December 2007

They were the most unlikely of candidates for a place in Biblical history.  They were pagans, not your run of the mill pagans, but professional ones.  They were proud of who they were and viewed other cultures with disdain.  They were among the most learned men in the world, educated in science philosophy, dream interpretation and medicine.  They were also astrologers, not merely astronomers, watching the stars coursing through the sky, but attempting to understand events in our world by watching the stars. 

One could understand if God were to pass these men over as candidates for proclaiming the good news.  And yet, these are the wise men that we sing about, the magi who schooled King Herod and his men when they arrived inquiring, “Where is He who is born king of the Jews?” 

I must admit that the wise men intrigue me precisely because of who they were.  In my childhood Sunday school classes I was told that they were star gazers who, noticing a new star in the east, saddled up and rode, not knowing where they were going.  Actually, the story is a little more complex. 

The Magi were men of great learning from Babylon.  Of course, back then there were a limited number of books to be read.  One of these books was written by a man captured by the Babylonians almost five hundred years ago during one of their military campaigns. It predicted the coming of a king, who would establish a great kingdom.  Since other prophecies in the book had come true, the magi paid close attention, and as the time drew near, the magi began searching the sky for a verification of the prophecy.  You see, the star in the east did not give the magi the idea that a king had been born; Daniel’s prophecies had done that.  What the star did was tell them that the king predicted had been born.  The wise men journeyed west, expecting to find celebration of the new king, but finding instead ignorance.

Christmas is a study in contrasts.  It is a story of a Holy God invading a sinful world, of purity mixing with rebellion.  The problem is that where we see as rebellion, God often sees potential, where we see obedience, God may see disobedience.  The Jewish leaders would have sharply criticized the magi for their beliefs, and certainly there was much more they needed to learn.  What the wise men had in their favor was three things:

1. They were willing to read with an open mind.  Where the Jewish leaders thought they knew what God was doing in the world, the Wise men read the book of Daniel with an open mind.  They took it seriously and allowed it to teach them rather than the other way around.

2. They watched the world around them.  The Magi could do the math and knew that the time of Daniel’s prophecy was coming soon.  They waited and watched to see what God would do.  They submitted themselves to God’s timetable rather than demand that God act according to what they wanted.

3. They acted on what they saw.  The star in the sky filled them with excitement for they knew that the God of Daniel, the God of the Jews was beginning to act.  They were not about to be left out of history, and so jumped on their camels and came to Jerusalem.  The hand of God motivated them to action. 

My fear is that we have heard the Christmas story so often that we have stopped listening.  When we begin to think that we have nothing left to learn about a story so familiar we are taking ourselves out of the Magi camp and into the Pharisee camp.  This year, let’s read the story with fresh eyes, talk to others about what we are reading and be willing to act on what we are seeing and learning.  We will be embarking on a great journey, but we will be in a position to see history being made, as God steps into our lives