Scripture can be found here…
You know how it goes—Christmas is over, and now the stores are full of red hearts. The rest of the world has moved on to Valentine’s Day.
But not us. Not here. Here, we’re sticking with a church tradition going back nearly fifteen hundred years, which tells us it is still Christmas—the 12th day of Christmas, to be exact. But today’s celebration is no longer focused on shepherds and angels. Today, in our ongoing telling of the story, a heavenly body takes center stage, as well as a truly terrible king. The old king is frightened, and you know how it goes: when the powerful are frightened, their fear spreads like a contagion, and they act to preserve their power at all costs. But the old king is an ancillary character for now: this part of the story focuses on travelers: foreigners from afar whose study of the stars has convinced them: there is a new king.
Let’s talk about those foreigners. They are called “magi”—that’s the word we find in the Greek text of Matthew’s gospel. It’s translated “wise men,” though scholars tell us that it’s likely there were also female magi, wise women among their retinue. These scholars/ seers/ dreamers were from Persia, which today we call Iran. They are likely Zoroastrian priests. Zoroastrianism dates back more than two thousand years, one of the world’s oldest continuously practiced religions. It contains elements familiar to both Christians and Jews: belief in a god who existed before creation; belief in messiahs; judgment following death; heaven and hell; and free will.
But central to Matthews story is this religion’s focus on interpreting omens, and the movement of celestial bodies, and dreams. According to one scholar, When they arrived in Jerusalem, their curt bluntness had King Herod spitting out his morning coffee: “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him” (Matt. 2:2).
The wise ones are following a star: a heavenly body is involved in the story of a heaven-sent Child. A proof-text is offered in the form of a brief quote from the prophet Micah. Matthew paraphrases; here’s the original:
But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah,
who are one of the little clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to rule in Israel,
whose origin is from of old,
from ancient days. ~ Micah 5:2
Herod's own resident wise men—the chief priests and scribes—send the travelers to Bethlehem. Herod urges them to return with the child's location so that he, too might pay the new king a visit. This is when, in the movie version, you cue the ominous music. The terrible king does not want to pay the child a visit. He wants him destroyed. But that is another text, for another day. Today, our travelers make their way to Bethlehem, following the star, and they are overjoyed—overwhelmed with joy—when the star comes to rest, and they know their journey will soon reach its fulfillment.
Though we’ve been used to seeing shepherds and kings or wise men side by side in manger scenes all our lives, according to Matthew, this takes place as much as two years after Jesus’ birth. The Christ Child is a child—a toddler, no doubt running around as toddlers do. It’s hard to know whether the gifts that emerge from the treasure chests of the travelers would hold much interest for Jesus, though his parents would of course be grateful.
The traditional interpretation of the gifts is that they symbolize the deep mystery of who we understand Christ to be: gold for a king; frankincense for one revered as a god; myrrh, for anointing one who will die. This last one always raises eyebrows: Who brings myrrh to a baby shower? When I was in my twenties some co-workers at my first job invited me to a Christmas party, and asked me to bring my guitar and some sheets of lyrics, to lead a Christmas Carol sing-along. And we sang “We Three Kings”—the un-redacted version. We got to the fourth verse, the one about myrrh, the part that goes, “Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding dying, sealed in a stone cold tomb…” and my co-workers—all mental health professionals— began to cry out in distress. “Oh my God, what IS THIS?” That was not their idea of a Christmas carol.
Despite all the jokes that wiser men (or women) would have brought baby powder and casseroles, it turns out that the gifts are eminently practical for a family about to run for their lives. Gold is money. Frankincense, in addition to its use in worship, can be used medicinally for nausea, chest coughs, even recovery from childbirth. Myrrh? That turns out to be a powerful anti-bacterial and anti-fungal agent, good for healing abrasions. It can be used as an ointment for, yes, you guessed it, diaper rash.
The wise ones receive a dream following their visit with the Christ Child. They are warned not to return to the terrible king, and so they go home by a different road than the one that would have taken them to Jerusalem. By their action they decline to take part in any attempts to bring harm to the Child who would be king. Who will be King. You can read of the unhinged Herod’s murderous actions in the verses immediately following our passage.
A star is at the heart of this story, a star that shines, that shows the way to Christ, who will, himself, be light to the world. The story of the birth that we heard on Christmas Eve was a story of a birth announcement to local shepherds: the poor unwashed of Bethlehem. Today’s passage is the Epiphany—a word that means showing, showing up, showing out—to those beyond the world of the local religious and social and ethnic groups. Today’s story is the genesis of our understanding that we are called to share the light of Christ with the whole world—that Persian Zoroastrians are invited to be a part of the coming kingdom, as well as Jews from Bethlehem and Christians from the triple-cities.
The presence of these foreigners in our story is a reminder to us that the gospel is always bigger than we realize and are comfortable with. It is always more welcoming than it occurs to us to be on our own, always spreading a table for the unexpected, unlikely guests. The welcome we offer started with our own welcome: God welcoming us into God’s household of faith, into God’s community of care and love. For us, this means remembering our baptism. We look to the past to understand what we are called to do now, and into the future. We remember our baptism, as a reminder that we are all called to share the light of Christ—yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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Notes:
Stephanie Buckhanon Crowder, “Commentary on Matthew 2:1-12,” January 6, 2020, Epiphany Year A, Working Preacher: http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=4305.
“Zoroastrianism,” Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism.
Chad Ashby, “Magi, Wise Men, or Kings? It’s Complicated,” The Aquila Report: December 25, 2016.