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The Season of Advent: Seeking the Messiah
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Guiding Star: The Role of Nature, Prophecy, and Reason in Seeking the Messiah by Dr. Tim Gray
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And so the first talk is a joy for me to be able to deliver to you. And it's going to be entitled Guiding the Role of Nature, Reason, and Prophecy in Seeking the Messiah. And we want to prepare for the Messiah. So Advent season is a season in which we prepare for Christmas. In fact, Christmas is so important, it gets an entire liturgical season for preparation. So it's kind of like preseason in sports, where the athletes warm up and get ready for the regular season. And so that's what we're doing in Advent. We're getting ready for the big event of Christmas through the season of Advent. And of course, Advent is four weeks long. And those four weeks has been seen in the Catholic tradition As representing the 4,000 years of Israel, from the time of Adam to the time of Israel, all that time expecting and waiting for a Messiah to come and deliver humanity and Israel. And so we look at that Advent season. And so what I want to do in my talk is I'm going to approach Advent in a little bit different way than usual. I want to focus on the story of the Magi. Now, many of you say, wait a minute. You know, Tim, you can't talk about the Magi during Advent because the Magi come actually at the end of the Christmas season, the Feast of the Epiphany. That 12th day of Christmas is the official end of the 12 days of Christmas. And towards the end of the Christmas season, really, epiphany marks that. So how can we talk about the Magi who come after the birth of Christ? Before the birth of Christ? Well, the Magi, I think, can help us in our Advent preparations for Christmas. They make a journey. Now, of course, they don't get to Christ until Epiphany, but they're on their way on this long journey before that. And even our Catholic tradition has brought the Magi into Advent. So if you see manger scenes, for example, you'll see that there's many figures. There's the shepherds, there's the sheep and the oxen and the animals, all in the manger. And Joseph and Mary, of course, you can't put the babe Christ in the manger scene yet, but they're waiting for the birth of Christ. But you also have the characters of the Magi, and they're some of the most beautiful and most carefully crafted figures in a Nativity set is the Magi. And. And I know in our own family, our son would love to move the figures of the shepherds, of Joseph and Mary and the Magi furthest back because they don't get there right away. Moving closer and closer to the manger scene every day as we approach Christmas. And so that great sense of expectation. So the Magi are there. Now the Magi are popularly depicted in ancient Rome. The Romans love the depiction of the Magi because the early church in Rome was a Gentile church. And they loved the idea of these Gentiles, these Magi coming from the east to adore and worship the Christ Child. They saw them as a pre figurement of Rome and Romans and the Gentiles in the Roman Empire coming to faith and worship of Jesus Christ. One of the earliest depictions is in The Catacombs of Saint Priscilla, probably in the, sometimes in the 200s, maybe, maybe the mid to, you know, say the year 250 A.D. somewhere around there we have a depiction of the three Magi approaching Mary. And Mary is sitting almost as if she's enthroned and she's holding the Christ child. And the three Magi are coming to bear their gifts. Now, of course, the Christmas season is a popular season in which we give gifts. So a lot of you will spend. We all end up doing this. We spend a lot of our Advent season Christmas shopping. Even though it's Advent season, we're getting ready for, for Christmas. So the gifts under the Christmas tree start to be gathered. And some of us are more strict about when we put the Christmas tree up, you know, not at the beginning of Advent. Other people are a little bit looser with that. But the point is that Christmas is associated with gift giving because of the Magi, because of the Magi. Because what happens when the Magi come and find the Christ child is they bear gifts. And Matthew will tell us about those gifts. And those gifts are going to echo gifts that are mentioned in the prophecies of Scripture. And so we also, in this season of gift giving, we're giving gifts, but what are we doing? We're imitating the greatest giver of all. And that is God, the Father who gave, who so loved the world that he gave, he gifted his son to us on Christmas morn. And so that's a great, great gift. And that's why we are inspired to be charitable in giving, because God was charitable in giving to us. And so the Magi have a role to play throughout Advent. And we'll hear about some prophecies about the Magi in the Advent season. I'm going to talk about a little bit, but I want to start with the story of the Magi and I want to talk about three key stations so to speak, three key elements or milestones of their journey to finding the Messiah. Because I think those three things, those three elements of their journey will help us in our Advent journey as we prepare to discover Christ at Christmas. But also, as you know, and you'll hear more about this later, the liturgical season of Advent for the Church is remembering Jesus first coming, but it also is a foreshadowing of Jesus second coming. So we likewise need to prepare for the second coming of Jesus. And the things that the magi do in seeking the advent of Christ and his first adventure are things that we can use in seeking and being ready and prepared for Christ's second coming as well. So we'll look at those three things. So let's look at the text of Matthew. The Gospel of Matthew, chapter 2, verse 1. 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, saying, where is he who is to be born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him now. So the first thing is, the magi come to Jerusalem, and what leads them to look for the King of the Jews? The first thing that we're told in the narrative is nature, the coming of a great star, the sign and the constellations. Now, what were the magi? Well, we know that the magi were oftentimes known as astronomers. Sometimes they were known as magicians, wise men, philosophers. And the fact that Matthew talks about them as wise men really evokes this idea that they are philosophers, they're educated. But as educated men, they also know how to read the constellations and the stars, and they see a great sign in the heavens. Now, whether that sign was a supernatural sign or a natural sign, what matters for us in the narrative? And Matthew doesn't tell us if it's a supernatural sign or a natural sign. It is a sign in the heavens that they see as a star. But that star signifies something, and it gets them moving, it gets them searching. So this great sign in the heavens tells them that there's the birth of a king. Now, nature will oftentimes be used, given by God to lead us to himself. And so we know this in the Jewish scriptures. For example, Psalm 19 will say, the heavens are telling the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day pours forth speech to day, and night to night reveals knowledge. Their voice goes out throughout all the earth and their words to the end of the world. So if you look at Psalm 19 that I just read verse 1 and 2 and verse 4, and in verse 3 says, but there's actually no words, but yet they're communicating a message, nature. And as the church fathers would say in the Middle Ages, nature is like a book. And that book, if we read it, will tell us and give us knowledge that there is a Creator, because the creation is so beautiful and majestic. You get this in the book of Wisdom, chapter 13. Paul alludes to the book of wisdom, chapter 13 in Romans, chapter 1, by saying that what can be known about God in his invisible nature is manifest in his creation. And so creation bespeaks to us a message that there is a God. What's more, though, here for the Magi, they see this message of nature in the constellations in the heavens, and yet it triggers to them that this idea that there is a king of the Jews. Why does that trigger the idea that there's a king of the Jews? Well, we know from prophecy. So let's go to some of the prophecies, some of the scriptures of Israel. And in the prophetic tradition of Israel, there's a prophecy going back to Numbers, chapter 24, verse 17. And it's from Balaam, who is a wise man from the east and a Gentile, in a sense, a Magi, one of the first Magi. And this Magi, or wise man from the east, Balaam has an inspiration from the Holy Spirit where he gives a prophecy about Israel's future. Because Balaam was hired by the king of Moab Balak to curse Israel. And Balaam intends to curse it. But when he speaks, the Holy Spirit fills his mouth and he speaks a blessing, and he speaks, a great prophecy will happen in the future for Israel. And this is as Israel is emerging from Egypt amidst the nations. And the nations don't want Israel. They don't want Israel in their Middle East. They don't want Israel coming in their neighborhood. And yet Balaam, a Gentile, is going to say, you know what? There's a powerful prophecy about Israel. She will have a king who will rule the nations and the world. And so this is the prophecy in Numbers, chapter 24, verse 17. And Balaam says this. I see him, but not now. I behold him, but not yet. A star shall come forth out of Jacob, and a scepter shall arise out of Israel. Notice that in this parallelism of this poetic prophecy, the star is parallel to the scepter. So what the star signifies is a scepter, and the scepter is the image of a king. So in other words, the coming of a great sign in the stars signifies the coming of a great king out of Israel amidst the nations. And that's going to be really important. Then Balaam goes on, he says, after he says, a scepter shall arise out of Israel. It shall crush the forehead of Moab, right, one of the neighboring nations, and Edom, another neighboring nation, shall be dispossessed. So it's showing the primacy amongst the nations of the king who will arise out of Israel. And of course, the symbol for this king of Israel is a star. And that's what we know as the Star of David later on. So because later on we'll know that the first king born who fulfills this prophecy, David. But we also know in Jewish prophecy that there will be a new David. And so just as there is this star that represents David and his dynasty in the future, as Israel is coming to the promised land, it will eventually lead to a Davidic king who will have this great primacy. And then we'll see it fulfilled in the son of David, Solomon, who has dominion over the nations thereabout. But then we see this with the second coming of Jesus. And so the idea that when the Messiah was going to come, the idea of a star was really important. And we find the imagery of the Star of David, for example, in the imagery and in the sculptures around the synagogue of Capharnaum in Israel in the time of Jesus, we also see that one of the men who claimed to be the Messiah, Simon Barkova, Bar Kova literally means son of the star. So Bar Kova means son of the star. So the imagery of star with a Messianic king runs throughout the scriptures of Israel, starting here in numbers, chapter 24. And it's interesting that it's a Magi, a wise man from the east, and a Gentile who gives the prophecy of a star. And then it will be the magi who, who come from the east, Matthew tells us, who are wise men who will also be following the sign of a star with a king. So why do the magi know that the star represents the king of Israel? Because they know the tradition of Balaam's prophecy. Now, how likely is that? How would wise men and magi from the east, from Persia and Midian and all these other places, how could they know about this prophecy of Balaam? Well, the Jews get taken into captivity in the Babylonian captivity to Babylon, which is going to be the heart of Babylon and the Persian empire later on. And these Jews are living there. And even in Jesus Day when the Magi come, there's millions of Jews who live in the Far east, in what is present day Iran and Iraq, the ancient kingdoms of Babylon and Persia. And so the, the Jews there would keep alive this prophecy. And it would be very interesting for the intellectual class of the Persians and the people round about to know about this Jewish prophecy that there'll be a great star that will signify the birth of this long awaited king of Israel. And so that's floating around out there. And so it actually makes sense. And so what happens is we see the meshing of two things, nature, the star and the signs of the constellations. And these wise men who are astronomers and watch the signs in the heavens and then a great sign in the heavens and then the fact that they know about this prophecy of Balaam. So the prophetic word of God and nature come together to lead the Magi to Israel and to Judea. Now when they come, they come to the wise men come first. Even though Jesus is born in Bethlehem, they go to Jerusalem. But that's not where Jesus is. So why did they go to Jerusalem? It says the wise men came from the east and they came to Jerusalem saying where is he who is to be born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. And when Herod the king heard this, he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him, and assembling all the chief scribes and priests, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. Now how did they get to Jerusalem? The Magi used reason. They reasoned from the sign of nature, the prophecy of the word of God about a great king coming out of Jacob, out of Israel, that the sign of the star signified the birth of a king. And where else are you going to find the king of the Jews but in the capital of Israel, Jerusalem. So they use reason now to hone in on Jerusalem, so they see the star. Now of course it's not easy, you know, if you're going to follow the stars, how is following the constellations above going to lead you to Jerusalem versus Bethlehem? So that's why they have to employ reason. Now you could say that reason led them to Jerusalem and to Herod the Great, who wants to kill the birth, who wants to kill the baby Messiah, this child born of the line of David. So that was kind of a mistake. They kind of led Herod the Great into this great mystery. And that could have been disastrous if the angels don't intervene and warn Joseph to take the child and to flee later on. But I think it might be a little bit too harsh to say reason misled that. Nature put them on the path, prophecy helped guide them. But then reason led them off track and they missed Bethlehem for Jerusalem because of reasoning. I would think it's fairer to say that reason guided them to Jerusalem. And then what happens is now reason couldn't get them all the way to the Messiah. Reason can't get us all the way, maybe to knowing Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, but it can lead us close, it can be a tool that helps us. And then what happens is the Magi gathered with Herod the Great. And of course, it's providential that at this point, Herod the Great is at the end of his life. He's a very old man. All his children are adults and grown, so there's no king born. Now imagine if this would have happened when Herod was younger and he had children. They would have thought that one of these children of Herod the Great is the Messiah. And that would have been a great miss. Right. That would have been a great mistake. And so instead they know that it can't be a child born of the Herodian dynasty, because Herod is an old man and all his children are old. None of them, no one born of the Herodian dynasty has been born at this time. But what they do is they gather the scribes and where is the Messiah to be born? Because, you know, reason misled them to Jerusalem. Where is the Messiah, the King of the Jews, according to your prophecies, according to Scripture, where is this Jewish king to be born? And so Herod has the great scribes gather together and they look and they find a prophecy in the prophet Micah. And In Micah chapter 5, we discover that the Messiah who will be born of the house of David will be born in Bethlehem, just as David himself was born in Bethlehem. So the prophecy of Micah tells them that it will be Bethlehem. And notice then that nature starts them on the track. Scripture guides them, that it's a king born, the great king. The great sign of the constellations is the King of Israel or the King of the Jews, literally, which is a Gentile phrase. You don't find Jews using King of the Jews, they use the title King of Israel. And so yet here we have them using the title King of the Jews. And they get that from the prophecy, probably from numbers 2417, which talks about a star and a king of Israel. So prophecy now guides them, and then reason leads them to Jerusalem, but they don't find The Messiah. Reason's not sufficient. Reason needs to be supplanted or needs to be supplemented, I should say, by Scripture again. So it will be the Scriptures and the prophecy of Micah that will lead them to Bethlehem. And so the Magi will leave Herod the Great and they will head to Bethlehem. And what happens as they leave for Bethlehem? It says in verse nine of chapter two of Matthew, after listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. And when they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy that guiding star that guided them. Now, they knew that the word of God told them to go to Bethlehem. And as they make their way, the star becomes more transparent and more luminous, and it leads them in a more direct way than before now to Bethlehem. How it does that, Matthew does not tell us. I don't know the answer how that appeared, but that clearly scripture and nature again, working together, lead them to Bethlehem, where they find the babe and they will find Jesus in verse 11. And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. And then opening their treasures, they offer to him gifts. Gold, frankincense and myrrh. And so now they give the child gifts. And so they want to adore and worship him. And so the guiding star is going to guide them. But as we think back now on the roadmap of the Magi, we see that there's three key things that lead them, kind of following a treasure map, so to speak, they're trying to find the Messiah. And what leads them to the Messiah? What leads them to God? First, nature. And we know that nature is a book written by God. He is the creator of nature. And so nature can bespeak and lead us to God. And there's many people who've gone through conversions by seeing the majesty, the splendor, the beauty, the design of nature. And it's led them to say there has to be a creator because of the beauty of an order of creation. If there's such design, there must be a designer. And if there's such artistry, there must be an artist. And so many people have followed nature to see that there's a God. And here, in this incredible, unique story, the Magi see a great sign, and that sign leads them to the Messiah. Now, how does it do that? Because now nature is supplemented. And in addition to nature, we get the scripture, prophecy of A king arising from Israel. Now, what's interesting about that prophecy, by the way of Numbers, chapter 24, verse 17, is that verse 18. The verse afterwards says, edom shall be dispossessed. Well, that's really interesting for our story here, because Herod the Great is not actually a Jew. He's not Jewish. He's an Edomite. He's a descendant of Esau. The Jews are descendants of Jacob and his brother. Esau had other tribes and other descendants. And Herod the Great is a descendant of Esau, which means Edom. So he's an Edomite. So imagine Herod the Great sitting there with all the scribes. You had the Magi. We have just heard that a king has been born. We've seen his star. We've seen the sign. We're following it. We know that there's a great Messiah, a great king of Judea and of Israel, of the Jews born, who was destined to rule all the nations. And you have to understand that Herod the Great wanted to establish his dynasty as that dynasty that would rule Jerusalem and rule the Jews. And he wanted his dynasty to be the fulfillment of the Davidic dynasty. He saw himself as the new Solomon, the new David. And so when these magi come, it's a bit embarrassing, and it threatens his dynastic dreams for his descendants. And then imagine what Herod the Great thought when he heard the prophecy in Numbers 24:18 after. It talks about a star rising and a scepter coming forth from Israel. And then he hears that Moab will be crushed and. And that Edom will be dispossessed. He's an Edomite. He is going to be dispossessed of the kingdom which will be given to Jesus Christ, who is the true heir apparent of the line of David. He will be the true king of Israel. And so that's a fascinating connection in the story with all these prophecies and all these things coming together. And now let's just kind of again go back. The nature that leads the magi, then scripture, and then reason gets them close. Reason is a help. It's an assist. The star isn't as bright. They don't know where they're supposed to go in Israel, so they reason the king must be born in the capital. So clearly they go to the palace of Herod the Great, the leader of Israel, and the king, and they expect to find him to have a child, and he doesn't. And so now, in a sense, reason led him to a bit of a cul de sac. But then what happens? The Word of God will correct. The Word of God will redirect. Now, this is something very fascinating in the Catholic tradition. And you find this going back to St Anthony the Desert and St Augustine and in the Middle Ages, this idea that there's three guideposts for us to find God, three books, so to speak. The first book is the Book of Nature. And we see St. Anthony of the Desert will talk about Psalm 19 that nature tells, just as we saw in Psalm 19, verse 1, the heavens are telling the glory of God and day pours forth speech to day and night to night. In other words, creation has a message that there is a Creator. It tells us about God. So nature leads us to God, and that's an important sign. And that's. So you have the Book of Creation. The second book is the Book of the Soul. And in the Book of the Soul, God makes us in his image and likeness. And so the Book of the Soul means that we have reason, and reason should lead us and the soul and reflecting on the dignity of the human person and the depth of the human person should lead us. That there is a. That if we're in the image of God, there must be a God. And yet reason doesn't always lead us. Right? And so Augustine talks about how the Book of Nature can be misread by the pagans, and they end up worshiping the sun, the moon and the stars rather than seeing them as signposts to the Creator and to the divine God. But they end up worshiping creation rather than the Creator. Big mistake. The other problem is the Book of the Soul or reason can be clouded because of sin. And so we can be misdirected by reason because reason can't be perfect because of our limitations. And because of sin, reason can be clouded and biased and prejudiced, mistaken. And then that's why Augustine says God gave us a third book, that Book of Revelation, the Book of the Bible, Scripture. Scripture becomes that third book to guide us to God and to the Messiah who wants to redeem and save us. And so that third book is clear. It's clear and manifest. In other words, Augustine says, look, we might look at the Book of Nature and make mistakes, misread it. We might look at the Book of the Soul and Reason and misread that. But God makes it evident and clear and simple with the Scriptures so that we can understand that. And so that's important. But yet there's a warning here in the story of the Magi, because the scholars, the scribes in Jerusalem, they know that the Messiah is to be born in Bethlehem. But what's interesting is that they don't follow the wise men, the Magi, to Bethlehem. They don't go. They don't go. This is the whole plot of the story of the Scriptures of Israel, all the scriptures of Israel. And we're going to hear about this throughout Advent. We're going to hear prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Baruch. We're going to hear all these scriptural prophecies about the coming Messiah. And so these scribes, these Jews, dedicate their life to studying the Torah and studying the Word of God. And then they are able to tell Herod the Great and the Magi, oh, the Messiah is going to be born in Bethlehem, just as Micah says. But they don't go. It's the danger of knowledge without action and love. They have the knowledge about God's Scriptures, but do they have the love of God? If they had a zeal and a love for God, wouldn't they be stirred up like the Magi themselves who've journeyed from the east, from far away? Wouldn't they make at least the short journey, which is only a few miles to neighboring Bethlehem from Jerusalem? Wouldn't they go? But they don't. We want to have the knowledge of the Scriptures because they can lead us to the Messiah. But that knowledge is not sufficient if we do not act upon it. So Advent is a season of preparation. And it prepares us, according to the Church, in two ways. One, that we grow in knowledge and we reflect on the Scriptures and the stories so that we gain more knowledge about the Messiah. But secondly, that our hearts get stirred up so that we may have the love to act on that knowledge, so that we can imitate the Magi. We want to follow them, you know, in that guiding star, that star that signified in the Scriptures the advent of the Messiah. And we want to be like those Magi who followed that star, who got on their feet and pursued and sought God. Let's seek God this Advent season. God's inviting us during Advent to pursue him in prayer. We journey, and that guiding star for us will be the star of light that guides our daily meditations throughout the Advent season. Our guiding star will be the Scriptures throughout each day of Advent. And as we go on Advent, we are more and more prepared for the coming of Christ in Bethlehem. And we want to approach Christ in Bethlehem and at that Mass, just like the Magi, not like the scribes who missed Christmas. We want to come and find Christ there. And so today, as you're spending this great time on this day to study with us in this Bible conference on Advent. You're going to study and learn a lot like those great scribes, but be also like those Magi who learned from the scribes but did what they didn't do. They pursued the Messiah, they made that uncomfortable journey, and they allocated the time and the effort to come to Christmas Morn. Or actually, the Magi don't get there at Christmas Morn. We get there at Epiphany, but we get there at Christmas Morn. And we are called to worship as they were. And their whole goal was to worship the Christ Child. And that's our goal too. So let's come with our hearts prepared by studying and loving and taking on all the disciplines of Advent, so our heart is prepared for this Advent, through this Advent, for this Christmas. Thank you so much for being with us. May the Lord bless and keep.