The Kitchen Sink
An occasional piece of paper
January 6, 2008
Vol. 11 no. 01

Everything But...
           On this second Christmas Day - the Orthodox Churches know today is the day! - we are still vexed by what to call the principal actors of the day. Their number, whether three or more, is not the issue; it’s their occupation or avocation that we have had trouble defining.
           Sometimes they are dubbed humorously “the Wise Guys,” but when you get down to it, that label is closer to the truth than most other options. Magi - the Biblical title for these guys - is an identifiable group in the ancient Persian/Iranian Empire. Generally, the New Testament does not look favourably upon the Magi; Simon Magus in the Book of Acts was a particularly sinister character. After all, their name is the root of our word “magic.” Lots of people like David Copperfield and Harry Potter, but seldom do we like to have our religious faith reduced to a magic trick.
           The best one can say about the Magi who came to Bethlehem is “maybe.” Maybe they were Zoroastrian priests, maybe they were scientific scholarly astrologers, maybe they were magicians. They were the kind of people that upon hearing reference to them, most others would raise their eyebrows and smile politely. Wise guys, not really wise men.
           The irony of the Gospel is that despite their reputation - sordid or grandiose - they were spot on and nailed the big truth of the matter. Maybe, it sometimes seems, nobody really understood what was going on in those humble surroundings until the Magi showed up and explained their reason for coming. The Magi may have been way off base about an awful lot of other matters, a puffed-up and pretentious sort of “doctors” who put more energy into bluffing others about their own importance. But today they were right like nobody else.