“BY ANOTHER WAY’ MATTHEW 2:1-12

DRANESVILLE UMC SUNDAY, JANUARY 3, 2021

At the beginning of this year, as with many other years, we hear the Gospel story of the Visit of the Magi. In most of Western Christianity, when we come to this Sunday, Epiphany Sunday, the Christmas Season comes to an end. We will now enter the Season of Epiphany or Ordinary Time; one of two seasons in the church calendar called Ordinary Time.

Today’s lesson begins by telling us that Jesus has been born in Bethlehem during the reign of Herod. There were several kings in the Herodian Dynasty in Palestine. This Herod was known as Herod the Great. He would reign from 37 - 4 BC. I’ll have more to say about him later.

Let me take a moment to try to answer a question you might have. If you remember last week’s Gospel Lesson from Luke 2, Jesus was presented at the Temple when he was about six weeks old. After that, Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph took Jesus to Nazareth. Now we have this story in which the magi encounter the child Jesus in a house in Bethlehem. How do we account for Jesus’ presence in Bethlehem? The short answer is: We can’t; except to say that one story is found in Matthew and the other is in Luke. Both Gospels are theological documents; they are neither history nor biography, yet they contain elements of both. We will make unnecessary problems for ourselves if we try to reconcile the two accounts from a historical perspective. With that in mind, let’s get back to today’s lesson.

Magi from the east came to Jerusalem. Much has been made about these magi over the centuries. “Magi” is the plural form of “magus;” which may mean one who practices the art of divination; something prohibited for Jews. Magi were non-Israelites and non-Jews. A magus could be a man who studies the stars and makes predictions based on their positions and movements. Magi combined astronomy and astrology to make their predictions. They were often found in some royal courts where the kings placed great stock in their pronouncements. Kings made important decisions based on what the magi told them.

That’s about all we can say with certainty about magi. That hasn’t stopped persons with very fertile imaginations from supplying details that are not given in the text. We even sing of some of these details when we sing of “three kings of Orient.” As I mentioned earlier, magi is a plural noun. We know that more than one visited Bethlehem. Beyond that, we

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can’t say with certainly how many there were. The common assumption has been that there were three magi because they presented three gifts to Jesus. Think of the Christmas gifts you just received. Did you only receive one gift from each person who gave you something? Probably not. The number of gifts given to Jesus may not be much help in determining the number of magi. For example, what’s to say that multiple magi didn’t give Jesus gold, or that one magi gave two gifts? Bottom line - we don’t know how many magi there were.

They were not kings. While they may have served in palaces, they were not themselves royalty. While they were highly regarded in some kingdoms, in others they were considered frauds and quacks. For that reason, the Jews held them in low regard. King Herod, on the other hand, may have welcomed them.

At least one legend holds that the magi were all from different countries; symbolizing the coming of all nations to worship Jesus. Like the idea of them being three kings, there is no support for this theory.

Over the centuries, not only did the theory that there were three magi gain in credibility, but names were given them. The Twelfth Century English church historian Bede lists their names as Gaspar, Melchior and Balthazar. In the Travels of Marco Polo, written in the Thirteenth Century, Polo describes visiting three tombs in what is Iran today and being told these were the tombs of the magi.

All of this may be interesting; but it’s all conjecture about these exotic foreign visitors who show up early in Matthew’s Gospel. What we can take note of is the fact that the first persons to worship Jesus were not Jews; they were pagan Gentiles from nearly 1000 miles away from Israel. Allowing for the time it took for them to recognize a new heavenly phenomenon and gather the people and supplies for a lengthy journey; they probably traveled for months, perhaps over a year, before reaching Jerusalem. This was a major effort to find and worship someone outside their faith traditions. Let’s keep that in mind.

The magi are looking for a newborn king. They started by going to the logical place - the palace of the reigning king. Big mistake. No new king there. Herod, the one they encountered, claimed to be the King of the Jews; but was a mere pretender who had been installed by Rome. Herod was from Idumea, south of Israel. One of his wives was the daughter of a Jewish priest. That was the extent of his ties to Judaism.

Any newborn Jewish male with ties to King David would pose a threat to Herod’s rule. An infant wouldn’t be able to do anything; but babies grow up. Herod will have to do

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something about the baby before he became old enough to be a viable threat. That helps to explain why Herod was troubled.

The rest of Jerusalem would have been troubled because Herod was volatile and unpredictable when he felt threatened. During his reign, in addition to many other perceived threats he had killed, Herod also ordered the death of one of his wives and at least two of his sons. One Roman Emperor sarcastically remarked that a pig in Herod’s court would be safer than a member of his family.

So far, we have met two of the three significant players in our lesson. The magi represent outsiders who are seeking the truth about Jesus. Herod represents those in power who find Jesus and his mission a threat to be eliminated. Next, we encounter the third group - the religious leaders and scholars.

Once Herod heard about a newborn king, he wanted more information. Not being a Jew himself, he called for the chief priests and the teachers; the men who would be able to either confirm or refute the word the magi brought. After consulting the book attributed to the prophet Micah, the scholars told Herod that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. That made sense. The Messiah was to come from the line of King David, whose hometown was Bethlehem.

Notice how the magi get their information. Up until this point, a star, a natural phenomenon, has guided them as far as Jerusalem. It took Scripture to steer them toward Bethlehem.

The same may be true for people today. Persons may unknowingly be seeking God. They may receive some prompting, a nudge or even inspiration from some event, natural occurrence, words from a friend, or something else. This seeking can be confirmed and refined by combining it with Scripture.

Let’s consider the religious leaders in Jerusalem. Here is the theological brain trust of the nation. These men know their Scriptures inside out. That may be their problem. They may have spent so much time in study and analysis of Biblical minutia that they miss the evidence of God’s action right in front of them.

The same thing often happens today. When I took my first Scripture courses in Divinity School, I was surprised by how much attention was paid to matters like sources and authorship, places and times of writing, forms of literature, and other things rather than what the particular Scripture might have to say to you and me. Even my preaching course

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spent little time on moving from Biblical text to sermon and more on techniques of speaking and crafting the presentation. I understand that the professors were intent on students not trying to preach in a way that we make the text say something other than what it should say. The problem for me was we spent little time on what the meanings of the texts were.

Bible study can often get sidetracked by some of these issues. For my part, I try to mention what I think are interesting aspects of the text without detracting from the meaning for present day readers. Sometimes, knowing the historical and cultural context, the subtle meaning of words and phrases in the original language, and other bits of information may be useful if it helps clarify what we read. If it gets us bogged down, it’s counterproductive.

Speaking of getting bogged down - consider the fact that the scholars were located in Jerusalem. The magi had just arrived, after traveling for hundreds of miles, with news of a newborn king, possibly the Messiah. The scholars reported that the king was to be born in Bethlehem, less than six miles away. Matthew doesn’t tell us that even one of these learned men took the time or had any interest to make a short journey to either confirm or refute the report. For these scholars’ study, academic exercise, was their focus; not the news and opportunities to which their study pointed.

Have you known persons who thoroughly know the Bible but their actions would lead you to believe they have never opened it? Being steeped in the Word is a commendable goal; provided it can be applied.

Matthew tells us Herod called the magi and instructed them to go to Bethlehem, find the newborn king and bring back word of their findings. He further stated that he, too, wished to worship him. The magi may have seen enough of Herod, especially if he was visibly troubled in their presence, to know that the last thing Herod would want to do is worship someone who might be a threat to his power.

When they left Jerusalem, the magi were delighted that the star they had followed to Jerusalem led them to the spot in Bethlehem where they found Jesus and Mary (Matthew doesn’t tell us anything more about Joseph.).

Let’s consider the star. There has been a lot of interest lately in the “Christmas star;” which is actually the close proximity of the planets Jupiter and Saturn in the night sky. This phenomenon rarely occurs. I have seen several photos and articles showing how bright this junction appears. According to many authorities, this same junction occurred in 7 BC.

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Given that we don’t know with precision when Jesus was born, it is possible that this junction of the two planets may have guided the magi.

By the way, one of the planets represented royalty and the other represented the area around Israel. The conjunction of those planets may have been interpreted by the magi to indicate the birth of a new king in Israel.

Matthew tells us that the star the magi saw went ahead of them to Bethlehem. We can’t explain that movement with respect to these two planets. In the end, the movement of the star is yet another mystery of Christmas. We accept it on faith and seek to understand what the larger story says to us.

When the magi found Jesus and his mother, they worshipped him. That was the goal of their long journey - to find this king and worship him.

They presented Jesus with gifts as part of their worship. How many people today, when they come to Jesus, come with gifts? In most cases, people come to Jesus wanting something from him. These mysterious, pagan foreigners show the world what worship should be.

Much has been made about the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh; not what a newborn would receive in our day. Supposedly, gold represents royalty; the frankincense is used to worship God; and myrrh is sometimes added to the incense in worship, as well as placed on a body prepared for burial in order to hide the odor of decay. When Jesus was taken down from the cross in John 19, Nicodemus brought 75 pounds of spices, myrrh and aloes, to anoint Jesus’ body for burial.

On a practical level, some scholars suggest that these very expensive gifts could have been used by Mary and Joseph to cover their living expenses when they had to flee to Egypt to escape Herod’s attempt to kill Jesus. Matthew doesn’t tell us how long they lived in Egypt or how Joseph supported his family while they were there.

God led the magi to Bethlehem and would lead them home as well. A star prompted them to leave home. A dream would prompt them to return. That same dream warned them not to return to Herod; so they went home by another route. That is quite possible. By heading southwest from Bethlehem they could intersect the coastal road in order to avoid Jerusalem. They could also head east to the Jordan River and proceed north along the Jordan Valley. In any case, they went home “by another way” after their encounter with Jesus.

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What happened to the magi is what happens to everyone who has a meaningful initial encounter with Jesus. We go home “by another way.” The world no longer looks or seems the same. We know we have been changed in ways we may not be able to describe or understand.

That can also happen to those of us who have been believers for quite awhile. We may be in a rut in our faith journey until something happens and our faith is renewed. We go home by another way.

We can learn a lot from the magi about how to encounter Jesus. • They had been studying. God had prepared them through what may seem like an unlikely way - studying the heavens. We may come to Christ by an unusual route • They were aware of the world around them. We may encounter Christ in our everyday circumstances. • They were willing to seek confirmation of what they believed. That seeking would take them on a round trip journey of nearly 2000 miles. We don’t have to travel nearly that far; but we may have to take what’s often considered the longest journey of all - from the head to the heart. • They asked directions. They sought help in Jerusalem. There are many persons who can guide us in our spiritual journeys if we would only ask them. • When their seeking was confirmed, they responded with gratitude. How often do we express thanks for what God has done for us in the Person of Jesus Christ? • Once they encountered Jesus, they remained vigilant and attentive. Coming to Christ is an important early step in our faith journeys. After that, we need to remain aware of possible pitfalls along the way. Jesus doesn’t promise an easy road. In fact, he says just the opposite. The road will be narrow and few will take it. There are too many temptations which could lure us off course.

The visit of the magi, early in this most Jewish of all the Gospels, is a hopeful message to all of us. The prophet Isaiah foretold the nations coming to worship Jesus. We see this with the magi. The magi represent us.

At the end of Matthew, Jesus sends the apostles to the nations; to make disciples, to baptize and to teach. That mission continues, which is good news for all of us and a challenge. The magi demonstrate that we cannot have any idea who will respond to the gospel. We can help those who seek to go home by another way. Amen.

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