Matthew 2: 1-23 (The whole chapter)
This is the account of the Wise Men of the East who came to worship the King of the Jews whose star they saw while they were still in the Far East.
They followed the star to Jerusalem, where they talked to King Herod, who consulted the Jewish priests to find out where this was supposed to happen, and sent them off to Bethlehem. Then the star came back, and led them right to the house (not stable) where they found Jesus and His mother Mary (Joseph was at work). Then they gave them their gifts. There were three kinds of gifts, so we think there were three Wise Men, but they were most likely a large caravan of camels and people.
Matthew is writing his Gospel to present Jesus as the prophesied King, and the gifts these Wise Men brought bring this out: gold, because He is King; incense, because He is our High Priest; and myrrh, because He is our Sacrifice, the Lamb of God.
When God warned the Wise Men to not go back to Herod, He also told Joseph to flee Galilee, because Herod would try to kill Jesus. So when Herod found out that he was tricked, he unwittingly fulfilled the prophesy that Rachel would wail with the loss of her children, when he ordered that all the children under 2 years old would be killed.
Then, when Herod died, Joseph brought Mary and Jesus back, but not to Bethlehem, back to Nazareth, where he and Mary were originally from. So Jesus grew up as a Nazarene (not Nazarite, that was someone who vowed not to drink wine for a specific time). So everything that happened, even the tragic and sorrowful things, all happened to fulfill prophesies that had been written hundreds of years before.
So we have the whole Christmas story, actually beginning with the angel telling Zacharias that he and his wife Elizabeth will have a son in their old age, and to name him John (Luke 1:5ff). Then when Elizabeth is six months along, Gabriel comes to Mary, with the news that she would also bear a Son Whose Father will be God, Himself! And also tells Joseph not to divorce her, but to go ahead and marry her. And Mary visits Elizabeth for three months, until John is born. Then they have to travel 120 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem to pay their taxes, when Mary is nine months pregnant; and the trip puts her into labor. And the rest of the story with the Angels and shepherds and Wise Men, with murderous Herod, the flight into Egypt, and their return back to Nazareth, where they started from.
This is the Christmas Story: How God's own Son became a Man, so that He could demonstrate to Mankind what God is like; to fulfill the whole Old Testament Law; and to be the Perfect Sacrifice, the sacrificial Lamb of God, that would not just cover, but actually take away our sins.
When the penitent would realize that he transgressed the Law, he would bring the animal to the priest, would lay his hands on the animal's head conferring his sin onto the animal, and the animal would die in sacrifice, taking the person's place in death so that the person could live. That is the same way Jesus took our sin-nature upon Himself to pay our "wages of sin" in dying the human death we all, each of us, deserves. When we repent and turn around our thinking to realizing that we deserve death for our sins, and Jesus took our place in that death, on the cross; that's when our sins are taken away, as far as East is from West, not covered temporarily. That's when God causes us to be born into His own Family, by placing His Holy Spirit into us making our dead spirit alive with His life. And with God's Spirit of Truth in us, we recognize the error and deception that formerly enticed us, and sets us free from its bondage. This is the True Christmas Story. Is it True in your life?
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
