Sermon

The journey of the Magi

Scripture Text:

Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon:

Today is the second Sunday of Christmas but we’re also celebrating in part the Feast of the Epiphany today, which is on January 6.  Epiphany is the feast that celebrates the coming of the wise men to visit Jesus and his family – not actually at the stable, but at a house, the gospel says, and probably when Jesus was a few weeks old or maybe even a few years old.  There’s actually a lot that we’ve put into the story of the wise men that Matthew doesn’t actually mention:  he doesn’t say there were three of them, he doesn’t say they were kings, he doesn’t even say they were men!  He doesn’t say where they came from, just the “East.”

The original Greek word that Matthew used for these mysterious persons is “magoi” or “Magi” — and means magicians or wizards.  (Wouldn’t it be neat to see a nativity scene with Dumbledore and Gandalf visiting the baby Jesus?!).  And so, saying “Magi” kind of covers up all the uncertainty about how many they were, and if they were kings or astronomers or wizards or all of the above, or whether there might have been a wise woman, too.  But I think the most important thing about the Magi is not exactly who they were (or even if they existed at all, which some bible scholars say), but what they did, which is that they left home and went on a very long, hard journey to meet this Jesus.

Now, the Magi knew who Jesus was.  They brought him gifts that were a kind of code: gold for kingship, frankincense, like the incense like we use in this church on holy days, for the priesthood, and myrrh, which was also a kind of incense and a special resin for embalming corpses, for his death.  They knew who he was and what he would become, but they wanted to SEE him and to experience his presence, or to worship him. So, they  saddled up their camels (which also aren’t in the gospel of Matthew, but I digress!).

There was an Anglican poet named T. S. Eliot who lived in England and wrote a poem called “The Journey of the Magi” in 1927.  Eliot was an atheist who converted to Christianity the same year the he wrote this poem, and he meant the poem to tell both the story of the journey of the magi and the story of his conversion.  And I want to use his poem both to give you a beautiful retelling of the visit of the Magi and to talk about the journey of the Christian life for each of us, because believing in God and getting to know Jesus and calling yourself a Christian isn’t an one-time decision.  It’s a long process; it’s a journey with lots of unexpected and difficult events along the way.  And it’s less about getting to a destination than it’s a way of living your life.  Because even the Magi, once they reached their initial destination — the home of Mary and Joseph — didn’t stop, but turned around and went back to their homes in the East and kept living their lives.  Even though their lives would never be the same.

So, I invite you to listen to this poem and hear the story of the journey of the magi, but also listen and see if you hear anything that sounds familiar in terms of your own life. You’ll also hear a few references to the end of Jesus’ life: Eliot mentions three trees – which also mean the three crosses at Golgotha.  You’ll hear something about pieces of silver, and you might think of Judas Iscariot.  There’s a white horse, which is a symbol from Revelation.  You’ll hear Eliot talk about death: and he means both his own, and Jesus’ death, and his conversion.  But poems are like that, there’s a lot going on at once:  you can listen on a lot of levels.  So, listen in whatever way God calls you to listen this morning:

A cold coming we had of it,

Just the worst time of the year

For a journey, and such a long journey:

The ways deep and the weather sharp,

The very dead of winter.

And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,

Lying down in the melting snow.

There were times when we regretted

The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,

And the silken girls bringing sherbet.

Then the camel men cursing and grumbling

And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,

And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,

And the cities dirty and the towns unfriendly

And the villages dirty and charging high prices:

A hard time we had of it.

At the end we preferred to travel all night,

Sleeping in snatches,

With the voices singing in our ears, saying

That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,

Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;

With a running stream and a water mill beating the darkness,

And three trees on the low sky,

And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.

Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,

Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,

And feet kicking the empty wine skins.

But there was no information, and so we continued

And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon

Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,

And I would do it again, but set down

This set down

This: were we led all that way for

Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,

We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,

But had thought they were different; this Birth was

Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,

But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,

With an alien people clutching their gods.

I should be glad of another death.

Glad of another death?  Eliot was a dark writer.  He wrote a lot about lost people.  But in this poem, he says that birth and death are very much the same.  Both are painful, both can happen in many different ways in our lives, and both lead us to new life.

Both are part of the risks and joys of trying to make the journey of a Christian life.  But if we never leave home, if we never attempt any kind of journey: we’re not really safe, we’re just stuck.  Think of King Herod in his court: full of fear and sending others to do his seeking for him.  And in the end, his seeking was about his own ego and not about transformation or new life at all.

Let us not be afraid to continue the often difficult journey of seeking after God and believing that God is at work in our lives.

Continue the journey. Continue in worship, continue in prayer, continue in reading the bible, continue in living in Jesus Christ, who was born, and died, and rose again.

As Eliot put it: The journey is long, the ways deep, and the weather hard, but in the end you will find it was (you may say) satisfactory. [1]

Amen.

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[1] http://www.episcopalchurch.org/sermons_that_work_126273_ENG_HTM.htm

Uploaded on January 2, 2011 in by RevHeidi

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