One of my good friends sent me a super list of Christmas gifts I could buy. Cool things such as full-face sunglasses, a Willie Nelson Chia Pet, or finger chopsticks for video gamers. The list of gifts was prefaced by mention of the first recorded gift givers— three wisemen– and the imagined, hilarious conversation they may have had as to their gift choices.
Every time someone refers to the story of the three wise men, I want to do the “ Paul Harvey rest of the story thing.” No matter what view people hold of the Bible, if researched a bit they will see it as incredible literary art! The author uses intricate literary tools to tell and reinforce the author’s narrative of the main theme—the redemptive work of God through the baby Jesus.
An obscure prophecy in Numbers 24:17 prophesies of a coming King—the King Jesus born under the star that the wisemen followed eastward for a long way. There were three gifts given but not three wisemen. Real history says there were several wise guys in the traveling band. They were like seminary professors for astrology from the area of Babylon where the prophet Daniel had been held captive and taught the “locals” about his Hebrew God. Their descendant religion is the Zoasters. Today’s masonic lodges still use their symbols and thoughts, but God used God’s sense of humor and gave Daniel a prophetic word (Daniel 9:24-26) to lead these star gazers to Jesus—but not at the stable site as the story is commonly told. But that’s a whole ‘nother rabbit trail about an earthly king who thought he was in control— we’ll look at a few of such things in a later post!
The significance of the wisemen’s gifts were that, in that time and culture, gold was a gift given a child destined to be a king. Frankincense was both a healing balm (which it is still used for today and which Jesus was) and a high-priced ointment of royalty. When mixed with myrrh it became an embalming ointment.
The biblical narrative tells us the baby Jesus was wrapped in swaddling clothes. We hear that as a baby blankie from Target. Not so. Swaddling clothes were linen strips used in ancient times in several ways-including baby blankets– but found in animal stables because similar strips were used to wrap a rider’s midsection to control the jostling that happens when riding animals on long journeys. They were also used to wrap and mummify people, along with ointments like frankincense and myrrh, to get them tomb ready.
The nativity narrative tells us of angels summoning nearby shepherds to the birth scene. The old Jewish laws and Old Testament were all a foreshadowing of how things would be after Jesus came. The Old Testament detailed how having a relationship with God meant following rules for living and a sacrificial system involving animals—most often sheep—to cover and pay for our sin. Only the best sheep were to be used for these sacrifices. It is well known that some shepherds were appointed to take care of flocks of such sheep raised in the best of sheep raising places—some of which were close to the scene of Jesus’ birth. So, if they weren’t shepherds from this particular flock of shepherds, they were certainly representative of that flock. These shepherds were first to meet the baby Jesus (sacrificial lamb) who would complete the law by becoming the final sacrifice ever needed (Hebrews 10: 1-18.
As shepherds, they were also part of a profession that was seen as “bottom of the barrel”—Jesus’ future kind of peeps and the first group to know there was a new King in town! Couple that with the fact that the Bible repeatedly uses shepherds and sheep to help us understand how Jesus acts as our Good Shepherd (Psalm 23 for example) and we can see why the shepherds were part of the party for this story.
A heavenly angel had told Mother Mary to name the baby Jesus (Luke 1:26-33). Jesus in Hebrew means “the Lord is salvation.” As biblical narrative continues past the birth story it soon becomes clear that the baby Jesus did identify as a King—but not an earthly king. He came as a heavenly king and the representative of the triune godhead: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to be Emanuel– “God with us” (Isaiah 7:14). He also came with a mission. Jesus came to fulfill the Law. (Matthew 5:17-19) Jesus came to be the sin sacrifice that ended all sacrifices. (Hebrews 9:11-14, 10:1-18) or said differently to live out his namesake –Jesus is our salvation (John 3: 16).
So this little piece of the Christmas story that tells of some star gazing band, that by faith in some Jewish prophets’ teaching given 500+ years prior, followed a guiding star for a long ways represents only part of the Christmas story. This represents only a tiny piece of the “big story” of the Bible. It would take more posts than most want to read to tell all, but you can always read it for yourself. I hope this little snippet reveals to you that my buddy God tells life changing, true stories in incredible ways that surpasses human capacity in complexity and reality. This talented author uses the whole book full of many stories to tell one story. God loves us and desires eternity with us and the Jesus baby holds center place in all that. This baby—from its birth scene forward, was portrayed as the one born to die as our sin sacrifice which we have the free will to personally apply to our lives if we want eternity with God. God used many literary tools such as metaphors, typology and allegory to tell a compelling story that serious scholarship can hardly dispute: God created us, and God loves us enough that God-through part of God’s self; found in Jesus; covered the sin that separates us from our Creator that we might have eternal relationship lived out in heaven. The story of wise star gazers presents a fabulous Christmas gift wrapped up in an incredible Christmas story that has the power to change your life! Merry Christmas!