Who Are the Magi?

So who are these magi - these rather mysterious characters who parade across our stage just this one time?  The Gospel writers Mark, Luke and John make no mention of them - only Matthew.  Actually Christians have struggled with where and how they fit into the story.  The popular view places them in the Christmas story kneeling at the manger alongside the shepherds but in fact, Matthew makes no mention of that.  All he says is that they came at the time of King Herod which could have been as long as a couple of years after Jesus’ birth.  Almost all depictions have them numbered as three and some even give them names, but Matthew makes no mention of those specifics.  He only says they opened their treasure chests and offered gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, but that’s all.   In fact, most of the traditions that have grown up around these so-called magi are just that – traditions that have no biblical basis. In fact, the liturgical calendar does not even place them in the Christmas season technically, but portrays them as the event that ushers in a new season of the church year on January 6th – this coming Tuesday - the Epiphany season.  

Most biblical scholars believe they are not historical figures at all, but are a part of a body of tradition that developed over a period of decades after Jesus and before Matthew wrote his gospel sometime almost 50 years after Jesus in the 9^th decade of the first century. 

To me, the point is not whether they were real figures or the result of tradition, or whether there were three, two or ten of them or what their names might have been, but the key to understanding their meaning is why did Matthew include them in his story in the first place.  What is Matthew telling us, his readers, about his real experience of the living Jesus by weaving these characters into his gospel testimony about Jesus? In other words, what is it that Matthew wants us to know about the experience of following Jesus by including this story in his gospel?

The first huge thing we must take note of that Matthew does say is that they were not Jews, but “wise men from the East,” meaning representatives of a learned class from ancient Persia.  In other words, they were anything but Jews appearing in the gospel that is arguably the most Jewish of the four gospels.  Matthew references Jesus as the Jewish messiah more than any of the other three gospel writers.  That in itself should cause us to ask the obvious question, “What were foreigners from a faraway place and a diverse culture and religion doing on the doorstep of Jesus, the Jewish messiah, worshipping him?” 

This is the point where I begin to see and take and understand this story metaphorically not literally.  It’s Matthew’s literary method of saying that even though Jesus was born a Jew, and Matthew declares Jesus distinctly the Jewish messiah, he and his community experienced something astounding in Jesus that transcended ethnic, racial, cultural, national and religious barriers and boundaries.  They experienced something in Jesus that was universal; not just for Jews but for all humanity; something that had the power and capacity to minimize and melt the boundaries that divided and separated them from others; that God’s dwelling place was not with one people exclusively, but that God resides in all people, calls all people, and desires to bring all people together into a reconciled whole.  Matthew’s faith in Jesus caused a radical transformation of perspective; that even though his community knew Jesus as their messiah, he was not exclusively their own, but that he belonged to the world and their relationship with him caused them to look differently at the world, and look differently at people and cultures who were dissimilar, outside of their conventional boundaries and comfort zones.  

One of my earliest memories as a child is not so much a memory of a specific event, but a memory of a feeling – and the feeling was a deep-seeded restlessness.  Perhaps it was the result of growing up in a dysfunctional family, but I can distinctly remember repeatedly laying in the grass of the Illinois prairie looking at the sky and watching the jet planes overhead flying westward into the sunset and longing to be on one of them, wishing I could take wings and fly into a new future free of conflict and emotional pain.

I don’t think my inner restlessness is unique only to me, but rather it’s a part of a universal human experience.  You may not call it or name it restlessness but may experience it more as a longing or yearning for something more; or perhaps an empty place, a void, in your soul that needs filling.

My point is we are all on a quest, to calm the restlessness; to fill the empty place; to satisfy the yearnings of our souls - and our quest takes us to things and places that make big promises to do just that, but so many of them are phony and shallow and are ultimately destructive and divisive.

We may try some form of security as an antidote, but in the end we find ourselves living behind great barriers, prisoners of the walls of our own making.

We think that maybe a new job, new house or a new spouse might fill the void so we pursue it on our quest to be whole, only to find the restlessness travels with us and the new thing feels not much different than the old. 

Or some may turn to thrill, seeking one after another, but after each thrill the restlessness persists, requiring an even greater next thrill and the cycle continues endlessly.

Some may try conformity at any cost, but in the process lose a sense of self and are more lonely ever - surrounded by people, but feeling isolated and adrift.

Our quest may take us to indulgence and excess: too much to eat; too much to drink; too much of this or that, or we find something respectable in which to indulge and perhaps become work-aholics or shop-aholics or sports-aholics or exercise-aholics or travel-aholics or some other-aholic.

For me these inscrutable magi represent that universal human quest; the quest for that person or place or experience that can touch my core being like nothing else has be able.  Who are the magi?  They are you and me!  I know because I am restless so much of the time. My soul longs for that place where I know I belong; that place that calms my quiet desperation; that place where I have enough courage to face the challenges of each day, and some days to love myself for who I am without rationalization, and to love others without restriction.

I am restless, so I embark on a quest, following a star of hope until I find something authentic.  It’s like a "homing mechanism" imbedded in my soul.

And where has that journey taken me?  Right here – with you – on this 11^th day of a twelve day birthday celebration – the star marks the spot! 

Matthew’s story of the magi is framed in journey images!  They journeyed to and they journeyed from.  I love the story’s concluding verse, “…they left for their own country by another road.”  For someone like me who is a poet and a mystic at heart that’s an irresistible metaphor that stimulates my imagination  -  

            - for our quest doesn't end at Bethlehem – at his birth – Bethlehem is not a destination, but the beginning of a new journey.  For me the Christian life is a journey – that’s my operative metaphor - a journey following Jesus, which is to say following the love of God and Spirit of God that was embodied in his life; the love of God that is transformative; that can make me whole; that can quiet the restlessness.  It’s a journey that always leads me beyond where I am right now: intellectually, theologically, politically, socially – in every way that I am human.  It’s a love that leads me past fears which confine me; across boundaries I never dared cross before to connect with and know the real people that live beyond my boundaries that are different and diverse from me.   It’s a journey upon which I am always becoming and never arrive. 

Oh, of course, there I times I get afraid, and I want to arrive at a destination.  I want to stop and stay where I am and get comfortable and settle in, or go back to an earlier time and place.  There are times I want to quit following the love and the Spirit that calls me and beckons me – but when I do I find that at those times I lose that growing, dynamic, vital edge to my faith experience.  I find I can get dogmatic, parochial, narrow or I long too much for the way things used to be; or I retreat into the safety of doctrines, creeds, or sectarianism, or I can become arrogant and entrenched in certainty – none of which are transforming and fulfilling but inhibit the creative and dynamic Spirit of God that always calls and beckons me beyond into new experiences of God's love.

 The amazing thing is that if I follow long enough and far enough I will be challenged to do the hardest but yet most fulfilling thing of all – to take up the cross of the one I follow; to make his cross my own cross - which is to say to follow Jesus into the ultimate transformative human experience of sacrificial and self-giving love – an experience of death and resurrection – ongoing transformation - and  when that happens I will know I have found and experienced that which is truly authentic - and also a whole new kind of restlessness – the overwhelming desire to keep following.   Amen.