired in other things. When God began moving, they missed it. 

Pause for a moment and let that sink in. While earth and sea and sky revered, as the hymn puts it, Herod and the people of Jerusalem were focused on other things that they thought were more important. Do you want that to be your story? 

I don’t. I don’t want to live my life so focused on myself and what I think is most important that I miss out on what God says is most important. When God begins to work, I want to be the one watching, waiting and expecting it. 

Lord, give us eyes to see and recognize when you are at work so that we may worship and praise you like the wise men. May we, who have been given your promise, open our eyes to the work you are doing all around us. 

Sources: 

• Craig Blomberg, Matthew, vol. 22, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1992), 61.

• Stuart K. Weber, Matthew, vol. 1, Holman New Testament Commentary (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2000), 20.