Today is Epiphany, which is the day
on the Christian calendar when we read the story of the wise men coming to
visit the Christ child. Most churches normally include this account at
Christmas also, but when we read the gospel story carefully we discover that
these magi did not arrive on Christmas. In the traditional manger scenes the
wise men are tucked right in there with the shepherds and angels, but that is
not the way it is in the Bible story. The wise men visited later. We don’t know
how much later, but possibly up to two years later. We know this because when
King Herod wanted to assassinate the new Messiah he killed all the children in
Bethlehem age two and under according to the time the wise men said the star
appeared. That means that Jesus could have been born up to two years before the
wise men arrived in Bethlehem.
Furthermore the word used for the
Christ child in the text is not the word for newborn infant used in the gospel
of Luke’s Christmas account. It is the word for a child up to the age of a
toddler. So this visit of the Magi probably happened sometime after Christmas,
but how long after Christmas we are not sure. But if the magi came later, then
this raises other questions concerning this account. If this is much later,
what is Jesus and family still doing in Bethlehem? It says that Jesus and family are in a house
in Bethlehem. Whose house? So there are a number of questions about this
passage that we cannot answer. In any case this changes our thinking about the
Christmas story. The visit of the wise men is quite an extraordinary event, and
we are going to look at why that is the case this morning.
1. First, it is extraordinary because
of who these wise men were. The Bible is mostly about the Jews as God’s chosen
people. A few Gentiles appear here and there in the Biblical narrative, but
they always fit into the Jewish religion somehow. But these wise men were
different. Who were they? We don’t really know who they are except that they
came from the East. How far East is the question. Most scholars would contend
that they are Persians from what is present day Iran. There are other
possibilities, among them is that they are Arabs or Nabataeans from northern
Arabia. Some theories even suggest the Far East - India or China. But because
of the use of the word magi in the text most think they are the members of the
priestly ruling caste of ancient Persia. Their royal connection gave rise to
the idea that they were kings. If they were Persian Magi then this means that
they were Zoroastrians, adherents of a monotheistic (some would say dualistic)
religion founded on the teachings of their prophet named Zoroaster or
Zarathustra. These are the leaders of a non-Jewish religion paying homage to
the Messiah of the Jewish religion.
They also seem to be astrologers.
They studied the heavens, which is how they discovered the Star of Bethlehem. I
am not going to try to identify the star in this message, but its location
among the constellations obviously meant to the Magi that a Jewish king was
born. Astrology was looked down upon by the Jews. In fact it was forbidden to
be practiced by Hebrews in the OT. Astrology is still popular today. Indian
society runs on astrology. Many Americans read their horoscope daily and
believe that the location of stars in the sky affect their lives. Personally I
think it is superstition with no scientific basis. Even though it was forbidden
by the Old Testament, many Jews practiced it in the first century. Here we have
some Zoroastrian astrologers appearing the gospel narrative and apparently
using their astrology to find their way to the Christ child. Extraordinary!
I think the primary reason that these
Magi were included in the accounts of Jesus’ birth is to illustrate that this
Jewish Messiah was for all peoples. Religion back then was a very provincial
matter. Each nation and people had its gods and religion. But the Jews believed
in one God who ruled all the nations. They envisioned a time when all nations
would stream to Jerusalem to worship the one God. The prophet Isaiah foresaw that
day:
“Now it
shall come to pass in the latter days
That the mountain of the Lord’s house
Shall be established on the top
of the mountains,
And shall be exalted above the
hills;
And all nations shall flow to
it.
3 Many people shall come and say,
“Come, and let us go up to the
mountain of the Lord,
To the house of the God of
Jacob;
He will teach us His ways,
And we shall walk in His
paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth
the law,
And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
4 He shall judge between the nations,
And rebuke many people;
They shall beat their swords
into plowshares,
And their spears into pruning
hooks;
Nation shall not lift up sword
against nation,
Neither shall they learn war
anymore.”
I think that the magi’s visit is a
foreshadowing of that day when, as Isaiah says elsewhere, “the earth shall be
full of the knowledge of the LORD As the waters cover the sea.” As our OT passage of Isaiah 60
explains “The Gentiles shall come to your light, And kings to the brightness of
your rising.”
2. I want to move on to my second
point now. The second extraordinary thing is the reaction of Jerusalem to the
arrival of the Magi and the news they brought. It is extraordinary that the
chief priests and scribes of the Hebrew religion missed the birth of the
Messiah whereas these foreigners got it. It would be embarrassing to have
something happening in your backyard and not know it, but have to be informed by
people who have traveled hundreds of miles. Even more disturbing is the reaction to the news. You would
think that the population of Jerusalem they would rejoice. Hooray! The long
awaited Messiah is born! But instead it says, that Herod was troubled, “and all
Jerusalem with him.” This included the chief priests and scribes. You would
think that the religious leaders would be most excited and insist on going with
the magi the six miles to Bethlehem to worship the Messiah. But they don’t!
I see the same type of reaction to Jesus these days. You
would think that the celebration of the birth of the Son of God, the Savior of
the world, would bring all people to worship him at Christmas. We had a good
attendance at our Christmas Eve service – a full house here with people in the
balcony - and our outdoor Live Nativity service had over 100 people. But both
services combined had nowhere near the 1400 residents of Sandwich. I don’t know
what we would do if even a quarter of the population of our town ever decided
to come to worship at the same time. I would like to have that problem, but I
am not thinking it is likely to happen. If all Jerusalem heard the news that
the Messiah, the King of the Jews, had been born in Bethlehem I don’t know why
thousands of people did not stream out of the city to the little town of
Bethlehem. But they didn’t. Which lead me to think things haven’t changed in
2000 years.
3. The third extraordinary thing
about this visit of the Magi is the star. I don’t have the time in this message
to give you all the possibilities about the identity and meaning of the Star of
Bethlehem. That would take a whole sermon. I have preached such a sermon before
and I will probably preach it again, but not today. I do want to at least
acknowledge the extraordinary nature of the star. You have possibly seen television
specials about the Star of Bethlehem or read articles about it. Planetariums
around the country do shows about it during the holiday season. But for all of
the talk, the truth is we don’t really know what the Star of Bethlehem was or
even when it was. There are many possibilities from supernovas to conjunctions
of planets, but none of them fit the biblical description exactly. Especially
how a star could go before them and then how it “came and stood over where the
young Child was.” That does not sound like any star in the sky that I have ever
seen! But I don’t lose any sleep over it. Because for me it is not about what
and when and where it was; it is about what it means.
It is a symbol of light illuminating
the darkness. It is a symbol guiding earnest seekers looking for a newborn
king. It was a sign that this earthly birth had heavenly significance. For me I
am more interested in how the magi responded to the star than I am about the
star itself. Something about this star caught the attention of these men. They
dropped everything and went on a journey. I just finished reading a novel
entitled “The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry” by Rachel Joyce. It is a very
good book and very well written. A lot of fiction written these days has so
much violence, immorality and foul language that they are not enjoyable to
read. This book is different. It is about a sixty-five year old recently
retired man who lives in the south of England. One day he gets a letter from an
old friend – a co-worker who had moved away years before. She is dying of
cancer in a hospice in the north. He writes a letter back to her and goes to
mail it at the postbox on the corner. But instead of mailing the letter, he decides
to just keep on walking. On the spur of the moment, without packing anything or
even putting on some decent walking shoes, he decides to walk all the way to
Berwick 500 miles to the north to see his friend. It becomes a sort of
religious pilgrimage for him. The book is about how he changed and the people
he meets along the way.
The story of the Magi in the Bible is
really about how they changed. We do not know what prompted these men –
traditionally three of them although the Bible doesn’t tell us how many – to
start the journey or what happened along the way. But just the fact that they
took the journey at all is extraordinary. The spiritual life is like that. What
makes our lives extraordinary is that we take the journey. You are taking that
spiritual journey. You would not be here if you were not on a spiritual
journey. A lot of people do not start a spiritual journey. Many start the
journey and quit somewhere along the way. A lot of people get sidetracked and
turn aside into spiritual dead-ends. But some persist in the journey, walking
the road less traveled by. Jesus said, “Enter
by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to
destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and
difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
In the story of the Magi the end of
the journey is Jesus. In another sense we can say that the journey is Jesus as
well. Jesus said that he is the Way, the Truth and the Life. In fact he said he
was the only way. The word Way that he used means road. He is the road, path.
Jesus is the journey as much as he is the destination of the journey. The
spiritual life is about walking with Christ.
4. Another extraordinary thing about
the story of the Magi is the gifts. I am not going to talk long about that
either. That also is a whole sermon exploring the symbolism of the three gifts.
But I can’t tell this story of the magi without at least mentioning their gifts
briefly. There are three gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh. God is
traditionally understood as the gift for a king. It also is the symbol of
eternity and immortality. Frankincense is a gift for a priest. These magi were
likely themselves priests of their Persian religion, but more important was
that it pointed to the High Priesthood of Jesus. The third is myrrh which is
the spice used for embalming. It is a gift given to one who is to die. Three
gifts pointing to three aspects of the person, ministry and destiny of Jesus
Christ.
5. The final point I want to make
this morning is about the Magi’s return trip. The scripture story says “Then, being divinely warned in a dream
that they should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country
another way.” In one sense “another way” simply means that they did not go
back through Jerusalem, and therefore did not tell King Herod exactly where the
Christ child was. But I think it has a deeper meaning. That think it means that
they returned changed. As I said a moment ago, the spiritual journey changes
you. I am not the person I would have been if I had not started out on a
spiritual journey when I was a college aged man. I am not the same person I
would have been if I had not decided to go to seminary or not decided to enter
Christian ministry or decided not to pastor various churches. I would not be
the same person if I had not come to Sandwich and years later return to
Sandwich. The journey changes us. Meeting Christ changes us. Kneeling before
Christ changes us. Serving Christ changes us. It changed Mary when she said Yes
to being the mother of the Messiah. It changed Joseph when he said yes to being
the earthly father. It changed the Magi when they heeded the call and took the
long trip home.
We don’t know what happened to the
wise men. There are legends about them, of course. That is how we got the idea
that there were three of them and that they were kings. Legends even gave them
names. Legends say that they told their story about Jesus to their countrymen,
and that they preached the one Jewish God and his Messiah to the Persians, preparing
the way for the church to be planted there later. There is a legend that one of
the twelve apostles, Simon the Zealot, preached in Persia and found the
disciples of the Magi waiting to hear from the disciples of the baby visited by
the Magi in Bethlehem. Simon later is said to have been martyred by crucifixion
in the Persian city of Suanir for preaching the gospel and was buried in the
family tomb of one of the Magi.
But these are legends and we have no
idea how much, if any fact lies beneath them. But one thing is for sure.
Meeting Christ changes us. The journey changes us. Worshipping the Christ
changes us. Every Sunday when we worship him it changes us, and we return to
our homes by another way. Walking differently because we have been in the
presence of Christ and walked in the footsteps of the Magi.
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