The Doctor, The Viking,
The Reporter, & the Carpenter
Text: Matthew 2:1-12 The visit of the Magi & I John 1:5-9
Dr. Willem Kolff, late in the 1930s, watched helplessly as an otherwise healthy young man slowly died of kidney failure. With the dawn of the second world war materials were scarce. Somehow he cobbled together the world's first artificial kidney, the forerunner of the modern dialysis machine, using sausage skins, orange juice cans, a washing machine, and other common items to make a device that could clear the blood of toxins.
Hrafna-Flóki Vilgerðarson, in the year 868AD, left Norway to search for the land accidentally discovered by a fellow countryman where no land was supposed to be. He packed everything up and took his whole family in his longboat and sailed West into parts unknown.
Lee Patrick Strobel was an investigative journalist who won fame by covering the Ford Pinto crash trial. After a near-death experience in their family, Lee's wife became a Christian. Lee decided to investigate the Bible to prove definitively that God's Word is all made up. During this personal journey, he discovered that the claims the Bible makes are actually true.
A little over two thousand years ago, some learned individuals from what used to be called Persia, now Iran, were studying the stars and discovered a new one. They knew from sacred writings that this star would lead them to the one "born King of the Jews." They packed up some gifts appropriate for a king and saddled up for their journey West into the unknown, where they came upon the family of a humble carpenter who was about to flee with his family and settle in Egypt.
What did all of these events have in common?