Here’s a great question for a quiz night:
“How many kings are there in the Christmas story, and what were their names?”
Typical answer:
“3 kings – Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar.”
That would of course be the wrong answer because, like the missing donkey, the ‘3 kings’ were actually referred to in Matthew as “wise men” or “magi” (from the Greek Magos) and not kings at all (Matt 2:1). Also there is no mention of 3 people, only 3 gifts (Matt 2:11).
At some point they became ‘kings’ and were given names.
In Spain, the country of my own birth story, the big celebration and party isn’t so much at Christmas, but on 6th January where they celebrate “La Fiesta de los Reyes Magos” (The Feast of the Magi Kings).
In Spain you have to wait until 6th January to get your Christmas presents, and Santa has no part to play! If, like me, you have a British mum then you get two Christmases 🙂
But just because the magi weren’t kings (perhaps controversially, they were magicians and/or astrologers) doesn’t mean that this story isn’t about kings. It absolutely is.
Here’s that great question for a quiz night again:
“How many kings are there in the Christmas story, and what were their names?”
Right answer:
“2 kings – Herod and Jesus.”
It’s really important that we see that this is a story about two kings; two very different kings.
Herod was a tyrannical ruler and regarded by the Jews as not actually being Jewish at all! He was a vassal king of the Roman Empire who had gifted the emperor Caesar Augustus with huge amounts of high quality Jewish gold which he had sourced dubiously through theft and taxation. He had bought his crown and he ruled extravagantly and wastefully at the expense of his poor ‘subjects’. It was this Herod who rebuilt the temple which was later destroyed in AD 70 by the Romans and which Jesus predicted would not have one stone left standing atop another (Matt 24:1-2).
His successor was the Herod who had John the Baptist’s head cut off and to whom Jesus was sent just prior to his crucifixion and who died of worms.
The whole kingship of the Herods was a polluted line of paganism which was about as far as you could get from the idea of a Godly King of the Jews.
This Herod kept the people enslaved by supporting the Romans and living his lavish lifestyle at their expense.
In Jesus we see the complete opposite.
This ‘king’ was born into poverty and didn’t even have a proper crib to be laid in when he was born. And yet it was clear that he was indeed a king.
The magi were astronomers and astrologers and they’d seen a new star and immediately knew what it meant; a king had been born, and so important and significant was this king that they travelled halfway around the known world to find him, and more than that to worship him (Matt 2:2).
They went to the most obvious place, the palace in Jerusalem and Herod was naturally perplexed and troubled before becoming violently envious and destructively vengeful. The magi must have been surprised when they finally arrived in Bethlehem and the humble ‘palace’ of this king, but Matthew says that when they found Jesus, the king, they “rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.” (Matt 2:10)
Joy upon joy! This is the response that this king brings out in people.
This is the king of joy; the king who is in Himself ‘good news’; the king who dwells amongst the poor and the humble; the king who sets people free to be extravagant worshippers of the Divine; the king whom people pursue because something inside them draws and drives them to seek him out and find him; the king of the unexpected.
He may not be a typical king, yet he is nonetheless a king, and in fact the King of all kings.
This advent may you know that your King has been born and has come to reign.
May you know that He has come to set you free to be extravagant in your joy and your giving and your worship.
May you know Him as the servant King, humble and gentle, yet above all other kings, presidents, prime ministers and political leaders.