Wise Camel
Matthew 2:1-12

January 7, 2007


It is safe now to speak of the Magi, the Wise Men. Of course, part of the silly argument that the Magi Police do not consider is: how long after January 6 are we allowed to speak of the Magi? They are afraid of getting the Magi too mixed up and confused in Advent proceedings. The Magi have their day and they better stick to it.

The Magi or Wise Men, or Astrologers as several newer English versions call them, have always been the imaginative field of the Nativity. Shepherds and sheep, cattle and stables and mangers are important for the character of what happened at the birth of the Christ child, underscoring the humility through which God became Emmanuel and how our attempts to be godly must remain attached to the lowly earth. Yet, the Magi allow our minds and spirits to soar, to think of a different side of the Nativity coin, to imagine the depth and greatness that human beings can attain. Magi are almost magic.

But do any of us really want magic? Wouldn’t we find a bunch of magicians telling us all about where the Saviour of the universe is supposed to be rather tacky and flim-flam? These guys weren’t kings, weren’t academic scholars or professors, weren’t necessarily deeply religious people either, and they weren’t Christian or Jewish either, but foreigners and aliens. They appeared out of nowhere like many a TV preacher with no credentials, but a lot of chutzpah, telling everyone exactly the way we are supposed to live correctly. A first century rabbi wrote that if you listened to the advice of Magi, you deserved to die. Is that the magic we want? We’ve got enough of it right now.

What we yearn for are two things. The first is wisdom, a consistent access to authentic wisdom on how to live properly and well. Matthew, however, relates nothing wise coming out of the Magi. They say nothing profound, just who they are and why they’re here and asking for directions. They offer three strange gifts for a baby, but no words are recorded. Eventually, they are warned in a dream to return home and without a word, they do. The only reason we believe they are wise is because some English translators assumed that since they were exotic and from out of town, they had to be smarter.

The second thing we yearn for are camels, yet, there are no camels mentioned in the story. We have just figured people coming from such mystical regions must surely travel on the great “ships of the desert.” No creche scene worth its salt cannot have a few camels hunkering around the outside of the stable. These moose of the Near East are evidence that along with their riders the entire world is drawn to the incarnation of the Son of God. I may be wrong, but I don’t believe there is a camel in Regina. I know a few people in our congregation who have ridden on a camel, and I expect that you will share your ride with all around you during the fellowship hour! That’s about as close as you and I are going to get to a camel on this Sunday of camels. Camels are not immediate sources of wisdom either.

The Magi Police are right: all this happened a significant period of time after the Nativity. Neither the camels nor their Magi should be gathered around the crèche scenes, because the Magi were simply too late. The Magi weren’t rushing to make it on time while the shepherds and animals, Mary and Joseph were huddled around the straw-filled manger where they had laid the new-born infant Jesus. The Magi did not know what time it was, and that’s not to belittle them, simply that their search was not concerned with days and hours, but rather with years, eras, and lives.

They came from the East, Mesopotamia or Persia, Iran today, with a dubious reputation. Once arriving in Jerusalem, they starting asking a startling question no one else would think about asking, “Where is the child born king of the Jews? We have observed his star rising and have come to worship him.” They were asking this in the shops and inns and marketplaces, and questions like that get reported quickly and everybody, Herod on down, was alarmed. Herod had an extra title to his position as governor of Judea - “King of the Jews.” As far as he knew he wasn’t resigning. If this were the code name for the Messiah, then the government knew it was in real trouble.

Herod and the others knew, however, that the Magi were strange fellows, innocent in their search and pilgrimage, but they apparently knew something now that everyone else needed to know. Herod convened a seminar of scholars and clergy to determine where the Messiah was to be born and the consensus was pretty swift - in Bethlehem of Judea. Next, Herod invited the Magi for a secret conference and asked them about the exact time the star had appeared. That information he stored away in his mind as a two year rule, but decided to let these odd men continue unmolested in their quest. They were highly motivated and somehow on the right track. Let them do the hard work. He pressed them to come back and tell him all about it so that he may also go and worship the child. The Magi may have been wise, but here they showed they weren’t smart enough to sniff out Herod’s malevolent intentions. Herod was not interested in worshipping anything except power.

The Magi headed out, only 11 kilometers away, the star leading them, stopping over the place where the child was living. All sorts of theories abound about what kind of a star or comet or supernova this might have been and there are a string of candidates. Yet, nobody has ever bought the idea that the star stopped overhead. Stars don’t stop, any more than our sun stops. It’s a nice idea, but it doesn’t really happen that way. Still, you can’t argue, the Magi got it right and found the house where the family was now living. Told you it was a significant while after the birth.

Overjoyed, their long pilgrimage not a failed one, they brought out their gifts. Gold is always nice, but frankincense and myrrh were meant for burials and not appropriate then either - symbolic gifts prefiguring the death of Jesus, looking at Easter rather than Christmas. I am not sure that the Magi who had to ask where the child was supposed to be born were that symbolic or subtle in their gift-giving. They weren’t that full of wisdom, but they got the job done and we still sing about them. The dream that warns them not to go back to Herod is Matthew’s sign that they were in the right place after all.

This is a lot better story for you and me than we have thought, but in the opposite direction. We have sung “We Three Kings” believing that their presence honoured Jesus royally. None of us are ever going to be royal, so as long as they were kings, we are ineligible receivers. The Magi were eccentric characters, not certified teachers of the law one would expect capable of discovering the Messiah. The professors and governors and wise clergy couldn’t find him, didn’t think he could be found or want to find him, but a gaggle of less than geniuses who had the grace of God guiding them.

You don’t need to be royalty or an academic or clergy or even someone holy to be able to find the Christ Child. God’s grace - that unexplainable, undeserved, outrageously free gift and blessing - finds you. You don’t find the Christ Child, for like the Magi bungling and bumping into that Bethlehem house, he finds you and that’s Epiphany.

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