Isaiah 60:1-6; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing to you, O Lord. Amen.
The season of joyful celebration that began at Christmas now continues through the successive Sundays of Epiphany. In the Western churches, the Epiphany became an occasion to celebrate one element in the story of Christ's birth – the visit of the far-travelled magi – which is understood as the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles.
Anyone less familiar with Church jargon would have a number of questions popping up when hearing this.
I hope to answer all of these questions along the way. Let me start the first two right at the beginning:
What exactly is a magi?
The King James Version translates the original word as "wise men". Magi or wise men usually served kings. They were special advisers trained and groomed in every area. The first time we come across people from this job group is in the Old Testament.
In the book of Daniel we read that when the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem, they took certain gifted young Jewish men into the king's court to train them as his advisers. One of the Jewish men, who ended up as a quite famous magi was Daniel. (I will say more about that a bit later)
In Matthew's account we read about magi from the east who saw a star and attributed it to a recently born Jewish king. They embarked on a lengthy mission tofind that baby, to worship it and to return. This in itself, is quite astonishing for a number of reasons:
Magi were known to pay particular attention to the stars. They had gained an international reputation for astrology, which was at that time highly regarded as a science. Moreover, most magi were gentile. A gentile is simply a person who is not Jewish.
So the pressing question here is: Why would a bunch of non-Jewish 'scientists' want to meet a king born to the Jews? Why would they want to worship him?
Yes, the star they had discovered showed forth an unusual guiding light. Yet, even if they were right about attributing that light to a Jewish baby king, what difference would that make? The Jews were an oppressed people. Rome ruled the world. To think that this baby would have any significance at all is quite a stretch!
At the first glance, this does not add up. Yet, as I mentioned before the most famous magi ever to grace the courts of Babylon was Daniel – a Jewish prisoner of war. This same Daniel was so famous because he saved the entire company of magi from total destruction by interpreting the then King's dream. Later, he spent the night with lions rather than to worship the king of the Medes and Persians. Daniel was miraculously saved by the hand of his God. On top of all that no one before or after Daniel has ever served as prime minister of two world empires (Babylon and Medo-Persia). Serving as prime minister of just one would probably have put Daniel into the "Magi Hall of Fame".
(As I have read elsewhere so aptly):
If you were to be in the Magi Club, don't you think you would be interested in reading a book written by the most famous magi of all time? The book of Daniel predicts that 483 years would pass from the time of the decree to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem until "Messiah, the Saviour and Prince" would come (Daniel 9:25). Perhaps the wise men had done the math for themselves as they tried to make sense of this unusual star.
Perhaps they had arrived at the conclusion that the star was not just announcing the birth of an ordinary baby but that it was pointing to that same mighty God of Daniel who truly deserved worship.
Interestingly, even though they embarked on a lengthy journey because of this unusual star, the star did not guide the first half of their journey. We read that the magi wentstraight away to Jerusalem. Perhaps because a palace is the most obvious place to look for a baby king. This must have been the first hint that Jesus is quite a different type of king.
I wonder though, whether the magi were more surprised about this discovery or about the fact that the Jews in Jerusalem who should have been eagerly waiting for their salvation were not aware at all about who their saviour is, let alone about when or where their saviour would be born. In fact, only the arrival of the magi and the subsequent panic of cruel King Herod prompted the teachers of the law and the chief priests to go and thoroughly search their books. That they missed this once-in-a-lifetime event and were not even looking for their Messiah is actually quite embarrassing, to say the least.
The magi also brought gifts to Jesus proclaiming who he is.
For us, it is certainly important to know that God manifested and revealed himself to gentiles as well as accepting their gifts, because it once more shows us that He is not just God exclusively to the Jews.
God made a promise to Abraham that he would be a blessing to "all the families of the Earth" (Genesis 12:3). Throughout the Gospel of Matthew, Gentiles keep appearing:
There is no doubt that God had and still has great love for Gentiles.
Epiphany is therefore an apt season to pray for the worldwide mission of the Church and to look at our personal journey as disciples. I find that the personal journey of being a disciple is often like the quest of the magi to find the Christ child.
The journey starts with a star which gives us somehow this sense that we are about to discover an awesome and incredible God. We might not quite be able to explain how we can be so sure. We just know that we feel this incredible calling and that we feel drawn to him. We want to be close to him and to worship him. With excitement, we embark on an honorable mission to find him.
Like the magi we might find no direction from God during parts of our journey perhaps because we are not looking for it or because we are rushing off to look for him in the most obvious place. We might be disappointed and even anxious when we do not find him where we expect him to be. Quite like the magi who ended up being questioned by cunning King Herod and innocently answered all his questions, we might find ourselves in the presence of sheer evil from time to time without realizing that we should get away as fast as possible.
Once we are on our way we might discover that star again, the guiding light of the Holy Spirit going ahead of us, until we reach the end of our journey and meet the goal of our mission – the worship of Christ with all our heart, with all our mind and with all our soul. I hope that (like the magi) we will be overwhelmed with joy when we finally reach the presence of Christ.
On their way back home by divine intervention the magi were warned in a dream not to return to the presence of evil king Herod and the magi submitted to God's will.
What the experience of the magi (as well as our personal experience of our Christian journey) teaches us is the value of perseverance. Even though there might be days of no clarity and of having to deal with evil we still can correct the course of our journey by following the guiding light of the Holy Spirit and will end up finding ourselves in the presence of Christ.
Epiphany is therefore a friendly reminder to pray:
As I mentioned before the ignorance and apathy of those who should have been looking most eagerly for Christ served as a very bad witness to the magi who were new to the faith - so to speak. Nevertheless, God received worship from the magi who had light from thestar and possibly light from reading the book of Daniel. It was such a tiny ray compared to the bright light we have today concerning the Lord Jesus, yet, they followed it until they found the promised Messiah, Jesus Christ.
So at the beginning of this New Year I pray that we will persevere as we seek the presence of Christ and that each one of us will do their part to share the path on this journey with others encouraging, equipping, consoling and loving each other.
May the Grace of Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us NOW, throughout this New Year and forever more. AMEN.
Archana Jacob