The Bible Binge: The King Nobody Wants: The Counterfeit (Matthew 2:1-12)

Chad Richard Bresson

The Table of Los Fresnos

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King of the Mountain

Some of the best childhood games were those games that require very little expense, while at the same time necessitating a whole lot of effort. Tag is one of those games. Hide and seek. Kick the can. Kill the carrier… only that’s not the politically incorrect name we gave it. Every once in a while, workers near our elementary school play ground would leave a mound of dirt that bordered the playground from the ball diamond and soccer field. Kids and mounds of dirt are an irresistible recipe for a raucous round of “king of the mountain”. Also known as “king of the hill”, the point of the game is to stay on top of a pile of dirt while other kids try to knock off the one on top of the mound. The one who successfully wards off all comers from dethroning him or her from the spot on the top of the pile is known as the “king of the mountain”. Muscle almost always won, which is why the big kids typically won this particular game.

All grown up, the participants are stronger, the tactics are more complex, the means have multiplied, the piles of dirt are bigger, and the stakes are much, much higher. We even have a catchphrase for it popularized by the old Western films: “this town ain’t big enough for the both of us”. While post-modernism has attempted to make everybody a winner and creates towns big enough for multiple kings, in the real world, at the end of the day, there’s only one king of the mountain.

Bible Binge: The King

This is the final week in the Bible Binge series. We’ve been through the entire Bible this year in our Bible reading. And now is as good a time as any to remind ourselves of the theme verse of the Bible found in John’s biography of Jesus:

John 20:31 The Bible has been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Everywhere we’ve turned, we’ve found that the entire story of the Bible is about Jesus, who He is, and what He has done for us. And that story of Jesus is meant to create faith in us to believe that He is the Messiah, the One who was Promised from the very beginning of time. And it’s through that story we are given life, salvation and forgiveness.

It is fitting that we end it here in Matthew 2. Because Matthew 2 spells out for us just why this baby that has been born is everything we need. As we get to chapter 2, the baby Jesus has been born. Jesus is Israel’s long expected Immanuel, the New Joshua who will save his people from their sins. But this heir to David’s throne is an unexpected kind of Messiah. He is a king in waiting who was born in shock, shame, stigma, and scandal. For all his friends and family know, he is an illegitimate child, conceived in an illicit union between his mother and an unknown father. But Joseph, in an act of faith, adopts Jesus into David’s royal line as a legitimate heir to the throne.

The story is continued in chapter 2 and it contains a very familiar story of the wise men who follow a star all the way to the baby Jesus. Our nativities at Christmastime typically have three wise men, in spite of the fact that there is no manger in this story. In fact, there’s a lot about the wise men in our pop culture that has no basis in the real story. There’s no record of a manger, no record of there being 3 wise men (only 3 gifts), they most likely did not visit the baby Jesus at the same time as the shepherds, they are most likely not kings themselves, and there’s no record of the star appearing over the manger. And I’m not suggesting that our manger scenes must be 100 percent accurate… they are meant to tell a story of the Good News… and here in Matthew, this story is about wise men, a star, and the baby Jesus.

What Matthew 2 tells us is that there are wise men who follow a star from the east… and that star leads them to Jerusalem and eventually a house in Bethlehem. But just like we’ve observed in chapter 1 with the birth of Jesus, this story is anything but normal. The wise men show up in Jerusalem asking about a king that has been born. The advisors to King Herod point to Bethlehem, a little town a few miles outside of Jerusalem. That’s not normal. No one expects a king from lowly Bethlehem. Any potential king would be expected to be born in Jerusalem. But Bethlehem has played this role before. This is where King David is born.

The Counterfeit

But this isn’t the only king in this story. There are two kings whose destinies are at stake in this story. We’ve already been introduced to a baby who is the line of David… but now we are being told, that the rest of the story occurs “in the days of Herod the King” there in verse 1. Something is out of place. You can almost hear the mood music in the words “in the days of Herod the king”. This baby who has been born, King of the Jews, there is somebody else on the throne in Jerusalem. Herod, king of the mountain, is king in Jerusalem. This King Herod isn’t even a Jew. He is an Edomite, a descendent of Esau in the Old Testament, and one of Israel’s enemies. King Herod is not of royal blood. He’s a counterfeit. He’s a foreigner. He took the throne by force and he occupies the throne on behalf of the Roman Empire.

We’ve all been burned by counterfeits. I remember a few years back, ordering a Cincinnati Reds jersey online… when it arrived in the mail, it was obvious that the discount price I paid for the jersey was too good to be true. The jersey was a fake. A counterfeit. That wasn’t fun. And it’s not fun for the Jews living in Jerusalem at the time. Herod is a tyrant. Herod is a traitor to the Jews. Herod is considered a mad man. He uses bribery. Thuggery. Adultery. Murder. Anything to keep his power and his throne. That’s Herod. He occupies a throne that is not his own, a throne obtained through brute force. Yet Herod believes Jesus will steal the throne (in much the same way he believed about his own sons). He considers Jesus a political threat. But that is not the kind of king that Jesus came to be. Jesus is the Shepherd of Israel who saves his people from their sins. Herod destroys. Jesus saves.

The Star

How do we know who the true king is? This baby who will be king, Matthew shows, is the legitimate heir. Wise men, come from the east, following a star. And those wise men, and that star are not there for Herod. They’re there for a baby in lowly Bethlehem. And this star is a big deal. Mythbusting time: there is nothing in this text to suggest that the star is a natural phenomenon. Every year about this time you’ll see the stories and the documentaries… could the star have been a comet or the alignment of the planets in a unique way? Or was it a supernova burning itself out? No. In fact, everything here in Matthew 2 suggests it is super natural. It didn’t exist before the story and didn’t exist after the story… at least in the sense that we are likely to think.

The way this star behaves makes it an unusual star. Whatever the vocation of these magi, it is obvious they understood the star to unique to the point of being a sign. And not only does this star have something to say, it beckons them to follow. This star’s moves in a way that leads the wise men out of their own country to the Promised Land. This star captures their attention. It is the brightest object in their night time sky. It radiates glory. It has a glory, but this glory is not its own. This star bears witness to the light that is in Bethlehem with Mary. The wise men have been following the star because there is a greater light that has dawned in Israel, a light that cannot be seen by Herod nor by his advisors or the chief priests and scribes because they are blind in their darkness.

This star of glory speaks to another kind of glory that pales the cheap glory of Herod. Herod’s glory is a derived glory. His glory has been manufactured in Rome and has been obtained through brute force and blood. He is not of the line of David, he’s not a Jew.. he’s a descendent of the man who would trade his throne for a bowl of soup, Esau. To quote a popular Christmas movie, Herod sits on a “throne of lies”, and what glory Herod enjoys has been bought and paid for. He is an imposter and his glory is fake.

But the star’s glory is from the heavens. This glory is not derived. It cannot be. Herod manufactured his glory. This is the Shekinah glory of God dwelling with his people. This is intrinsic to Emmanuel, the New Joshua come to save his people from their sins. The glory of the star has its source in the One who has been born in Bethlehem. Indeed, the star moves toward the child, leading the Gentile wise men along the way, because the Shekinah glory belongs to the child. The glory of the Davidic heir born to Mary and Joseph cannot and will not be shared with another, including Herod and the Jewish religious leaders.

Emmanuel’s Shekinah glory

This star comes to “rest” over the house in which was dwelling the heir to David’s throne. We come to this part of the story and we begin to realize, if we haven’t already that there is an intimacy between this light that the wise men have been following and the Light in the Bethlehem cradle. That light in the cradle all along has been like a magnet for the light in the heavens. Look at the language of Matthew 2: verse 2....

Matthew 2:2 “We saw his star at its rising and have come to worship him.”

We saw "his" star when it rose. It is identified with the child by identity and there is movement... we are supposed to see that the star is the reason they are no longer in their homeland and are here in the Promised Land. When they are done talking to Herod, verse 9...

Matthew 2:9-10 After hearing the king, they went on their way. And there it was—the star they had seen at its rising. It led them until it came and stopped above the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overwhelmed with joy.

The star leads. The star stops. The star produces joy. This is no ordinary star. This star is the same glory we’ve have followed throughout the entire Bible Binge. It’s the glory of the Lord that led His people through the Red Sea. It’s the glory cloud that rested on the tabernacle and temple. It is God’s presence with his people… and now here… Emmanuel… God has come to be one of us… the glory cloud has come back to Israel only this time, as this star shows… the glory is a Person.

This star, this glory, is tied to the real king, not the counterfeit.

In the rest of the story, these wise men who have come from another country, these Gentiles, give the baby gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. We are not going to spend a lot of time on these gifts, except to say that these are gifts fit for a king. There is a lot of Old Testament history involved in these gifts… but, like the star, they are intended to show us that Jesus has come to be the true King of Israel… and not just the king of Israel, but King of the whole world.

And the presence of myrrh points to the fact that this king will have a different kind of throne. Myrrh is a burial ointment. Why do you give a baby burial ointment? Because this baby is going to save His people from their sins… on a cross. Jesus was born in order that He might die for you and for me.

That’s not the kind of king we are expecting. That’s not the kind of king we even want. Like Herod and the Jews, we were fully expecting Jesus to descend in power and glory, riding in on a white horse. That’s the kind of king we want because we think we must have power and influence and success that the world can measure. We want to win the arguments, we want our opinions to matter when money is on the line. Too often we chase the counterfeit glory that comes from being viewed as a success in the world, hoping that it will satisfy. That’s Herod’s counterfeit glory. And we try to fit Jesus into that same mold.

We don’t expect Jesus to lose an argument. Instead, not only did he avoid gaining the upper hand in conversation, he allowed himself to lose the argument. He did not attempt to justify himself. Instead, he lost his life for us. We talk about Jesus being the “reason for the season.” But the One whose birth is accompanied by angels and a glory-star sets himself over against our world and its manufactured glory. There can be only one King of the Mountain. It is the baby who has His own star and his own glory insisting that He is going to save us from our sins.

Let’s Pray.

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