Steve: Hi, this is Steve Webb, your OG Godcaster.
Steve: You're about to hear the LifeSpring Advent Calendar, which was recorded in 2006.
Steve: It's a daily show which will run right up to Christmas Day,
Steve: so be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode.
Steve: Now, the story of Advent and Christmas is a timeless story, so it doesn't age.
Steve: However, the links and the phone numbers mentioned on the podcast have all changed but one.
Steve: WhyChristmas.com is still current and active,
Steve: and it's the best Christmas information website on the Internet.
Steve: LifeSpringPodcast.com now forwards you to LifeSpringMedia.com.
Steve: And the phone number you'll hear on the show is changed to plus 1-951-732-8511.
Steve: Hello and welcome back once again to the Lifespring Advent Calendar.
Steve: It's day number 23, and I'm Steve Webb, your host.
Steve: There's only a couple of more days left until Christmas, and there's three days left on the calendar.
Steve: So let's see what's behind door number 23.
Music: We three kings of oriental, bearing gifts we traverse across.
Music: Field and fountain, moor and mountain
Music: Following yonder star
James: Well today, Steve, we're finding out another part of the Christmas story.
James: And it's the wise men, or magi, that followed the star to find Jesus.
James: Let's find out more about them as we read about them in the Bible.
James: Their story is told in the book of Matthew and chapter 2.
Steve: After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea during the time of King Herod,
Steve: Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked,
Steve: Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?
Steve: We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.
Steve: When King Herod heard this, he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.
Steve: When he had called together all the people's chief priests and teachers of the law,
Steve: he asked them where the Christ was to be born.
Steve: In Bethlehem and Judea, they replied, for this is what the prophet has written.
Steve: But you, Bethlehem, and the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah.
Steve: For out of you will come a ruler, who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.
Steve: Then Herod called the Magi secretly, and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared.
Steve: He sent them to Bethlehem and said, Go and make a careful search for the child.
Steve: As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.
Steve: After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star that they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.
Steve: When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.
Steve: On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him.
Steve: Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.
Steve: And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.
Steve: When the wise men had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream.
Steve: Get up, he said, take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt.
Steve: Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.
Steve: So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night, and left for Egypt,
Steve: where he stayed until the death of Herod.
Steve: And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet,
Steve: Out of Egypt I called my son.
Steve: When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious,
Steve: and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under,
Steve: in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.
Steve: Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled.
Steve: A voice is heard in Ramah weeping in great mourning,
Steve: Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more.
Steve: After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said,
Steve: Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel,
Steve: for those who were trying to take the child's life are dead.
Steve: So he got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel.
Steve: But when he heard that Archelius was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod,
Steve: he was afraid to go there.
Steve: Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee,
Steve: and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth.
Steve: So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets,
Steve: he will be called a Nazarene.
James: We normally see the wise men with the shepherds, Mary and Joseph,
James: and of course Jesus, all crammed into a little shed in the Christmas story.
James: But in fact the wise men and shepherds probably never met.
James: The wise men travelled to Jesus when he was actually aged about one or two.
James: And by this time it seems that Mary, Joseph and Jesus had settled in Bethlehem
James: and lived in a normal house.
James: but who were these wise men and why did they travel such great distances to see a little baby
James: the wise men came from somewhere in the area which is now made up of iraq iran saudi arabia or yemen
James: which was then known as persia arabia and sheba and they were indeed wise men and they're also
James: sometimes called the magi the word magi comes from the greek word magos which is where we get magic
James: from. And that actually also itself comes from an older Persian word, Maghupati, and this was the
James: title given to priests in a sect of Zoroastrianism. Today we call them astrologers or even scientists.
James: They were experts in astronomy and astrology, which for them was pretty much the same thing,
James: and they followed the patterns of the stars religiously. They would have been very rich and
James: thought of in very high esteem, even by people who weren't from their country. Although they're
James: called the three kings, the bible doesn't say anything about how many wise men there were,
James: or in fact even if they were kings. At the time that Jesus was born, the kings of Yemen were Jews,
James: so people might have thought that these were the kings. And the wise men became three in number
James: because they bought three gifts with them. But we don't know how many there were that went,
James: but with all their servants and entourage, there's probably more than three people sitting on camels.
James: Studying the night sky, the wise men had seen a new and very unusual star,
James: and knew that it told about the birth of a very special king.
James: No one really knows what the new star was, but there are several theories.
James: These include supernovas, comets and conjunctions, the coming together of two or more planets.
James: I think it was probably a series of conjunctions with a comet thrown in for good measure.
James: During 7 BC, there were three separate conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation of Pisces,
James: looking both east and west from Arabia.
James: The coming together of Pisces, Jupiter and Saturn had a very special meaning in ancient astronomy and astrology.
James: Pisces was the sign of Israel and of kings, and Jupiter was the planet of kings and Saturn the planet of new beginnings.
James: So a star, or what looked like a new star, appearing in that constellation would have meant a great deal to the scientists of that time.
James: Astrology wasn't widely practiced by the Jews during that time, but it was by a few Jews and many Arabs, such as those who lived around the area of Yemen.
James: As well as the triple conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in 7 BC,
James: there was also a conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn and Mars in 6 BC,
James: and Jupiter and Venus in 3 BC.
James: And there were appearances of comet in 5 BC and 4 BC,
James: and a supernova, an exploding star, also appeared in 5 BC.
James: All or none of these might have been or contributed to the star of Bethlehem,
James: we just don't know.
James: But there certainly was a large amount of activity in the night sky over Israel at that time,
James: and I'm sure that God could have arranged the night sky since the dawn of creation for just that time to announce the birth of his son.
James: If you'd like to try finding out these conjunctions for yourself,
James: you can download an excellent free astronomy and planetarium bit of software at stellarium.org.
James: Thinking that a new king was to be born, not unreasonably, the wise men went to the royal palace in Jerusalem.
James: When King Herod asked the wise men to find Jesus and tell him where he was,
James: He didn't really want to go and worship him, but he wanted to go and kill him.
James: Herod thought that Jesus sounded like a new king that could come and take his power away.
James: When the wise men found Mary and Jesus, they gave him their special gifts.
James: Today these gifts seem rather strange things to give to a baby,
James: but Christians believe that they have very special meanings.
James: Gold is associated with kings, and Christians believe that Jesus is the king of kings.
James: Frankincense is sometimes used in worship in churches and showed that people would worship Jesus.
James: Myrrh is a perfume used to embalm dead bodies and it showed that Jesus would suffer and die.
James: Frankincense and myrrh both have some antiseptic and healing properties and are still being investigated by medical researchers today.
James: When the wise men were about to go back to Herod and tell him where Jesus was,
James: God warned them in a dream what Herod really intended to do, so they travelled home by a different route.
James: Because Herod didn't find out where this new king was,
James: he decided that the only way to be rid of him was to kill every baby boy under two years old in Bethlehem and the surrounding area.
James: He knew about Bethlehem for some very old prophecies in the Old Testament of the Bible.
James: And there's historical records that says that Herod had baby boys killed in 4 BC.
James: So Jesus being born about 5 to 7 BC makes even more sense.
James: Probably only about 20 babies would have been killed,
James: but even to consider doing so shows how desperate and power-crazed Herod was.
James: This also fulfilled another prophecy in the Bible about children in Israel being killed.
James: But Jesus was kept safe as Joseph, warned about Herod in a dream, took him and Mary to Egypt.
James: So Jesus was also a refugee, something that not many people think of when they think about Jesus,
James: but his going to Egypt also fulfilled more biblical prophecies.
James: The presents given to Jesus would have been very valuable,
James: and it's thought that they could have paid for the escape into Egypt.
James: Mary, Joseph and Jesus lived in Nazareth until Jesus started his teachings,
James: and this fulfilled another prophecy in the Old Testament.
James: Over the years, especially during the Middle Ages,
James: many different stories and legends were told about the three kings,
James: and they were given names.
James: This is how they're often described.
James: Gaspar, who's the king of Sheba, that's modern-day Yemen,
James: but back then it was populated by Ethiopian Jews,
James: has brown hair and a brown beard or sometimes no beard and he wears a green cloak and a gold crown
James: with green jewels on it. Gaspar represents the frankincense brought to Jesus. Melchior who's the
James: king of Arabia has a long white beard and long white hair and he wears a gold cloak and Melchior
James: represents the gold brought to Jesus. Balthazar who's the king of Tarshish in Egypt has black skin
James: and a black beard or sometimes no beard and wears a purple cloak. Balthazar represents the gift of
James: myrrh that was bought. So when you open your presents, and there's not long to go now,
James: remember those first gifts that were given to Jesus, and that God gave us his very special
James: present at Christmas time, Jesus.
Music: Start with royal beauty by
Music: Westward leading, still proceeding
Music: Guide us to the perfect light
Music: Hallelujah
Music: Oh, yeah.
Steve: Well, James, thank you for all that great information.
Steve: The music today was E-Type Jazz with We Three Kings.
Steve: And of course, the background music, as always, has been Brian Duncan and the Neil Soul Band.
Steve: Links for the music can be found at the show notes page at lifespringpodcast.com.
Steve: For James Cooper, I'm Steve Webb.
Steve: God bless you.
Steve: And remember, it's only two more days until Christmas.
Music: It's the love that I get from you.
Music: It never gets old.
Music: It's Christmas.
Music: It's a love I need.