The Journey Ahead

Have you read in the New Testament who Jesus is and what he has done to make you right with God? Like the Magi you need to know that your spiritual desires can be satisfied only in Jesus, that Holy Scripture is fulfilled in Jesus and that you need to bow before Jesus and give yourself to him.Sad to say not everybody wants to worship Jesus. The news of a newborn king filled the Magi with excitement but it filled Herod and all of Jerusalem with a very different feeling. They were disturbed by the news.

Herod was so evil and so eager to remain in charge that he would do anything to protect his position. The first thought that popped into his mind when he heard of the baby king was how to get rid of him. When the Magi didn't return to Herod or tell him who the baby was Herod sent his soldiers to slaughter every last baby boy in the region of Bethlehem. However Herod missed his mark because Jesus and Mary and Joseph had already escaped to Egypt.

Believe it or not this vicious king was known as Herod the Great. What was so great about Herod? Well, Herod the Great was great at maintaining law and order. He was great at managing the economy and the food supply. He was great at architecture and building projects. But Herod the Great was also great at evil. He was great at thinking only of himself. He was great at keeping himself on the throne at any cost.

Herod murdered his wife, his mother, his oldest and two other sons and he murdered countless others whom he suspected might want to replace him as king. The Roman emperor Caesar Augustus once said it was safer to be Herod's pig than to be his son. So it's no surprise that the only reason Herod wanted to know about the baby king was to kill him and keep himself on the throne.

A ruthless butcher like Herod it makes us shudder. But it would make us shudder even more if we realized how we might not be all that different from him. Herod was totally self-centered. He didn't care whom he had to hurt to keep himself on his own throne.

How many of us are like that? How many of us think only of ourselves? How many of us neglect or abandon or harm the people closest to us? How many of us are so wrapped up in our own interests that we neglect and harm our own children? We're often more like Herod than we'd like to admit. And it all happens because we think we're on the throne, and we don't want anybody to knock us off our throne.

When we hear news of a new king, we may be just as disturbed as Herod and the people of Jerusalem. The gospel of Jesus is disturbing! We want to be in charge. We can't let somebody else take over. How can we let Jesus come in and knock us off our throne? Herod tried to kill the baby Jesus. The people of Jerusalem later took part in killing the adult Jesus. And still today, says the Bible, we trample Jesus underfoot and have his blood on our hands whenever we reject him or ignore him or try in any way to keep ourselves on the throne of our lives (Hebrews 10:26-31).

If you want to sit on your own throne and be your own ruler then you're like Herod. You're probably hurting a lot of the people around you and when Jesus comes and challenges your right to sit on the throne you get disturbed and downright nasty.

But Herod is not the only one in the story who had the wrong reaction to the Christmas star. What about the religious experts? All those priests and scribes who knew so much about the Bible didn't even bother to go to Bethlehem themselves to find the baby king. They knew where Messiah would be born but did they join in the Magi's search? They gave a quick answer to the Magi's question about Messiah's birthplace and then returned to business as usual. They just sat there with their wonderful heritage, with their knowledge of religious things and the facts of the Bible stored in their heads but they never went to worship the person that their own Bible was pointing them to.

What a tragedy! And yet how many of us do the very same thing? Maybe you grew up in a Christian family. You even have a Bible somewhere in the house and you know some of the things that it says about Jesus. But do you ever seek Jesus? Do you love him? Do you worship him? All the religious background and all the Bibles in the world are useless to you if you end up staying away from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Don't think that knowing a few Bible stories is enough. You need to know the Savior! That's the whole point of the Scriptures. You need to go to Jesus and fall down before him and worship him and give yourself to him. Don't be so pleased with what you know. Don't be so self-satisfied that you stay away from Jesus the way those religious leaders did. And don't be so self-centered that you fight against Jesus and his claims on your life the way Herod did. Instead be like those Magi. There was a lot they didn't know but one thing they did know: a king had been born and they wanted to meet him and worship him.

Be like those Magi. What they first learned from the Christmas star- The King has been born. You need to meet him and worship him and give your life to him. The Christmas star that beckoned the Magi still beckons us today. Every time we hear this story from the Bible the star of Bethlehem shines again and announces the birthday of the King.