Significance of the Matthew Magi in the 21st Century

There is a new pastor who likes e-mails and texts communing on the sermon texts he has chosen for the following week.   This week, his chosen text was Matthew 2:1-12.  This is the visit of the Magi to the Christ Child (ending before the Massacre of the Innocents).  . . .   I read it and was having a difficult time deciding how exactly it was applicable in our time and place.  . . .  But I wrote him the following message:

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The first thing that strikes me about this passage is that Jesus, Mary and Joseph are described as living in a house.  . . .  Our typical creche scene has both the wise men and the shepherds visiting the Christ Child in the stable.  But this should be a reminder that the story we see every Christmas is something of a pastiche - created from a merger of all four Gospels, and not particularly accurate - although very beloved.

For me, the Magi are a lot less intimate than Simeon and Anna were last week.  Both Simeon and Anna held the Baby Jesus in their arms and praised God.   The Magi show up, consult with the highest authority in Jerusalem (with inadvertently tragic consequences for the mothers of Bethlehem - although that is another week's story), find the Baby, worship Him, give him extravagant gifts, then depart for their own country by another way.  They hustle on and off the scene with great speed, never again to appear in the Bible story.

Therefore, what meaning can I find in the story of the Magi?  . . .  Here is where I find the greater Christian tradition brings me a level of meaning.   In Matthew, the Magi give the Christ Child three gifts - gold, frankincense and myrrh.   But Matthew does not specify the number of wise men.   The early Christians (maybe following Paul), saw in the Magi a hint of the Christ's universal mission.  Our Western Christian tradition has set the number of wise men as three (to match the gifs) and also gives them names - Melchior (traditionally Persian), Caspar (traditionally East Indian) and Balthazar (traditionally Arabian).   Thus they have become an analogy for the eventual spread of Christianity over the entire world - the forerunners of the peoples of the World coming to worship the Christ . . .   

This idea that the Wise Men are the first international group to visit Jesus finds its most direct expression through the Christian Feast known as The Epiphany ("The Manifestation of the Christ to the Gentiles")  . . .  The Book of Common Prayer makes this same connection clear in the Collect for The Epiphany - "O God, who by the leading of a star didst manifest thy only-begotten Son to the peoples of the earth: Lead us, who know thee now by faith, to thy presence, where we may behold thy glory face to face; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen."

I think this idea that the wise men stand in for the world has real merit.   I think it is good that, through the eyes of the Christian tradition, we collectively see Jesus' universal mission to all mankind first expressed through the visit of the Magi.  A hymn I know expresses it this way (SDA Hymnal #145):

Songs of thankfulness and praise,

Jesus, Lord, to You we raise,

Manifested by the star

To the sages from afar;

Branch of royal David’s stem

In Your birth at Bethlehem;

Anthems be to You addressed,

God in man made manifest.

Perhaps this isn't such a whiplash from last week as it may seem . . .  Personally, I don't find a split between the intimacy of Simeon and Anna and the rather less personable universality of the Magi.  This is because I see Jesus as both the intimate Savior and the Universal Ruler.  After all, it is the one and same Jesus who says in Matthew 11:28-30 ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’  and about whom countless angels and saints in Revelation 5:12 are described as falling down and worshipping while singing: ‘Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing!’ I think this shows Jesus operating on multiple levels - something I would expect from our God.

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The pastor thanked me for the thoughts, noted that there was new information for him (particularly the names and origins Western Christianity has given the Magi.  He then made the statement: "Application is now the key."

And he's right.  How does the story of the Magi apply to my life today?  . . .  His subsequent sermon focused on the three contrasting responses from the actors in the story when given the news "Christ is born" - Herod hated the news; the Chief Priests treated it with indifference, and the Gentile Magi embraced it and sought the Child to worship.  . . .   I like the idea of the Magi as a model for how we should react to amazing news - and I would hope that I also would seek to worship.

But what other applications do the Magi have to our current world?

One that now comes to mind for me is how we need to pay attention more to the message than the messenger.   Herod and the Chief Priests were of Israel, and they had the prophecies predicting the coming of the Christ - but it took Gentile astrologers to actually notice when these prophecies were  fulfilled.

Have we ever discounted the message, because we discounted the messengers?  And how do we learn to listen, even if we don't immediately connect with or respect the messenger?  How do we keep ourselves from pre-judging a message because we think the messenger is not the right sort?