Dear Members and Friends,
Speaking of the Wise Men after December has passed may seem as unseasonable as the warm temperatures we've been experiencing! Yet if we consider the more likely chronology of Christmas, then it will not appear strange referencing the Magi in January, or even in July.
Looking at a typical manger scene, one commonly sees animals, shepherds, angels and three Wise Men all gathered round the infant Christ. These static displays are often quite beautiful, and yet because of finite limitations on physical objects, these porcelain replicas of the Nativity are an example of something true, but not entirely accurate. They are a traditional example of the modern phenomena of "data compression" where events taking place over a great span of time are "telescoped down" into a shorter more manageable form.
Considering the scripture, one is led to the conclusion that unlike the shepherds who found "the babe lying in a Manger," by the time they arrived from Persia, the gentlemen from the East would have encountered a walking, talking toddler living in a house. It was the same Christ they worshipped, but in a significantly different form, in a much more suitable abode.
Economically, educationally and geographically at the other end of the spectrum from the shepherds, ironically, our Wise Men are also very similar in substance with the herdsmen, because as foreigners to orthodox Jewish belief, they would have been adjudged as out of place near the Messiah. Yet they came a long distance, and at great risk, because God spoke their "pagan" language in the stars, and they responded with solid faith in their hearts.
Even as the Magi brought gifts to Jesus, they also carry a message for us. It is that our God has an abiding penchant for inviting all people into His Kingdom - those who might be predictably present, and those deemed impossibly far away.
Both in the timing of their arrival and in the content of their character, the Wise Men cannot be contained to one month in the church year or one moment in the life of Christ. No matter their actual number or names, they are a year round symbol of God's universal invitation and the joyful response that we are called to put on display every day of our lives.
From Reverend William J. Keane,
Senior Minister of First Baptist Church of Branford
|
