Another Way
Matthew 2:1-12

January 6, 2008


The 12 days of Christmas have expired, but on this 13th day, the Epiphany, the day of the Magi, Christmas comes again by another way. The Orthodox Churches traditionally celebrate January 6th as the day, and while I don’t think we want to do it all over again, there is something magical about Christmas continuing to appear in different robes and simply not going away. Jesus keeps being born, despite the calendar. Christmas actually comes three times a year: January 6 for the Greek and Russian Orthodox, January 19 for the Armenian Orthodox Church, and lastly, December 25 for the rest of us in the West.

If this sounds mildly confusing, this famous story of wise men from the East should render disorderly our orderly minds. Our orderly minds have arrayed the Magi in splendid robes, often jeweled crowns atop their heads, wealthy beyond our imagination, and of course, awfully wise. Our Wise Men and Three Kings are probably more the figments of our imagination determined to make these guys worthy actors in the grand play of Christmas, no matter which date. Somehow, the scene in the manger never can become that grand and neither do the Magi. There is something always a little unkempt about what happens in humble Bethlehem, but that doesn’t mean something unbelievably grand does not happen, despite our refined tastes.

There is a reason the Matthew version of the Nativity is usually not read in Christmas Eve services: no drama, no action, no census, no full inn and no manger. Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, a simple declarative sentence. There’s all that background about Mary’s conception by the Holy Spirit and the reassuring dream to Joseph, but like any other baby, Jesus is simply and wonderfully born.

Yet when he was born, Magi came from the East to Jerusalem. That’s their proper name, but the reality is that magi were seldom viewed as proper. Simon Magus - same basic title - was a magician who used his tricks to build his own reputation as the incarnation of the power of God (Acts 8:9-13). Rabbis in those centuries were caught declaring that anyone who learned anything from a magi should drop dead. They were from the East, a huge undefined region, which was not necessarily a complement or a sign of their reputed wisdom.

They were magicians, sometimes priests in the Zoroastrian faith, and in most instances associated with the science of the stars, be it as it may have been for that era. The New English Bible called them astrologers and no matter which era that is an inexact, flaky art. We would knowingly smirk in their direction today, yet let’s keep in mind that this time the Magi were absolutely right. Forget about all the inconsistencies in the story - how can a star be over top of the house pointing to the place where the child lay? That just adds to the paradox of their journey. How can some people be so off base and so spot on at the same time?

We fondly call them Wise Men. No matter what their methods the Magi were on the right track, yet when they came to Jerusalem, what did they do? They sought out the big guys, the king and his government, as if they were the sources of all wisdom. It’s true that when you embark on a diplomatic mission you need to touch base with the highest authority, but authority and power does not always mean objective knowledge. Our tendency still is to go big time with the big show and big personalities, the movie stars and the vast throngs of adoring fans, even our churches are supposed to mega-churches.

The Magi inquired naively of Herod where the King of the Jews was about to be born. Herod was troubled, and all of Jerusalem with him - of course they were troubled since the maniacal and murderous monarch is the King of the Jews. No one wanted to be in the way of a royal tantrum. All the chief priests and scribes were assembled and consulted about where such a Messiah was meant to be born and the answer was not Jerusalem, but that little town of Bethlehem, the city of David. Herod played the Magi for all they were worth, summoning them to a top-secret meeting, feigning interest in coming to worship the new-born king. Kings love kings, don’t they? Herod hadn’t worshipped anything in decades, but the Wise Men were not wise enough to tell.

When they had heard what the king wanted to know, they went their way, and the star went before them and stopped right over head. The Magi never had their way; they followed what their eyes and instincts told them, and as far as the evangelist Matthew is concerned, it was God, the creator of that star and every star, who showed them their way.

They went into the house, better than a manger, nowhere near a mansion, and they rejoiced and worshipped him, offering him those famous gifts, gifts worthy of a king and of a burial. Strange gifts indeed for an infant, strange wise men. Nevertheless, these fools for Christ found Jesus and they honoured and worshipped him. Nobody else did, at least in this Gospel. No chief priests or assistant priests or scribes or Pharisees or Sadducees went looking or cared. Travel in those days was never really safe, so they took an incredible risk to traverse afar to discover a new king.

The one definite thing about the Magi is that they were not Jewish or Christian and so had no stake in a King of the Jews. Yet something, someone, intrigued them and they needed not just to know and to find, but to worship. A big deal is made today of people saying, “I believe in Jesus Christ.” So what? These Wise Guys, 1st century hippies in fancy robes, wanted to worship and follow Jesus. God led them in mysterious ways to a place they had never been and they didn’t question, just kept asking the question, “Which way do we go?”

When they finally reached the house, it was not the discovery of an intellectual fact - Jesus lives here - but the revelation of a different way of life. Being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.

Another way is the way the Gospel works and right at the beginning of Matthew’s proclamation all the road signs are there. God seldom operates in the manner to which we are accustomed and prefer. The Good News does not take place in the capital city, but in the shadows, in an undistinguished house, discovered by a band of eccentric pagan hippies who have no right to worship a Jewish Messiah. The Magi were not ritually pure according to Jewish law, and they barely knew what they were doing. They too were beholden to the glamour of great power, but they encountered a greater power in the smallest and least powerful of circumstances and people.

And they went back by another way. They had to go back another way, because their world, their way of life, had changed astronomically for these astrologers. They had to live differently, another way, just as we do, for the Gospel is not built on big things.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan