Birth Announcements 1 : The Magi

Christmas -- I love it. I know, you got that from my last two blogs. I've told you how I love the atmosphere and smells and activity. But what I really love is the huge and gynormous story. It is so full of wonder and awe and mystery and pathos and passion. It drips with miracles. Beyond the mind exploding central miracle of God entering the seed of a woman, taking on flesh to become man -- right?! that is huge enough that when I REALLY think about it, I can know it in my mind, but I can't say I can really really take it in -- yeah, beyond that, you can't take a step in this story left, right or center without bumping into a "wow-that's-so-cool" miracle.

 So in this blog I am going to introduce the miracle of God sending birth announcements. He did! I just love it. It tells me that he was shaking all over, can't bare to keep the secret, sit on the edge of the throne excited that Jesus was coming. God -- the Trinity : God, Father and God, Son, and God, Holy Spirit -- had crafted this astonishing, flabbergasting, staggeringly amazing plan of salvation. It was wonderful and horrible. The Son, the Living Word of God, would take on flesh ~ he could because man was created in the image of God, so as it were, God could don that image. He would live and grow as a man with all the "God-ness" set aside. That and all that happened in his wonderful life was the wonderful part. But he would come to free us, to die for us, to die the excruciating death of crucifixion and thereby pay our penalty. That is the horrible part. But the horrible part is wonderful too! Because Jesus died, we can all be reunited with God and spend eternity with him ... and more amazing still, become a co-heir with Jesus. That staggers me, shocks me and stuns me. This story tells me how incredibly God loves us -- he was really really willing to walk through unspeakable horror so we could be with him for all eternity. The birth announcement stories ~ especially this one about the Magi ~ shows me that God was excited, excited like a little kid who just MUST tell someone his great big secret!


Sometime after Jesus was born, while he was still living in Jerusalem ~ as we will see from the story ~ when he was somewhere between birth and two years old, Magi came from the East with extravagant gifts to worship him. The story . . . at least the end of the story . . . is told in Matthew chapter 2. It is amazing ~ it is horrible.

Wait...Matthew chapter 2 is the end of the story? ! ? YES! So, I can hear you asking, what is the beginning?

The beginning, as all good stories, both true story and good fairy tales, should begin, starts long ago and far away. (You can, and you should read this for yourself. It can be found in Numbers chapters 22-24) This is one of the true ones ~ keep that in mind because it is full of shocking things that when you realize they ARE true will leave you gob-smacked! So ...

... long ago and far away - - - far even from Jerusalem and Bethlehem where the story ends, far into the reaches of the Old Testament - - - the Sons of Israel had just been freed from Egypt by God. They were in the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land, present day Israel. The nations in the surrounding region were understandably unsettled by this nation backed by such a powerful God. I mean, what if this band of freed slaves came and attacked them? If Egypt could not stand against them . . .? Well, something must be done. So Balak, the King of the Moabites made a plan. He sent messengers to this guy name Balaam and want to pay Balaam to speak curses over Israel. Balaam was a prophet-for-hire. I have to admit that Balaam totally confuses me. So if you are prophet-for-hire,  you could prophecy anything you wanted to and speak "made-up" curses till the cows came home, right? But Balaam had enough reputation that he was hired by a KING! See, if kings hire you then your 'resume' must be pretty impressive ~ that is, you must be right much more often than wrong and the curses had better work, right? I mean, kings pay good money and if you trick them, or are wrong...? well, it could get ugly really fast, right? So Balak, the king of Moab, hires Balaam to curse Israel. God says, "Don't go!"  Balaam is offered lots of money and he decides to go anyway. God says, "OK ... but you must only  say what I have said to say. In the middle of journey Balaam's donkey suddenly and for no reason Balaam can discern turns off the road and walks off into a field; Balaam beats it and they move on. A little while farther the donkey sidles close to a wall of a cliff and crushes Balaams foot; Balaam beats it and they move on. Finally the donkey lies down with Balaam sitting on it. Balaam beats it again and then ... the donkey starts talking to Balaam, (rough translation), "Hey! What the heck!!??!!" Balaam, "You are making a fool of me! If I had a sword I would make donkey shish kabobs!!" Donkey, "you may not, but that huge angel over there DOES, and ..." Right then God opens Balaam's eyes and he sees the angel with the drawn sword that the donkey had been able to see all along. Yeah! Crazy, eh?? First, a talking donkey . . . and the thing I really love is that Balaam, the prophet-for-hire-Balaam, does not see the angel with the sword but the donkey does and secondly, that when the donkey starts talking Balaam seems pretty 'ho hum" about it. He answers him as if...well as if this talking to donkeys stuff was pretty normal. So the long and short of it is  ~ Balaam may go to Balak, but he must ONLY say what God tells him to. No matter WHAT the king pays him, he may NOT curse Israel. Fade out . . . fade in. Balaam tries several time to curse Israel, but God only lets him bless Israel. His final blessing is the beginning of the Magi story, the first birth announcement!  Here is what Balaam says:

Num 24:15-17
"The oracle of Balaam son of Beor,
the oracle of one whose eye sees clearly,
the oracle of one who hears the words of God,
who has knowledge from the Most High, (yeah, this part flummoxes me:
who sees a vision from the Almighty,         really? God speaks clearly
who falls prostrate, and                              and accurately to THIS guy?)
whose eyes are opened:
"I see him, but not now;
I behold him, but not near.
A star will come out of Jacob;       THIS is the birth announcement!
a scepter will rise out of Israel.

You get it, right?

"I see him but not now, behold him but not near. A star ... a scepter!!"
Because I know some seers, people that God shows picture to, I think Balaam really saw Jesus, saw him as Messiah off in the future. That is the him ! ! Of course Balaam and Balak did not get that. But God sent this message, this clue, knowing that the Moabites would put this story into their sacred books where it would be tucked away . . . until . . . until the time when Mary and Joseph left Nazareth to go south to Bethlehem because a census had been called . . . until God put a star in the sky. All that time later there were kings who were wise men and astrologers who saw this odd, out of place, HUGE star in the sky. One of them remembered, I am sure, reading something about a star in some old chronicle . . .
"oh...yeah, here it is. "A star will come out of Jacob;"    Oh my!! the next line is  "a scepter will rise out of Israel." A scepter...?  A king! This star foretells of a king being born in Israel. This king is who Balaam saw. It is now. . . We must go!"

You get it? God sent a birth announcement about Jesus to pagans!! He was so excited he had to tell someone. God invited the world to Jesus' birth. . .and they came. They saddled up their camels, purchased extravagant gifts and made the journey ... a long journey ... to welcome this long foretold king. And...if you were looking for a new born king in Israel, where would you go? The palace of the current king, right? That's what they did. They went to go see Herod -- who had not had a son. uh oh! Herod was a monster. And Herod was sly in the most evil way! And Herod believed the Magi ... he really did believe a new king. a king who was likely the long awaited Messiah, had been born, someone prophesied long ago. What did he do? He had someone who SHOULD know do some research. He called the chief priests and the teachers of the law to find out where the Messiah was to be born. And they did: According to the prophet Micah the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. Herod sends the Kings to get an exact address ... "Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him." (Matthew 2:8) Can you hear the horrible insidious music playing in the background? God sends the Magi a dream letting them in on Herod's evil plan, so after they do find Jesus and give him the gifts and worship him, they do not go back to Herod. Herod realized he has been outsmarted and is enraged. He figures he can still solve this little problem and calls out the soldiers of Israel and does one of the coldest most evil things. He has them go ... go to the homes of their own people, maybe people they knew, and slaughter every baby boy between birth and 2 years old in Bethlehem and the entire vicinity around Bethlehem.

Can you imagine? Can you see them grabbing babies from their father's arms and . . . no, it is too horrible. God had warned Joseph in a dream and he believed God and had slipped away in the night, racing off to Egypt.

What I find utterly amazing is that first of all the Magi came. They got the birth announcement and they CAME! The didn't understand, but they came. But...just as stunning to me...the priests and teachers of the law DID NOT COME! They were there ... they knew Magi had shown up. They were asked to look for the birth place of the Messiah. HEROD believed and acted! The chief priests and teachers of the law got the answer RIGHT! But . . . they did not believe. They did not go to Bethlehem. They ignored the birth announcement. Wow! Wow! What did they think as they officiated at all the funerals? What did Zachariah and Elizabeth think as they held their little boy? Wow!  Such a huge story!