Let us pray: May God who is Majesty, Mercy, and Mystery speak words of life, and love through these words this Christmas morning. Amen.
This story like all the stories we have been reflecting on this Advent and Christmas is a very familiar story to us. In these uncertain times these stories can help us begin again, to step out into a new year with faith.
Despite it’s familiarity it is frequently misunderstood or misrepresented.
The magi often appear in our nativity scenes in the manger with the shepherds but Matthew says they found Jesus in a house, not a manger. And Herod’s decree to kill male children up to two years old suggests a much later visit.
There is almost always three of them. An easy assumption to make because there were three gifts. Perhaps there was three of them, but the story does not actually say that.
And they are almost always riding on camels. Now don’t tell the camels in the Lost Sheep story but the story does not say that either.
They are sometimes called kings or wise men but the Bible uses the Greek word ‘magoi’. Which refers to a group of learned men, often associated with astrology, astronomy, and the interpretation of dreams. Historically, the Magi were a priestly class from the Median or Persian Empire, known for their wisdom and expertise in various fields, including religion and the sciences.
There is a lot that has been written about all this and while I think that it is good to be aware of what is in the story and what is tradition, I do not think this is what really matters. What really matters is what does their role in the story tell us about Jesus and his Kingdom.
Well, while they did not come with the shepherds their role is similar.
In Luke’s account, that we read and reflected on, on Christmas Day, we are told that Jesus was born in first century Bethlehem at the time of Emperor Augustus when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And yet this birth is not witnessed by these powerful people. Rather it is Mary and Joseph and the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks who are present when the Word becomes flesh and dwells among us. It is these ordinary people, poor, humble, often scorned people who are there when God breaks into history through the Incarnation.
And in Matthew’s account it is the Magi, staring up at the stars who discern it. These outsiders, Gentiles, pagans, whatever word you want to use recognise who Jesus is, in ways that the insiders could not.
In Luke Jesus enters the world of Augustus but the angel’s message is not spoken in the Empire’s halls of power. In Matthew Jesus enters the Herod’s brutal world but God’s Kingdom will not be brought about through violence and oppression. Right from the start Luke and Matthew are placing Jesus and his Kingdom in stark contrast with the powerful Roman Empire. And in Matthew with the religious elite.
Still now, perhaps, it is more often those, who are not so filled with their own power and privilege, who discern God’s ongoing presence and action in the world.
And also still now it is more often those who are willing to open themselves up to a reality that is not always visible and rational who discern God’s Kingdom. Those who are open to a reality in which God is acting, in ways that we cannot always explain, who does call us to do hard things and are willing to say yes to that.
The Christmas story, including this bit is wild and enchanting. A star rises to proclaim the birth of King. Magi follow this star and it leads them not to a palace in the capital city but to the home of a baby in a small town at the edge of the empire. There is a murderous king and angels appear in dreams warning against him.
My Christianity Article for this week is titled, “Make Christianity Spooky Again” by Brad East.
This article is a reflection on a book that came out this year called, “Living in Wonder; Finding Mystery and Meaning in a Secular Age.” This book, written by well known Eastern Orthodox journalist and author Rod Dreher, is a call to enchantment in a disenchanted world.
The book and the article argue in a quote that is on the screen, “the contemporary west is disenchanted, that is it has lost a sense of the supernatural within the world. A disenchanted society is materialistic, rationalistic, individualistic and hedonistic, closed off to the transcendent, the divine, the mysterious, the inexplicable.
Dreher is certainly not the only person writing about this at the moment. Stanley Hauerwas has written at length about this topic. He says, “modernity names the time when people came to believe that they should have no story determining their lives except the story they chose.”
However, this self creation, has not brought the general satisfaction we expected. For the successful few perhaps, but for many more it has led to greater loneliness, lack of meaning, anxiety, depression, addiction and deaths of despair.
And so we search for meaning and wonder in things like Christmas. Not the Biblical Christmas but the consumer culture version of it.
I have put on the slide a number of pictures and quotes about Christmas to illustrate this. They say,
“May you never be too grown up to search the skies on Christmas Eve.”
“Believe in the magic of Christmas.”
“May the magic of Christmas light your world all year through.”
“On this night of Christmas Eve all across the world magic happens with everyone’s heart. May you receive the magic of belief, hope, peace, faith, joy and love.”
These quotes I think speak to a sense that even our secular culture has, that perhaps there is something miraculous, something out of the ordinary, something sacred that is at the heart of Christmas.
They speak to a longing in our society for something more. A sense that perhaps there is something more to the world than what is visible, rational and logical.
As always consumer culture has managed to coopt that sense and that longing. With Santa Claus, Hollywood movies and shopping.
And yet the Christmas story that is told in the Bible has far more peace, hope, faith, joy and love than this story.” It has more light and wonder and awe.
This is not the topic of today’s sermon but Su Sze and I were discussing on Christmas Day how strange it is that parents seem so comfortable with telling their children that Santa knows if they have been naughty or nice and that this will affect how many presents they get. But if Christians suggest that it matters to the Creator God how we treat Him and each other and live together on this planet, then God is just mean and judgmental.
But returning to today’s story it has far more magic than Santa. It is more enchanting and wonderful than anything Hollywood has come up with.
It is the story of the creator of the Universe coming to earth to dwell and amongst us. His star in the sky not a man on a sleigh. And yet most people in our society have traded it for some cheap gimmick by Coca Cola.
Dreher argues “The crisis of contemporary Christianity comes down to a loss of enchantment. What do I mean by that? The abandonment of a sense that everything is in a mystical sense charged with the energy of God, that all things are connected and unified in the Logos, and that we can and must participate in the Logos.
He calls the church to return to a Christianity that places mystery, wonder and awe in the centre of its worship and spiritual disciplines.
I tend to think it more complicated than just this but I do think as Christians we could re-embrace the enchantment in out stories. Looking at these pictures on the slide,
May we never be too grown up to search the skies on Christmas Eve.”
May we believe in the magic of Christmas.
May the magic of Christmas light our world all year through.
And may we receive the belief, hope, peace, faith, joy and love of this season.
The world is not what we think it is. It is far more mysterious, exciting and adventurous. God has enchanted it; it is up to us to clear away the scales from our eyes, recognise what is there, and a establish a relationship with it
