The Outsiders

More visitors arrived to visit the new family – though, almost certainly, not on the same night as the shepherds, as usually portrayed in nativity plays. Rather, it was much later, when the family were back in ‘the house’ (see Matthew 2:11), no doubt after the wider family had left when the census was completed. These were the Magi (or ‘Wise Men’) – Persian astrologers who had been led by God in an unusual way to see the Saviour for themselves.

But how had they even heard of the Jewish Messiah? It seems likely that it was all thanks to Daniel. Almost 600 years earlier, Daniel had been exiled to Babylon where, through a series of remarkable and God-engineered circumstances, he ended up as chief of the Magi to King Nebuchadnezzar (see Daniel 2:48). It’s not unreasonable to think that he used this opportunity to teach them things from God’s Word – including prophecies about the coming Messiah: a Messiah not just for Israel, but for all nations.

The visit of the Magi highlighted how God’s Word had promised that when the Messiah came, He would be a Saviour, not just for Israel, but for the whole world; and the gifts they brought that day fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy of the nation’s wealth being brought to the Messiah (see Isaiah 60:4-9). Abraham had been promised that ‘all peoples on earth will be blessed through you’ (Genesis 12:3 NIV) – and now, at last, that promise was opening up. Outsiders could become insiders. In the years that lay ahead, Jesus would often reach out to ‘outsiders’ – those that the religious purists saw as beyond the pale. But with Jesus, no one is ever too far outside.

Thank God that, no matter what we have been or done, we do not have to stay outsiders. Jesus came that first Christmas to bring each one of us into the very heart of Father God’s family. So don’t settle for sitting on the edge!