Three Lessons from the Magi

Isaiah 60: 1-6
Matthew: 2: 1-12

The visit of the Magi has always been an exciting mystery for Christians. There are many stories that have been passed down about these men that came visiting from afar, following a star to an unknown destination, only to find a baby in a manger. Matthew is the only book in the bible to mention the wise men, and yet there seems to be so much history to this story. If I asked some of you to tell me the story of the wise men, I’m sure someone would mention that there were three of them, and yet nowhere in Matthew’s account does he say how many men came to see baby Jesus. There could have been two, three, or twenty. What we do know is that three gifts were offered to baby Jesus of gold, frankincense, and myrrh which is perhaps where we got the notion that there were three men. From stories passed down, we were told that these wise men were from the Orient and even a beloved hymn mentions the same thing, however all this passage tells us is that they came from the East.

When we look at this text, if we strip away what tradition and stories passed down tell us, we actually know very little about these visiting magi and their purpose, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have things to teach us. In fact, this passage tells us quite a lot about Jesus and a lot about humanity. Let us begin with the magi. The word magi comes from the Greek word Magoi and translates as wise men so we know that these men have a lot of education. We also know that these men must have been stargazers, studiers of astronomy and astrology for them to notice one star appear out of the thousands they can see in the night sky.

We also know they must have been at least vaguely familiar with Jewish traditions and religion for them to know the appearance of this star coincides with the appearance of the king of the Jews. We also know not only were they NOT Jewish, but they get lost on their way. They see the star appear and contrary to what tradition and our pageants say, they did not follow the star the whole way to Bethlehem. They got lost, and in a manner very untypical of men, they stopped and asked for directions when that happened.

It’s not surprising that they had to stop in Jerusalem to ask King Herod about where to go next. I always imagined that Bethlehem and Jerusalem were very far apart, however when I was there it didn’t take us long at all to get from Bethlehem into Jerusalem for they are only about ten miles apart. So you can imagine it looked like the magi were at their destination when they reached the area the star had appeared because they were in fact very close to it.

This is where it gets interesting. The Magi stop at King Herod’s palace to inquire about where the king of the Jews was to be born. King Herod is disturbed by this news and approaches his chief priests and advisors to ask them where the Messiah was to appear. The Pharisees and the Sadducees get together and then recite from the Old Testament the exact location. The Magi continue on to their destination and we hear nothing more about priests and teachers.

The very people who should have been aware that their Messiah had been born, the very people who should have been on their way to Bethlehem heard the news from nonbelievers. When they heard the news, their reaction was one of disinterest. Nowhere in the bible does it say several chief priests and teachers followed the Magi to also go worship the Christ. No. They gave the information to the Magi and continued about their day like nothing had happened to change everything.

This is an important lesson to all of us when we think we know so much about God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit. It is a reminder that sometimes it takes someone outside of the fold to show us the way. And doesn’t Jesus show us that when he grows up and instead of becoming a priest he looks for the outcasts of society to hang out with. Jesus does not want to be part of the in-crowd. Jesus has no desire for popularity or to listen to what everyone else thinks God is up to. He knew that faith had nothing to do with how much knowledge of God we have, he knew faith was not about how much scripture we can quote or how often we worship in the church. Faith is what we do with our knowledge, how we react after worship and after encountering God’s saving grace. Faith is action. Faith is response. Faith is what the Magi had and what the Pharisees and Sadducees lacked.

That leads us to our second discovery. The Magi believed in a prophesy that wasn’t theirs. They saw the star, they connected the dots, and they believed. Perhaps they didn’t know exactly what they believed, but they had faith enough to begin a long, arduous journey to an unknown land with an unknown ending. They could have got there and been killed. They could have got there and found nothing at all. But the Magi believed and so they acted upon their belief. That is faith.

In contrast we have all the Israeli people who know the scriptures, we have the chief priests and teachers of the law who know it word for word, and no one put it together and once the knowledge was given to them, not a one of them acted upon it. This tells us that Jesus did not come just to save the Jews. This tells us that every person on this planet has a chance to be saved if they are willing to believe. This tells us that we don’t have to know everything about God to be saved. We just have to believe and act upon that belief. The magi had no way to prove if this Messiah could actually bring peace and salvation to the Jewish nation and to their own lands. However, what they knew was that the possibility for redemption existed and that was something that could not be ignored.

The final lesson we can take from these three men is that science and religion can and do mix. If it wasn’t for the science of stargazing, the Magi would never have known to come to Bethlehem. Too many Christians take the bible so literally that they cannot imagine a world that existed longer than 6,000 years despite the scientific proof that it has existed for millions of years. There are people out there that are so against evolution despite the proof it’s real because they think somehow that makes God unreal. Or the idea of the Big Bang as how the universe began.

What we must understand is that the bible was never written to be a historical document. It was never meant to show us exactly how long God took to create the world and who are we to say what a day is to God? It took God six days to create the earth and on the seventh he rested. Great. But how do we know that for God a day is not a million years? God exists outside of time and space because there was never a time when God didn’t exist. But when we get so literal with the Bible we limit our ability to understand the world and God. How do we know that the spark that began the Big Bang was not God? What if God created us to evolve so that we would always be improving ourselves which is what God wants us to do spiritually, so why not physically too? When we put limits on God, we put limits on our ability to understand God.

The Pharisees and the Sadducees fell victim to that same trap. They thought they knew everything there was to know about God and the Messiah. They thought they had it all figured out, up until the moment Jesus appeared three days after they crucified him. Thankfully, despite and because of their ignorance, Jesus saved us. But this story is a reminder to us all that we can’t possibly have all the answers. We can’t possibly think that we know God’s mind. And it also tells us that we should never lose sight of the fact that Jesus works from the outside in and the very people we think are least knowledgeable about God may be the very ones who have the faith to act on what Jesus wants us to do.

Amen.