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Matthew 2

Matthew 2 gives us a snapshot of a narrow window of time, when Jesus was about two years old or a little younger, likely around 6 BC. In just 23 verses, God speaks to people through dreams no fewer than four times.

Joseph receives three of them. First he is warned of Herod’s murderous intent and told to flee to Egypt. Next he learns that Herod is dead and it is time to return to Israel. Finally he is directed to settle his family in Galilee. Each time, Joseph acts right away. After the first dream, Matthew tells us, “he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt” (Matthew 2:14, ESV). He left by night, without waiting for morning.

The fourth dream goes to the wise men: “And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way” (Matthew 2:12). These men were almost certainly not Jewish. They were most likely astrologers from the East who watched the heavens for signs. Look at how God first got their attention. He did not send them a scroll. He put a star in the sky, where they were already looking.

God speaks in a language we can hear

I recently learned how differently our imaginations work. My son-in-law and grandson don’t see pictures when they read; some people call this “aphantasia.” That surprised me, because when I read, the scenes play out vividly in my mind. I would rather read a good book than see a movie, because movies usually fall short of what I imagined.

I suspect God’s communication with each of us is fitted to how we are wired. “O LORD, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar” (Psalm 139:1–2). He knows us better than we know ourselves. He knew a dream would reach Joseph and move him to act. He knew a star would reach men who studied the sky. Hebrews opens by saying that “at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son” (Hebrews 1:1–2).

Paul widens this in Romans 1. Creation itself speaks: “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made” (Romans 1:20). Some people hold to a belief in no God, and others to a God who cannot be known. Yet the order, complexity, and fine-tuning of the universe keep pointing to a Designer. For anyone willing to look honestly, God’s message is that He IS, and that He can be KNOWN.

When the message doesn’t get through

Matthew 2 also shows people who did not hear.

Herod heard the news of a newborn King and was “troubled.” His position and power had become his god, and idols block out the Son. To protect his throne, he ordered every boy two years old and under in Bethlehem killed. I can’t help thinking about the soldiers who carried out that order. They did not hear God either.

The chief priests and scribes are even more striking. When Herod asked where the Messiah would be born, they answered at once: Bethlehem, just as Micah had written. They had the right verse, and they were about six miles away. As far as we know, not one of them went. Foreign astrologers crossed a desert to worship, while the Bible scholars stayed home. Knowing the answer is not the same as hearing God.

If God speaks to each of us in a way we can hear, why do so few respond? We’ll return to that question in the coming weeks, as Jesus begins His ministry and is joyfully received by some and rejected by others, a road that ends at the cross.

The time God did not intervene

In Matthew 2, God moves through those who listen, and Jesus’ life is protected. About thirty years later, God does not intervene. Jesus himself said He could ask His Father and “he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels” (Matthew 26:53). No angels were sent, and no dream warned anyone away. The Father who rescued His Son from Herod’s sword chose not to rescue Him from the cross.

We are all so blessed because He didn’t. “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).

For reflection: God spoke to the wise men through stars and to Joseph through dreams. How has He been speaking to you, and what might be keeping you from hearing it, the way Herod’s throne or the scribes’ comfort kept them from Bethlehem?