Advent Prepares Us for Mission
By Patrick Schreiner, TGC.
Advent is a time when Christians gather. However, Advent can also remind us how we’ve been called to scatter.
In the Great Commission, Jesus sends his followers to make disciples of all nations (Matt. 28:19). We sometimes neglect to see that this mission is foreshadowed in Jesus’s birth narrative (Matt. 1–2). Mission didn’t begin at the end of Christ’s earthly work; instead, Jesus’s birth foreshadows that a mission to the nations was the purpose of his coming.
All Nations
The nations are present at Jesus’s birth. In Matthew 2, we read of an unlikely group coming to worship Jesus as King. It’s not Jerusalem that’s ready to receive her king (v. 3). Rather, magi come to worship Jesus.
Matthew specifically states these wise men come from the “east” (v. 1). This could refer to several places, and some surmise they’re from Babylon. But in their coming, the magi prefigure all nations bowing the knee before the Son. Yet the question arises: How will he draw them? The Great Commission tells us how—it’s by Jesus’s kingly authority.
Jesus says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” therefore go into all nations (28:18). This claim to authority hails from Daniel’s vision of the Son of Man who ascends to the heavens and is given “dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him” (Dan. 7:14). Since Jesus is exalted to the highest throne, we have a mission to all peoples.
The Star and the Allotment of Nations
The supernatural background is hinted at with the reference to a mobile star that led the magi to Jesus (Matt. 2:2, 7, 9, 10; Num. 24:17).
Interpreters debate the nature of this star. One option is that the star is an angel. Ancient people viewed stars as supernatural beings—the heavenly host (Gen. 2:1; Neh. 9:6; Judg. 5:20; Job 38:7). Angels are said to descend (Gen. 28:12; Luke 10:18; Rev. 18:1) and to guide people (Ex. 14:19; 23:20), and they’re often associated with brightness (Acts 10:30; 12:7; 2 Cor. 11:14; Matt. 28:1–2).
Additionally, a biblical theology of spiritual authorities reveals this text could be a reversal of the nations’ allotment under angelic powers (Deut. 32:8–9; Ps. 82). Now that the Son of Man is born, an obedient angel leads the nations to their true King.
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