The Magi brought gifts fit for a King. Are you fit for the king? I have sympathy for those who work at a YMCA on January 1st because on that federal holiday, they are open for all those fresh with new year’s resolve to get fit. It’s a good resolution. But as someone wrote that willpower is depletable resource…I would say, severely depletable. It’s more than a makeover on the surface but in the heart and will that is needed. If we could get fit for the King, the Lord our God would not have had to send His Son, the Son of David. But He did and we rejoice. We are not fit for a king because of original sin and it’s bitter fruit of unbelief. This King makes us fit for His kingdom by His reign of grace, mercy and peace in His forgiveness by faith holding Him who holds us.
Light is sign and symbol of seeing with heart, soul and mind by faith through God’s Word. Light does not shine from us but on us that we not lose our way, physically, intellectually or spiritually. We only can be oriented correctly by light, instruction, guidance, wisdom, mercy. It was once pointed out to me that physically you can bring light into the darkness, but you can not physically bring darkness into the light. I can cup my hands like making a snowball so that the interior is darkness and I open my hands and the dark dissipates. But we can spiritually bring darkness into the light. In fact, by nature, separated by sin from the Lord, we are darkness (Ephesians 5:8). Into the darkness the light shines, Jesus Christ. This is the great theme of Apostle and Evangelist remembered this day in the Scripture the Lord breathed into him to write. The Magi were led by light and finally to see the light of love’s pure light, Jesus Christ, the dark world needs and yet knows not Him. This is the light of His Word made flesh that His Church is to shine in the world. In Thy Light do we see light.
The Latin word for ‘dayspring’ or ‘sunrise’ or “east” is “oriens”. From “oriens” we have our word “orient” and “orientation”. A boy scout needs a compass to point to the north in the wilderness so not to be lost and find his way. Pilgrims in Jesus Christ, like the Magi, need the Lord’s compass which points to true east. Christ’s star rose in the east and guided the Magi to His crib, our Altar. His Word is Lamp unto our feet (Psalm 119). The Temple in Jerusalem faced the east. Traditionally, Christian church buildings faced the east and Christians are buried facing the east. In the Church, in times past, the west was considered the haunt of the demonic but the east is from whence comes our Savior and so we face His way and are oriented.
Who were the Magi? Dr. Jeffrey Gibbs, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, points out in his commentary that in the Greek translation of Daniel 2: 2, of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, it is written: “…wizards and the MAGI and the sorcerers of the Chaldeans” could not interpret it. “These various Babylonian practitioners of occult learning, which would be considered damnable to a first-century Jewish audience…the magi are not”wise” in any learning that conforms with truth and piety. And is exactly why Matthew’s original readers would have been surprised by their appearing in Matthew 2: 1, which is probably why Matthew marks their appearance with LOOK! BEHOLD! (Mt. 2: 1). Anytime Behold is used it is get our attention, this is just amazing. Magi did not worship the God or Israel: they were in league with a supernatural power that opposed the one true God. No one would expect MAGI to come in search of the Child-King whose birth was prophesied in Holy Scriptures. What, then are THEY doing here? To underscore how the original readers/hearers of Matthew’s Gospel would have considered the Magi to be most ‘unlikely devotees'”. And that’s the point: the magi get it. Behold! They knew the star meant the King of the Jews was born and to get the right directions to Bethlehem they obey God’s Word in the Bible. The Biblical scholars in Jerusalem do not want to worship the true King or believe the Bible. Sounds to me like too much Christianity these days. . Herod says he does but we know it is for one purpose to kill the true King.As unlikely devotees as all the Gentiles who are called by the Word of God to Jesus Christ? Yes. Just think: the Magi followed God’s Word to the Child (Mt. 2: 5-6)! And that is the only way they could find the Way.
The Lord is clear in His Word:
In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. Last verse of Judges. It all sounds like the disorientation of our time. We lose our way so easily. We seek direction from people who say they know the way but do not have the good guide, the Bible. People say I can feel God in a beautiful sunset etc. God has left His witness in nature, His creation, no doubt about it but it won’t tell us His will, His plan for us, our forgiveness and salvation. “… vague religion-all about feeling God in nature, and so on-is so attractive. It is all thrills and no work; like watching the waves from the beach. But you will not get to Newfoundland by studying the Atlantic that way, and you will not get eternal life by simply feeling the presence of God in flowers or music. Neither will you get anywhere by looking at maps without going to sea. Nor will you be very safe if you go to sea without a map.” (C.S. Lewis) The Lord caught the attention of Persian astrologers, the magi and led them by a star. But it was finally the Bible, the Word of God, that led them to Bethlehem, the map of pure doctrine. Doctrine, teaching is life. Don’t trust your senses to find God, He will find you by His Word. His Word is more trustworthy than even your thoughts and feelings. His Word orients you to your heavenly home. Next week we will hear of another epiphany, the theophany of the Lord’s Baptism. He is born and baptized into our sin so we are washed clean for the journey of our lives. We are born lost, we need directions and instruction from our first priests, Dad and Mom. Instructed according to the Bible, then pastors and other Christians instructed from the guidebook, the Bible.
The narrative in Matthew clearly wants to move from signs in the natural world to the prophetic Scriptures, from lesser to greater, as it were.
T. S. Eliot, the British poet, wrote The Journey of the Magi and at the end, one of the Magi reflects:
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.
We live in a culture clutching their gods: self, money, fame, power…any person, place, thing or devil can be a god. Worshiping the creation of our own hands. By nature we are made to worship and adore and until shown the way, we are lost…and now we are found. It is a daily dying and rising in Jesus Christ as we turn to Him in sorrow and joy in true repentance as He guides us home. As He guides us, by His Word, His Bible, we can guide others clutching their gods. So He has formed His Church His Body, He the head to bring to light the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, 10so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. 11This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. We are called by Him in the geography of His mercy to shine on the waste and wrath of our time, so that together, washed in Baptism, washed in the blood of the Lamb, we can show forth His Word, His light, His Star to guide others to worship Jesus Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit in the glory of God the Father. Amen.
Concordia and Koinonia 
Leave a Reply