Let Us Keep Seeking

I don’t know about you, but the story of the wise men always leaves me wanting more. Who were they, really? Matthew tells us that they were magoi. It’s the only time we see this word used in Scripture, and it doesn’t have Greek origins. So, what language is it from? Tradition has filled in the blank with the idea that they were kings or wise men, some have speculated that they were early astrologers (star gazers), or personal advisors and interpreters for a king. We really don’t know what they did other than that they watched the night sky enough to notice something different.

Where did they come from? Matthew tells us they came from the East. We don’t know if they started out together or met along the way. Some traditions emphasize that the star announced Christ’s birth to the whole world, and fill in the blanks of where the magi originated their journey with Africa, Europe, and Asia. We really don’t know where they came from other than that they were not Jews, so not part of God’s chosen people Israel, and that the message of Jesus’s birth was for them too and they came.

How many of them were there? Matthew tells us that they brought three gifts. Over the years, we have assigned those gifts to one bearer each. But, we don’t know how many magi there were. We just know that they brought gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. We know that gold was associated with royalty, that priests used frankincense in burning incense, and that myrrh was used in preparing a body for burial. So, for us, on this side of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, those gifts are highly symbolic: gold for Jesus’s power and authority, frankincense for his divinity, and myrrh for his humanity. We might even wonder if the myrrh foreshadowed and indicated that his sacrificial death was always part of his life’s journey. We really don’t know why they brought these gifts but if we focus on their usefulness in the 1st Century, we might see them more as Mary and Joseph likely did. For them, these were useful gifts. Gold was international currency. If we were writing down the gifts at a baby shower, we would note that they gave Mary and Joseph a Visa Giftcard. Frankincense and myrrh were used medicinally. Frankincense can be used as an antiseptic and a pain reliever. Mary was thrilled to open the Neosporin with pain reliever. Myrrh has antibiotic properties and can be used to heal skin sores. Surely Mary and Joseph held up the diaper cream and said, “oh, we’ll need this!”.

There is so much we don’t know about Epiphany because Matthew doesn’t tell us, so we have filled in the blanks and wondered at the meaning. And I think because of that, we have minimized our celebration of Epiphany over the years. Liturgical calendars tend to leave the celebration on January 6th, the twelfth day of Christmas, and if that doesn’t fall on a Sunday, you might just skip it. This year, for example, most worship resources encouraged pastors to combine a celebration of a new year with Epiphany on New Year’s Day and move on to Jesus’s Baptism today.

In fact, Doug looked at the liturgical calendar and went ahead and took down the purple and white banners and started putting up the banners for our next series on the Old Testament stories we learned in Sunday School – those that we know just enough of to recognize the names involved, but be fuzzy on the details, and what they teach us today.

The more I read the story of the magi, though, the more I am convinced that there is a reason that we don’t know more about who they were or where they came from or why they brought what they brought. The importance of their story for us is that they were expecting, looking for something to catch their attention, something noteworthy, something different, something unexpected.

They were open to an Epiphany, an “Oh WOW” moment. Rev. Katherine Hedderley is the Associate Vicar for Ministry at St-Martin-in-the-Fields, the oldest church in London. She tells a story of just such a moment in her life, “As a young child I had a bracelet given to me as a gift by my godmother with some charms on it. Aunty Olive would send me new charms each year on my birthday. One day I was musing on it and took in my hand the little church that was one of the first charms. I held it up to the light and looked through the tiny, tiny window. If you’ve seen or had one of these you’ll know what happened next. To my utter amazement I could see the text of the Lord’s Prayer, through that tiny window and I could read it. I certainly paid attention, looking again and again. I read and re-read the prayer. My heart leapt inside me. I was thrilled at this discovery. Was this a miracle? As a young child it was certainly an ‘Epiphany’, a completely unexpected revelation of God to me.”

You won’t notice if you aren’t expecting the unexpected, if you aren’t paying attention. Perhaps the magi knew the night sky well enough that they noticed a new star amongst the others, or perhaps it was so bright or so different that anyone who looked up would see it. But the magi not only looked and saw, they received the message as a message from God.

Rev. Katherine Hedderley goes on to say about her unexpected experience that, “It was only later that my young self worked out that it must be a magnified piece of glass in this tiny window that made my revelation possible. God has used this moment again and again in my life. Of course I say the Lord’s Prayer quite often, three or four times a day depending on the liturgy and service pattern, often with others, sometimes alone, at different times of the day and in all seasons, moods and situations. In that moment God was saying ‘I want to show you something for you to treasure for the rest of your life.’ It definitely worked. Sometimes the saying of the Lord’s Prayer resonates with that ordinary moment of deep mystery and knowledge. A window into the heart and mind of God, and into God’s gentle, tender humor too – God knew how to get my attention!

Have you ever had one of those moments? This fall at Friendsgiving as folks were sitting together listening to bluegrass and old-time hymns, kids were running around, money was being raised to send to Presbyterian Disaster Assistance for Hurricane Relief, and suddenly someone looked up. The guys who were playing couldn’t figure out what was going on because everyone was looking up, over their heads, over the roof, to a rainbow that seemed to be arcing right around our church steeple.

One of my dear friends’ mother was on hospice at home. Her mother was a bird-watcher, and they felt that they had received a special gift that spring when a nest was built just outside her front door. Each morning, she helped her mother to the front door to check the bird’s nest, to enjoy the eggs and then laugh at the squacking hatchlings. The morning her mother died, my friend realized as she answered the door that the birds had flown the nest.

Think back. When have you paused at something you experienced and thought, could it be a message? Some people call them God winks. Some people call them co-incidences. I like to label them God-incidences. Moments of revelation, of mystery, that make us say “Oh, WOW!” If we are expecting the unexpected, we will receive them.

The important lesson for us as we study the story Matthew records for us of the magi is their response. They gathered their gifts to give, not knowing whether they would be useful or not, and they went to worship and offer what they had to him. They didn’t always get it right. They expected him to be royalty, so they went straight to Jerusalem to the king to worship him in his palace. The king didn’t know what they were talking about and was uneasy, “troubled” Matthew tells us; he likely felt threatened. People of faith are called on, the chief priests and scribes of the people, and they serve as reference guides to Scripture. The prophet Micah foretold that out of Bethlehem would come forth one who would be ruler of Israel, and bring all of his brothers and sisters to return to the flock of God’s chosen people and they shall dwell secure with him standing at the center and feeding the flock in the strength of the Lord.

When they got off course, God didn’t abandon the magi. He even used Herod to connect them with people who could get them back on course. Those people knew Scripture, God’s Word and guide for us, and it gave them direction. They found the child and rejoiced. They worshiped him and offered their gifts to him. And then God nudged them in a dream to take a different route home, not to return by way of Jerusalem, not to go back to Herod. Again, they were open, they expected the unexpected and received the message and responded by departing to their own country by another way.

This week, in preparing for our next sermon series, I was researching the color turquoise. Honestly, Doug and I chose it because we both liked the livestream slides from Christmas Day with the turquoise behind the Christingle oranges. We stood here in the chancel and discussed possible background colors. We haven’t used turquoise. We were planning to use felt. We started looking for a bolt of turquoise felt. There are none available online. All out of stock. Doug went to stores looking and found this cloth in turquoise. I wondered about our commitment to turquoise. It had seemed such a trivial decision when we made it. This is what I learned about turquoise. Many stained glass windows have turquoise on them representing the green for the earth and the blue from the sky, where God and humanity meet in the turquoise. Perhaps it was an accident that Doug put up the turquoise banners for today’s Epiphany service, or perhaps we will receive it as an Oh WOW moment. Here, in this place, God and humanity meet. How will we respond?