Matthew 2:1-12 "Seekers"

Matthew 2:1-12

         A family was once traveling by car to spend Christmas with relatives.  It was a long road trip – several hours.  As they drove into one rural town, they passed a church where a manger scene was set up in the front yard.  The 5-year-old son sitting in the back seat was staring out the window, periodically exhaling tremendous sighs of boredom. However, the sight of a stable with elaborate plastic figures inside caught his attention.  As he did not regularly attend Sunday School, he asked about the crèche scene.

“That is Mary, Joseph, and the Baby Jesus, there in the manger,” his mother explained.

The boy nodded silently and continued to watch the world go by.  When they drove through the next small town, they passed another church, where a scene illustrated the journey of the Magi.

“Who are they?” the youngster asked.

His mother replied, “Those are the Magi, who are looking for the Baby Jesus.”

“Well,” the child declared emphatically, “they won’t find him there. He’s down at the other church.”

Magi, kings, wise men, astrologers, philosophers:  those mysterious visitors from the East wherever that is – the Orient perhaps?  Or Asia, China, India, maybe even Africa? - but undoubtedly someplace exotic and non-European.  The Bible gives us nary a clue – only that these people traveled wherever a brilliant Star led them because they were bent on finding the One they had been seeking all their lives.

We do not know much about them really.  Most of our knowledge is based on tradition – legends and stories told and written down centuries later – as well as on the artistic imaginations of the likes of Giotto and Rembrandt and Caravaggio as well as nameless graphic designers at Hallmark Cards. 

We say there are three of them because the Gospel writer of Matthew mentions three gifts – gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  One magi – one gift – seems to make perfect sense.  However, Henry Van Dyke in his short story postulates four travelers and a fourth gift.  Other traditions say there were as many as 12 visitors, and I have always wondered why there could not have been hundreds of wise men and women from all over making their way toward Bethlehem to find the One who might give meaning to their lives. 

In the seventh century, the magi were given names and back stories:  There was Caspar who was young, beardless, with a ruddy complexion.  Then there was Balthazzar.  He was a bit older, dark-skinned, and sported a growth of new beard.  Finally, there was Melchior with his gray hair and a long flowing beard, clearly the most ancient of the three.

 Artists often depict them in rather flamboyant clothing featuring bright colors, flowing fabric, crazy hats or even turbans, bejeweled, and bedecked in assorted baubles and beads, clearly different from other more conventionally dressed Biblical characters.  And except on the very edgiest of Christmas cards where one might see them riding on white stallions, they are drawn sitting atop one-hump camels.  Of course, none of these details are found in the Gospel writer’s account, which brings us back to the beginning.  We have little to go by when it comes to these nocturnal travelers.

What we do know, however, is that the star did not completely do the trick in efficiently getting them to where they wanted to be because they had to stop off in Jerusalem to ask for directions.  Maybe that is where the trouble began. 

You see, as they asked around if anyone had seen the missing star that had been leading them to the real King of the Jews, the city folk were not unexpectedly a bit put off by their brashness that one could say was laced with political blasphemy and wary of their general nosiness. 

In fact, the Gospel writer says that all of Jerusalem was “disturbed”, and so it is little wonder that the presence of the magi came to the attention of Herod, who himself had been given the title King of the Jews over 40 years ago but had always been paranoid about losing it one day to someone else.  But isn’t that how it is with people in power?  Whether you are King Herod or Donald Trump, what you seek more than anything else is to remain in power - and long lost is the memory that you were placed in your position in the first place to serve rather than be served. 

         When Herod’s paranoia overwhelms him, and he becomes fearful, rather than tweeting, he becomes volatile.  After all, at one time or another, he murdered a wife, her two sons, her brother, her grandfather, and her mother, changed his will three times, and assassinated his firstborn son, all of whom he believed threatened his throne.  Herod was no one to fool around with.

          Of course, it did not take much of a wise man to recognize a mentally unstable ruler.  And so the magi put more stock in a fleeting dream one of them had than in Herod’s seemingly sincere wish to worship a fellow king and potential usurper of his crown and title.  They quietly left Jerusalem, found the star again, and continued until they came upon the Child who had once been born in a manger, the one they had been seeking.

         They say that what you put at the top of your Christmas tree says a lot about your own spiritual journey.  One blogger I read this week described it this way.  If you are an Angel person, that angel perched at the pinnacle represents those who had been patiently waiting for the Messiah, for a sign from God, for a long time, like the Shepherds.

In contrast, if you are a Star person, you are still searching, maybe have questions.  You are still on a quest to find out about this mystery and message from God wrapped up in human flesh and swaddling clothes.  For you, it is not black and white.  There are still a million shades of gray.

On the Foran family Christmas tree, over many decorating decades, we have come to a spiritual consensus or compromise.  Though an angel tops our tree and the heavenly host of other smaller angel ornaments surround her, right below are the stars – lots of them, made from fabric and folded paper and metal and glass. 

And so, I like to think that, though we, like the shepherds, are not surprised to discover that someone like Jesus was born and grew up to embody all that God ever hoped for in humanity, we still, like the magi, seek him.  We seek his light.  We seek all that he stood for.  We continue to hitch our wagon to his star – and try our best to follow where he leads us.  In short, our spiritual journey is far from over.

And so it is in the church as well.  After Christmas, when the tree is taken down, the crèche is put away, the pageant costumes hung up for another year, and even the candles in the windows are no longer lit, we come to Epiphany, that season of the church year when Jesus and all he stood for is revealed to us once more – but in a concurrent sense revealed to us for the very first time.  One blogger I read wrote this about epiphanies:  they “are those times when something calls us, moves us, to a new place and we see the face of God in a new way; so human that it almost seems ordinary, maybe too ordinary to be believed.”

If we remain true to the Gospel stories of Jesus’ birth, we meet the magi not on Christmas Eve, but on Epiphany.  Their arrival marks the beginning of this season of light, when Jesus, the Light of the World, is revealed to us. And each year, we hope and pray that this time he will be revealed in a new way that can bring us out of these tumultuous times in which we live.

These travelers we know virtually nothing about lead the way.  We do not know where they came from, who they were, or what they did for work. We do not know if they were kings or philosophers or astrologers.  We do not know if they hailed from India or China or the darkest parts of Africa. 

However, we do know that they were wise: wise enough to keep traveling toward what was most important to them, wise enough to recognize that following the light of a star was better than walking in darkness, wise enough to know that they were stronger when they were drawing on their courage rather than on their fear when it came to facing the unknown.

I like it that we have so few details about these travelers.  I like that, as one blogger I read this past week wrote, “this anonymity and lack of historical information is a reminder that this story, this Epiphany journey, is not just the wise men’s journey; it is everyone’s journey. The truth of sacred scripture is never limited to or contained only in the past.”

         And so, my hope for us in this coming year is that we will be like the magi, that we will be seekers, that we will follow stars and travel great distances if need be to find the one we seek. There is nothing wrong, of course, with being like the shepherds who did not have much distance to cover to find the Christ Child and who knew that something big had happened and only needed the angels to confirm it.  No – there is nothing wrong with being like the shepherds – unless you believe that the mere sight of the Child is enough, that going back to your same old life is enough, that being content to only live with a bunch of sheep is enough. 

         I hope we will be like the magi because their story challenges us to see our lives and our world as bigger than before.  Their story has the potential to stir in us a desire to understand ourselves as part of a much larger story and to get us wondering if the light of that star might just possibly burn like a divine spark in each one of us, even now, even today.

         I hope we will be like the magi because they lived their lives day to day grounded in what they believed.  They traveled confidently by something as ephemeral as the light of a star no less because they believed that a star would lead them to the one they sought. In other words, they were willing to – literally - put feet on their faith.

         I hope we will be like the magi because they brought gifts – maybe not ones that a baby would enjoy, but they brought gifts anyway.  It is like the time some kindergarteners in Great Britain were asked about the visit of the Magi.  One young boy said that the magi brought Jesus some gold stuff “but Legos would have been better”! We too come with our gifts.  We too may wonder if something else would be better, but, trust me, each gift we bring is appropriate in its own way if it is a gift given freely and with love. 

         I hope we will be like the magi because they were travelers and not aimless wanderers.  They had a plan.  They had directions.  Though they did not have all the details, they knew generally which way they were headed.  More than that, they were not fearful about what they might find around the next corner because they trusted that, in some mysterious and mystical way, God was leading them.

         In the end, no matter how you look at it, the magi’s story is really our story. The magi were seekers.  They did not know all the answers, but they knew whom they were following and whom they were seeking.  May we this year – this year especially but really in all the years ahead – may we be seekers too.