Sermon Prepared for Messiah Lutheran Church

8:30 & 11:00 AM traditional services – 1/06/01

by Gregory S. Kaurin

Associate Pastor for Spiritual Care and Development

 

Text: Matthew 2:1-12

 

The Sermon:

Then Foreign Astrologers Came

Bearing Gifts of Gold, Smells and Embalming Fluids

 

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As far back as I can remember I’ve always been drawn to the story of the wise men.  I think I was more curious about them than I was about Santa Claus.  I’m still drawn to them; I think it’s a great story with lots of depth and meaning.

By now we’ve all seen enough Christmas pageants and crèches (manger scenes) to know what to expect.  There are the shepherds, one young one with his pipe, another carrying a lamb across his shoulders, a relaxing cow and donkey.  There is Joseph on one knee holding his staff, and Mary holding her heart.  An angel looks on with her wings outspread.  And there are those three kingly looking wise men.  Often there is a black fellow from Africa, an Asian man, and one very European-looking guy.  We’ve seen this scene and story replayed so often that I think we know it better than the story that’s actually written in the Bible.

I love this story!  The more I dig into it, the more meaning I find.  Some of that meaning comes from the traditions that have grown around it, but there is even more when I peel back the layers of tradition that sometimes blind us to what the Scriptures actually say.

 

Walk with me through this story point-by-point.  This story happens after St. Matthew wrote how Joseph obeyed the dream.  He took Mary to his home—that would be Bethlehem—and had no intercourse with her until she’d given birth.  When she did, he named the child Jesus, accepting him as his own.

Then, chapter 2, verse 1 starts out:

 

 

“After Jesus was born, …wise men came.”  Because of the bluntness of the original Greek, I think the New Jerusalem Bible was right to translate it this way: “After Jesus was born, …wise men from the east suddenly showed up in Jerusalem.”  Maybe it’s no big deal, but it may be a first clue that, sometime after Jesus was born, wise men showed up in Jerusalem before heading to Bethlehem.  We’ll come back to this.

 

It doesn’t say in the Bible how many wise men there were: 2, 3, 5, 8, 20?  We don’t know.  The earliest records we have are two ancient Christian drawings from about 150 AD.  One depicts two wise men, and the other shows four.  Another later drawing has twelve.

However, only 100 years later, in about 250 AD, one of the Church Fathers—Origen was his name—Father Origen wrote about the wise men, and he named them.  He said their names were Balthasar, Melchior and Gaspar.  Other traditions gave them names that were even tougher to pronounce,[i] but Father Origen’s names are the ones that have stuck all these years.

In about 550 AD artists were showing Balthasar as a middle-aged man with a black beard, Gaspar as an elder man with a flowing white beard, and Melchior as a beardless youth.  Then, by 850 AD the tradition split the three into different races.  Balthasar was shown as an Asian, Gaspar as a white European and Melchior as a black man from Africa.  Finally, the idea that these men were kings was a strong tradition by 1000 AD while Christianity was spreading wider and wider into different languages and cultures. 

Even though this took about 1000 years to develop, this is a neat tradition that pulls together and illustrates the Old Testament ideas and prophecies about all nations and kings bowing to the kingship and divine authority of Israel’s Messiah, the Christ.  But peel back all these layers of tradition and look again at that first verse of chapter two; this Bible story is already rich and powerful on its own!

They may have been from Persia.  That has probably been the strongest Christian notion.  Perhaps they were from Arabia.  That would have fulfilled a number of Old Testament expectations.  Maybe they were Babylonian.  There were still strong ties and relations to the Jewish people from their old days of exile in Babylon, and Babylonians had a strong, religious and almost scientific interest in the stars and skies, and a curiosity as to how such things might affect the earth and its people.

The point (Biblically, historically, traditionally, eternally) is that these magi were foreigners, outsiders.  From the Jewish perspective, even from our own perspective, they were pagans.  That means that of the first to bow to Jesus’ kingship, the first to seek him out were foreigners, while the leaders of his own people, who even knew the prophesy, were milling around this jealous king, Herod, in Jerusalem!

 

 

These wise men showed up at the doorstep where they expected to find a new king in Judah, an heir to the Jewish throne.  They had seen a specific star rise.  (Notice they didn’t say that the star lead them, or that they had followed it, to Jerusalem.  A star rose that lead them to the conclusion that an heir had been born to the Jewish throne.)  “So,” they said, “we are here to pay our respects, our homage.”

 

You will hear some people call these men astrologers and stargazers, to suggest zodiac or fortune telling gypsies.  That’s only partially fair.  For them, it was broader than that.  It was a study, a curiosity, and a part of all that they studied as they tried to understand their world. 

They studied and mapped the skies and assumed that there must be a connection: what happened in the heavens must affect what happens on earth.  So they would pay attention—not only to heavenly happenings—but earthly occurrences.  Then, when they saw another similar occurrence happen in the sky, they expected that the same or similar thing would happen on earth.  For them it was a science, a science of astronomical connections, and it was a part of their whole search for knowledge, understanding and wisdom.

 

Martin Luther, in the 1500’s spoke of the wise men, and this is what he said in one of his sermons:

 

These Magi, or Wise Men, were not kings, but learned men in the art of nature.  Without a doubt they dabbled also in superstitions, for they allowed themselves to be guided entirely by the course of the star.  They were like philosophers in Greece, the priests in Egypt, or the professors in our universities.

 

Every once in a while, I like to remind my wife of what Martin Luther thought of philosophy and professors in universities.  He went on to say:

 

Hidden away in their lore is something of Christ and the way of life.  These studies are no longer being cultivated in our universities, and the peasants know more about them than these professors who have become the devil’s mockingbirds.  The Wise Men may have been called natural scientists from the East, or professors of natural science from Arabia.[ii]

 

These men came looking for an infant king.  Unfortunately, they assumed it would be the child of this very paranoid King Herod, who by now had already killed family, friends and even wives because of—both true and false—rumors and plots to take his throne.

 

 

This infant king of Jews would sound to Herod like another dangerous rumor that needed squashing.  Worse than a rumor, though, what if this prophecy was coming true?  So, he turned to advisors, Jewish scribes and such, “These fellows say a star told them a Jewish king is born.  Such an event may be pointing to the coming of the great-anointed king, the Messiah, you’ve told us about.  Where do our scriptures suggest that such an important king might be born, if it’s not right here in my own house?”

There are few specific suggestions in the Old Testament, especially ones that name a specific town.  If not Jerusalem, then Micah proclaimed a great shepherding king would come from little Bethlehem.

 

 

This is important in the story: Herod asked them when, exactly, the star appeared.  I think, and I think what St. Matthew meant us to understand, was that Herod used that information to gauge about how old this child was.

Later, after this gospel lesson, the wise men left to their own country by another road without sending any message back to Herod.  He became enraged and used the knowledge that the wise men had given about when the star appeared to send his soldiers into the Bethlehem area, killing all infants who were two years and younger.[iii]  This suggests that the wise men had seen and studied that star nearly two years before they showed up in Jerusalem.

If so, then there is a great mystery behind the study and journey of these men that we will never know.  Why was it so long?  Did they have to convince their own leaders about this birth and its importance?  Were they sent as envoys, or ambassadors, for their own country and king?  Were they sent to bring gifts for the sake of peace and international relations, …or even to open the possibility of a future alliance?

Perhaps.  In that day—with trade routes and a huge history of wars and exile, and with Rome now dominating all of them—this would have been a very big deal!  So, they went to Jerusalem, with such gifts and intentions, and found …nothing.  What a great disappointment and embarrassment that was.  However, from Israel’s own scriptures, they were given a new lead, and sent to Bethlehem.

 

 

They were given more than a lead!  After they left Jerusalem and began the short (about six miles) journey to Bethlehem, the star finally appeared again, apparently in a new and precise place that confirmed and centered itself over Bethlehem.  It was so precise, the scripture says, that it pointed to the very house where Jesus was.

But wait, where was Jesus at this time?  Verse 11 tells us that the magi entered …they entered the …what?  They entered the house and found the child and his mother, Mary.[iv]

 

See how things had changed for these wise men!  Their study and experience of the star, their disappointment in Jerusalem, the strangeness of Herod, the confirmation of the Jewish scriptures, all of this opened their minds and hearts to a completely different possibility.  The whole experience opened their eyes to a new vision, to this common, small-town house and child.  Sent to find and leave gifts for the heir of a throne, they fell down on their knees and left majestic gifts for this common child!

The shepherds had probably long-since bowed and worshipped.  Angel choirs had finished their strains.  But now, even these foreigners, with science and knowledge, mystery and superstition, stars, envoys and dignitaries on behalf of countries, peoples and outsiders…even these were bowing to this small infant in a house in little Bethlehem.  Now, that is a powerful scene!  To me, this is like a fulfillment of the great universal longing for something more than ourselves.

I look at the new-age section in bookstores, with all its stuff on the occults, supernatural, paranormal, extraterrestrial, witchcraft, Wiccan religion, and magic, and I see a usually mislead longing to be a part of something bigger, deeper and more powerful.  It’s a longing that even misleads parts of Christianity.

I look to the sciences and see a (usually more healthy) search for a deeper, wider, more precise understanding of our place, where we stand, in relation and within this universe.

That’s the longing and search I see when I look at the wise men—bowing to the child.  I see all of this pointing to Jesus, saying, “Here!  Here it is!  Here is for whom all our hearts and minds are yearning and searching.  In this child …is everything!”

 

 

Yes, these were gifts one would give a king.  Gold.  Emissaries were often sent with treasures and gold from one king or leader’s treasury to another.  It wasn’t usually just about the value or the weight of the gold.  (This wasn’t just a lump or bar of gold they brought Jesus.)  It was the artistry, the shape and decoration of whatever gold items they brought.

Frankincense was a kind of incense made from a tree resin.  It was, and still is, burned during worship services, or during ceremonial coronations.  It was also one of the ingredients in the Bible for the holy oil that was used to anoint kings and priests of Israel.[v]

And finally myrrh.  Myrrh came from the sap of a prickly shrub called the commiphora myrra.  This was another ingredient of the holy oil described in the book of Exodus.  I could say nicely that it was a perfume.  That’s a bit lofty.  I would probably be more exact in saying that it was a deodorant, used so that rich people could smell better than common peasants.  In burial, myrrh was used on bodies so that they would smell a little less dead.  It also helped preserve the skin a little, slowed down that process.

This somewhat morbid and earthy myrrh was a great oil for anointing kings and priests.  Besides smelling pleasant, myrrh was a humbling reminder of mortality, “You may be king, but you’re human.  You’ll die like the rest of us.”  When given to Jesus, it was even more significant.

Did you really listen to our opening carol as you sang—“We Three Kings of Orient”—especially that fourth stanza?  It says:

 

Myrrh is mine; its bitter perfume

Breathes a life of gathering gloom

Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying,

Sealed in the stone-cold tomb.

 

In this carol, myrrh points to Jesus’ mortality, his death.  It makes the fifth stanza powerful:

 

Glorious now, behold him arise:

King and God and Sacrifice!

 

“Alleluia,” heaven and earth call out to each other, “Alleluia!”  That is a great carol!

 

I’ve been on a journey of a kind with these three kings, a journey of faith and learning.  This story, among other things, has taught me about faith and truth, real truth.  Real truth and faith do not depend on facts, at least not on human facts, as you and I tend to call them.  The magi were probably not kings, but that does not diminish the carol of the Three Kings of Orient; it does not make it any less true!  The carol sings Truth.  It points to Truth.

Let me put it this way: Santa Claus and I have a very different relationship now that I am an adult.  But—especially after learning all the rich stories and traditions that have grown around him—Santa is probably more important, more real, true and valuable to me than ever before.  I sometimes miss my innocent childhood acceptance, but I wouldn’t trade it for the deeply spiritual and beautiful truths that Santa brings to me as an adult.

 

In the same way, we can sing about the three kings with more zest and understanding, more truth, than ever before.  We have learned that the Biblical magi did, truly, represent much more than just three kings bowing at Jesus’ feet.  They were all people, all knowledge; they were us and all our longings mislead or otherwise; they were all creation, stars, galaxies, stories, myths, philosophies, and sciences; they were all this, and they were bowing to Jesus as the King. 

I’m not saying that the wise men necessarily converted from Zoroastrianism, or whatever their faith was, into good Christian men from that day forward.  I am saying that their witness in that moment to Jesus as the Messiah, their witness to us, is bigger and more True than they could have ever known.

It is a witness that should drive us Christians to our knees every time it is told.  If these pagans who began by looking for an earthly king because of their science, superstition and a star could be lead to fall to their knees, paying homage to that child in Bethlehem, then none of us should be left standing!

If even these pagans could see it, then there can be no doubt.  This Child, Jesus of Nazareth, is the King of kings! …We happen know that this Child is God.  All knees bow.  Amen.

 

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