Wise men – the first providers

Hi how was your week? Happy new year to you all. This is the year of restoration. I will blog on that in a few days. My husband and I have just spent a relaxing week at the beach. It was so good. But I want to finish our Christmas characters. It’s past Christmas you might say. So it is, but the wise men didn’t visit on Christmas Day like the shepherds. It was a good while later. Let’s look into it.

Their story is found in Matthew 2. In verse 1, we are told that Jesus was born and about that time the wise men were found in Jerusalem. Why were they there? Well, in verse 2, it states that they saw Jesus’ star as it rose and they had come to worship Him. Have you ever wondered what the star of Jesus looked like? I am wondering whether it was the glory that shone around the shepherds. Was it like the glory of God that provided a covering to the Israelites in the day and was a fire by night when they were in the wilderness? The Message Bible tells us that the star signalled Jesus’ birth, but it must have been so unusual that the wise men just followed it. They weren’t Jewish, they didn’t know about the promised saviour.

They came to the king of Israel and asked him about the new king. This created a stir in Jerusalem. What new king? But at least the king had sense to ask the religious leaders who said the saviour was to be born in Bethlehem. The king also asked when the star appeared. The wise men told him. So on they went to Bethlehem where they found Joseph, Mary and Jesus. But they didn’t see baby Jesus, they saw the child Jesus (verse 11).

What did the wise men then do? They worshiped the child Jesus and gave Him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. They were strange gifts for a child but the wise men gave their best gifts. They had travelled a long way to bless this family. They were the first providers mentioned that blessed Jesus in this way.

What did the family do with those gifts? Well shortly after the wise men left, the king set out to kill all the boys in Bethlehem under the age of two. We know from this that Jesus would have been between the age of birth and two years old.

Jesus and his family escaped to Egypt and the provision of the wise men possibly paid for this. They were gone for many years.

This story teaches us much about provision. It teaches that:

1. We need to give God our best gifts
2. Provision can come from unlikely people even wise men from the East
3. God provides not only for our now but also for our future
4. We need to be obedient when God tells us to give