- The kings from the East, whom we know as the wise men, are following a star that has risen. It also seems to move as they follow it until it comes to rest where Jesus is. It makes some wonder if it is really an angel.
- God points the way, and the wise men are seekers. The Israelites are waiting for the promised king, but they aren’t the ones seeking this new king.
- Herod tries to kill this new king. I don’t think Jesus was two years old at this point. I think Herod wanted to make sure he got him, so he exaggerated to cover the possibilities. He didn’t want to miss him. It’s also possible that the star appeared before Jesus’ birth, so that the time indicated for how long the star had been there could have included the pregnancy as well.
- The kings are willing to humble themselves before this king. They don’t seem to have any qualms about how this new king appears. They made this trip by faith.
- They give Jesus gifts of a prophet, priest, and king. They recognized Jesus better than most of the experts in God’s word would.
- Joseph gets another dream and flees with his young family. Jesus spends his first years as a refugee. I love how Jesus understands the whole of the human experience. He is a refugee. He is even the son of a woman who was scandalously pregnant. He will spend his years before his ministry begins as a working man from a poor family. He understands all of our emotions and experiences.
- Jesus spends five years in Egypt, and God calls His son out of Egypt, just as He called His children out of Egypt thousands of years before.
- Egypt, in the end, will be blessed with a remnant because of how they housed and provided for God’s people. They were home to Israel and Jesus.
- Joseph receives another dream and ends up in Nazareth, which is the town where he and Mary were from.
- Jesus is of the tribe of Judah, from the line of David, born in Bethlehem, and called a Nazarene. All of these things are in the Old Testament, but our human brains have limited understanding to put all the pieces together. We like to pick one thing and cling to that. The Pharisees were fixated on certain truths they knew about the Messiah, which made them not see the truth about the man right in front of their faces, the One who fulfilled all things.
