The “Three Kings” Show That the Good News is For Everyone

The “wise men” of the Christmas story are foreigners who travel from another country to see Jesus and are welcomed by the Holy Family.  But these wise men are part of a much bigger story that Matthew is telling in his Gospel.  What is Matthew's bigger point, and how do the wise men fit into it?

James Tissot (1836–1902). The Journey of the Magi. Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Magi_tissot.jpg.

On or before January 6, many Christians around the world celebrate the Christmas story of the coming of the “wise men,” who traveled from another country to see the baby Jesus.  We learn of this visit in the Gospel of Matthew.  But the point of the story goes far beyond the traditional nativity scene.

Matthew uses this event to help develop one of the major themes of his Gospel: the good news of Jesus is for all people, not just for the Jews into whose faith Jesus was born.

A bit of background will help explain who the “wise men” were:

A popular Christmas song calls these visitors “kings,” but the Bible more accurately calls them “wise men” or “magi.”  Matthew is writing in Greek and knows Hebrew, but he uses the Persian word magoi to describe these unexpected visitors who come to Jesus in Matthew 2:1.

The magoi were Parthian or Persian priests of the religion of Zoroastrianism.  They were renowned as astrologers – wise men who spent their lives studying the movements of the stars and other natural phenomena in order to try to predict what might happen next.  They were not fortune-tellers in the way that word is used today, but more like primitive scientists.  (Incidentally, the Bible does not tell us how many of them there were.  The idea that there were 3 comes from the fact that they brought 3 kinds of gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.)

So how do these magi/astrologers/wise men fit into Matthew’s bigger theme?

Matthew’s Gospel is structured to show that God loves all people and that the gospel of Jesus is for everyone

A central theme running through Matthew’s Gospel is that Jesus welcomes all people to be part of his kingdom, including foreigners, Gentiles, non-Jews.  In fact, foreigners are a central part of God’s plan of salvation.

• Matthew goes out of his way to identify 4 foreign women in Jesus’s genealogy (see Matthew 1:1-17).  He is showing that God’s plan of salvation included foreigners from the beginning.

• In Matthew’s Gospel, the first people to recognize the unique importance of Jesus are the foreign magi, or wise men, who seek him out and bow down before him when they find him (see Matthew 2:1-12).  Foreigners, strangers, can bring insight and wisdom to us.

• Although the adult Jesus is a practicing Jew, he preaches the good news in Gentile territories, not just in the places where Jews live (see “What is the structure of Matthew’s Gospel?” in Introduction to Matthew).  This shows that he desires to have people of all nations in his flock.

• In the final passage in Matthew’s Gospel (Matt. 28:18-20), Jesus proclaims that Christians must sharing his good news with people from all nations because he wants to have disciples from all nations (see Matthew 28:11-20).  Jesus wants his followers to have the same eagerness he has to welcome foreigners.

The story of the [“three kings”] wise men shows that foreigners are to be welcomed

Matthew’s Gospel shows us that God’s plan does not have room for rejecting people of other nations.

Imagine if Jesus had been born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, today, instead of in Bethlehem, Judea, 2,000 years ago.  Would the wise men have been allowed to cross the border?  Would they have been locked up before they reached Pennsylvania?  Would they have been cursed, rejected, called criminals, and deported?

Christians, of all people, should understand the need to welcome foreigners:

• Jesus ordered us to welcome strangers (Matt. 25:35, 43).

• The early church fought over whether non-Jews could be part of the Christian community, and the Holy Spirit guided the apostles to a clear decision in favor of welcoming everyone (Acts 15:1-29).

• If Jesus had not come with a gospel that welcomed foreigners, there would be no place for Americans or Europeans or Asians in Christianity; it would be a Jewish religion.

How can we, who have been welcomed as foreigners into the kingdom of God, be any less welcoming of the foreigners around us?

That is the point of the story of the “three kings.”  It’s not primarily about kings or wise men or gifts; it’s about welcoming foreigners and recognizing everyone’s place in the community of Christians.