The Search for a King

Text: Matthew 2:1-12

Do you remember why, in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the White Witch is constantly on the lookout for humans? If you’ve read the book or seen the movie, you remember that she is actually afraid and has an order for any of the creatures of Narnia to immediately alert her if any humans show up. The reason is because she knows that their arrival signals the end of her reign. According to ancient prophecy, they would take over the rule of Narnia, and so she has to put a stop to that. Nearly the same thing is going on with King Herod when Jesus was born. Whether he knew to be on the look out for the birth of the messiah beforehand, once the Wise Men showed up from the East, he was on high alert. As we learn from our text today, their visit signaled the birth of the King of the Jews, and this was a direct threat to Herod. It was something he had to fight against with all his might.

While Herod may have misunderstood a great many things about Jesus, he was not wrong about the basic fact that Jesus was a king. The Wise Men were looking for an earthly king, and Herod, after consorting with the priests and scribes, believed that the messiah was this king, someone who would put him out of business. And while there is much to say about this topic, the bottom line is that both the Wise Men and Herod were correct. Jesus was a king, and he had come to bring a kingdom.

The Wise Men

“Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem…” (vs. 1). Matthew’s text does not tell us a great deal about these men, but the word he uses is Magi, a term which referred to court-astrologers, men who watched the stars and advised the king. The text also simply says “the East,” but given what we know of world history at this time, the most likely candidates are Babylon or Persia.

The thing that stands out about the Wise Men’s interpretation of this star is that it signified the birth of a king. When they got to Herod they said, “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.” (vs. 2). The fact that they came to worship Jesus may have meant nothing more than the Persian custom of worshiping an earthly king. But they may have also had an understanding of Jesus’ divine presence. When they do find Jesus, they offer him “treasures… gold, frankincense, and myrrh” (vs. 11). This was an act of tribute-paying. They wanted to honor the new king and to show their fealty towards him.

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Obama’s Epiphany

I don’t normally blog about overtly political matters. I like to talk about theory and philosophy, of course, but for the last few years I’ve been reluctant to name names and point fingers. But this past week has brought a number of issues to my mind in a very pointed way, and chief among these is the President’s inaugural address. The President made several bold statements on Monday, fully embracing a radically progressive program for the future. His supporters have even called him the “Liberal Reagan.” Conservatives have become even more outraged and terrified. On both sides, the message was received.

The most memorable line from the President’s speech, and the one that people are already calling “historic” is this one:

We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths—that all of us are created equal—is the star that guides us still, just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall, just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone, to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.

Here we have political theater and civil religion in full form.