Wise men from the east arrive in Jerusalem with a question that should have set the whole city singing: 2"Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?" They add their purpose: they "have come to worship him." Matthew reports the city's reaction in one line. Herod 3"was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him." The news that a king had been born landed on the city that had long waited for one like a threat.
Herod summons the chief priests and scribes and asks where the Christ is to be born. They answer at once, quoting Micah: 6"a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel." They know their Scripture cold. Bethlehem is a short walk from Jerusalem, and not one of them goes. The foreigners who read the sky are the ones who make the trip. Knowing the right answer and coming to worship turn out to be two different distances.
Then Herod sends the Magi off with instructions: 8"that I too may come and worship him." Herod and the Magi use the same word. For the Magi it means gold and a bent knee. For Herod it means a sword he has not yet drawn. The word *worship* can sit on the tongue of a man who intends murder, and everything depends on what the worshiper plans to do with the child once he has found him.
When the star goes ahead of the Magi and stops, Matthew allows himself the strongest emotion in the chapter: 10"they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy." They go into the house, see the child with Mary his mother, and 11"fell down and worshiped him." Then they open their treasures: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Warned in a dream, they go home another way, and that quiet detour is the first act of defiance against Herod's throne.
Herod's answer is dreadful. His soldiers go into Bethlehem and the surrounding region and kill every boy two years old and under. Matthew lets Jeremiah speak over the grief: 18"Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more." The child himself has already slipped away to Egypt by night, and Matthew sees a new exodus in the flight: 15"Out of Egypt I called my son." Hosea first spoke those words of Israel, and Matthew reads Jesus as Israel's story lived out again by the one who does not fail. His family will not settle anywhere until Herod is dead. Even then they settle in Nazareth, an obscure town in Galilee, where Matthew says the prophets' word was fulfilled, that 23"he would be called a Nazarene."
From the start, Jesus is unwelcome to power and welcome to those who bow. Herod's two options are the two options open to everyone who hears the news that a king has come: bow or scheme. The priests found a third, which was to know the answer and stay home. Ask where you stand today. What would you do with him if he asked for something you did not want to give?
Prayer
Father, thank you for leading unlikely people, star-watchers from a far country and a frightened family, by signs we would never think to trust on our own. Keep us from knowing all the right answers and staying home. Give us the Magi's joy and their bent knees, and keep us from any worship that hides a plan of our own. In Jesus' name, amen.