It’s a funny time of year isn’t it? Christmas is over. New Year is over. You’ve probably taken the decorations down and people often find it a bit depressing. It’s why I quite like the old idea of the 12 days of Christmas which start on Christmas Day and actually means that Christmas only finishes on January 6th.
The traditional name of January 6th is in the Christian Calendar is Epiphany and it’s the time when we usually think about the Magi or the Wise Men.
So I thought seeing as we’re only a few days after Epiphany and seeing as I’d quite like to hold on for Christmas just a little bit longer, that I’d write a little bit about the story of the Wise Men or the Magi, because I think it’s a really interesting story and sometimes it falls off the end of Christmas. I think it’s interesting because there are so many strange characters and events.
Who were the Magi?
The first question is who or what are Magi? The story is in the gospel written by Matthew and he starts it:
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem (Matthew 2:1 NIV)
Let’s start with what we don’t know, or maybe have got wrong.
We actually don’t know how many there were. I know we sing “We three kings of orient are,” but it seems like that is just a tradition, which grew up because there were three gifts (gold, frankincense and myrrh). So it’s as good a guess as any that there were three, but there might have been 20. It’s even less likely that we know their names. Again the carol includes the names Caspar, Melchoir and Balthasar, but they come from a lot later in history.
So what can we say about them? Well lots of the older Bible translations, like the King James translation call them “wise men.” And that’s not too bad a translation to my mind. The Greek word is magoi and lots of the new translations, like the one NIV I quoted above, call them Magi from the east. Magi were astronomer/astrologers – a kind of mix of religious and scientific figures and would I think have been thought of as educated people.
“From the east” is probably from the Babylon/Persia direction (around Iran/Iraq now). They’re the only non-Jewish characters in the story and quite surprising ones at that, given their astrology. But it’s been a reminder ever since that Christmas and the story of Jesus are open to everyone, whatever their religious past or ethnic background Jesus comes to call and welcome people from all backgrounds back to the one true God. Just as the Magi wanted to find Jesus and worship him, so can anyone else.
What about Herod?
The next interesting character is King Herod.
He is essentially the dark side of Christmas and often doesn’t make it into our nativity plays or scenes.
Naturally enough the wise men head to Jerusalem where they think they will find the king of the Jews. When the come to King Herod’s palace and tell him the news, Matthew tells us:
When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. (Matthew 2:3-4 NIV)
Now Herod was an interesting character to say the least. He wasn’t really Jewish and was installed by the Romans as a kind of puppet king. Everything we read about him here fits with what we know about him from outside the Bible. He was a paranoid, jealous and vicious man. When people come looking for a king who isn’t him. He’s perturbed and does a bit of research. He finds out from the religious leaders where Jesus will be born. Bethlehem is a prophecy from back in the book of Micah around 700 years before Jesus was born (Micah 5:2; Matthew 2:4-6). He tries to use the Magi to get to Jesus and presumably to dispose of him (Matthew 2:7-8).
But of course Herod gets worse. When the wise men are warned in a dream not to go back and tell him where Jesus was we read:
When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. (Matthew 2:16 NIV)
You can see why he doesn’t make it into the Nativity plays! He was a ruthless king, determined to hold onto his power. He was known for killing potential rivals and apparently killed three of his own sons.
For Matthew, the point is that the contrast with the wise men is very stark. On the one hand you have these foreign astrologers who have taken what they know, however limited, and have traveled a long distance to meet and worship Jesus. They’re the good example. On the other hand, Herod wants to kill Jesus and the religious leaders, even when they hear the news and know where Jesus will be, don’t seem interested in going to meet him. They’re the bad example!
Ambivalence or hostility to Jesus are tragic responses to the coming of God’s king.
There’s more we could think about, like stars and gifts, but perhaps a good place to start is with who these characters are and how the respond to Jesus!