Waiting for the True King

For Meditation

Christmas day has passed and we’ve remembered celebrated Jesus’ birth and now we look forward and long for his return to come and make all things new. Jesus will return and when he does he will come as the King of Kings, he will come as the true king!

While we recognize that Jesus will come as the true King to reign and rule in love so all things will be as they should, we also have to recognize that Jesus when he was here on earth, even as a baby and toddler, was the true king.

In our scripture, Matthew 2:1-12 we see that Jesus, the true king elicits a response from the people who encounter him, and that’s true for us today as well. Everyone has a response to Jesus and there is a wide spectrum of those responses, but our scripture tells us what the true response to the true king looks like.

As you think about who Jesus is, and the fact that he is the true king, how do you respond? What does it mean to you that Jesus is the one, true king? What does it mean to us as a community? As we encounter Jesus we have no choice but to respond to him and may our response be for his glory and our good.

Matthew 2:1-12

The Magi Visit the Messiah

2 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:

6 “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
    are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
    who will shepherd my people Israel.’”

7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”

9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.