Becoming the Magi
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Pastor Bob Henry
January 7, 2024
Good morning, Friends. and Happy New Year. Thank you for joining us for Light Reflections. This morning our scripture reading is the story of the Wise Men who came from East taken from Matthew 2:1-12 and I will be reading it from the New International Reader's Version.
Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea. This happened while Herod was king of Judea. After Jesus’ birth, Wise Men from the east came to Jerusalem. They asked, “Where is the child who has been born to be king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose. Now we have come to worship him.”
When King Herod heard about it, he was very upset. Everyone in Jerusalem was troubled too. So, Herod called together all the chief priests of the people. He also called the teachers of the law. He asked them where the Messiah was going to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied. “This is what the prophet has written. He said, “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are certainly not the least important among the towns of Judah. A ruler will come out of you. He will rule my people Israel like a shepherd.’”
Then Herod secretly called for the Wise Men. He found out from them exactly when the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem. He said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report it to me. Then I can go and worship him too.”
After the Wise Men had listened to the king, they went on their way. The star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them. It finally stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were filled with joy. The Wise Men went to the house. There they saw the child with his mother Mary. They bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures. They gave him gold, frankincense, and myrrh. But God warned them in a dream not to go back to Herod. So, they returned to their country on a different road.
Yesterday, was the 12th day of Christmas – Did you hear the 12 drummers drumming? All kidding aside, throughout Christian history, January 6th, has been considered Epiphany. It often even shows up on our calendars and makes people wonder what it is all about.
If you did not know, the word epiphany comes from a Greek word that means “to reveal.” Thus, this time always has been considered a time when the Divine revealed itself to us in new and powerful ways.
I am sure that most of us have had what we would call epiphanies in your lives, be they great or small moments when we felt the presence and power of God right within us in very strong and real ways.
Overtime and with education, I have come to believe the story of the Magi and the First Epiphany should probably be considered more of a parable or story. This is solely due to its highly symbolic nature.
Some may be surprised by this, but the story isn't really about the Magi, or the baby Jesus, but rather it is about us – you and me. The epiphany is our story and not only is it our story, but it is also deeply Quaker in nature. Maybe one of the most Quaker stories in the Bible.
It's a reminder for us, especially as we begin a New Year, to keep our focus on the Light, and to allow ourselves to be guided by that Light, just as the Magi were.
Now, the story of the Epiphany, the story of the Magi is only told to us in Matthew's Gospel. All we know about the Magi is just those couple paragraphs that we read from our scripture for this morning. So, we don't really know a lot about who the Magi were.
But notice that the writer of Matthew's Gospel described them as “wise men from the East.” He never said that there were three of them, there could have been more. And he never said that they were kings.
I think the problem has arisen because of that Christmas carol that we sing, “We Three Kings of Orient Are,” but it's nowhere to be found in the Bible.
What the writer of Matthew's gospel tells us is that they were wise men, which means that they possessed wisdom. And folks, wisdom is very different from knowledge.
Sure, there are a lot of smart people who know a lot of facts, that's knowledge. But the Magi possessed wisdom - a deep inner-knowing or intuition is what they possessed.
Rev. Salvatore Sapienza gives more insight into what it meant to be a Magi. He says,
“It's where we get our word magic, from that same root word. The Magi were magicians, but not magicians the way we understand magicians today. Because magicians today are trying to fool us. They're trying to fool us with sleight of hand and with illusion.
But the actual root of that word magical, if you go back, it was more in line with “mystical” Magical meant mystical. The Magi were mystics, they weren't trying to fool us with illusion. They were trying to reveal the truth of our being to us. They were truth-tellers. They were seers. Maybe they were clairvoyants, or shamans, or astronomers. They could see into the stars, see into the spiritual realm.
And one of my favorite things about the Magi is that they were from “the east,” which means they were from the eastern spiritual traditions. They were foreigners. They looked different from Jesus. I remember when I was a kid, I would love putting out the nativity set and putting out the Magi because they looked so different from everyone else in the scene. There was something mystical about them. They spoke a different language. They practiced different traditions.”
I agree with Salvatore, the Magi bring a new twist to the story, a multicultural and multidimensional spirituality that opens the story of Jesus to the greater world.
It shows us that the light of the world is for all people. Not just for Christians, but for ALL people and even ALL faiths. Let that sink in for a moment.
So, the greatest epiphany that you and I can have is the discovery of that light within us, when you discover that the light of the world is within you, just as Jesus said it was. And when you begin to see that same light in every single person, that's the greatest epiphany that we can have.
Once more and more of us begin to discover that light within ourselves and within one another, we will begin to heal the world. We will begin to transform ourselves and then the world around us.
And that is why the Magi brought those three gifts, because that's what they symbolically represent: transformation and healing - gold, frankincense and myrrh.
The Magi bring gold which must be refined through fire. The impurities must be removed in this process so it can be turned into its purest form. Thus, this precious metal symbolizes transformation.
Then the Magi bring frankincense. Frankincense is an incense. It's an incense that our eastern brothers and sisters use in their meditation and prayer practice. When I was an Anglican Priest, we used Frankincense in our worship during Christmas. It is a pungent, but beautiful incense that is known to open the nasal passages – in a similar way, Frankincense symbolically opens our senses to the spiritual realm, representing intuition.
And the third gift is myrrh. Myrrh comes from nature or creation, it's a tree resin that is made into a balm for healing.
So, it is not too hard to see how these gifts symbolize transformation, intuition, and healing.
And again, when we put our focus on the Light, and allow ourselves to be guided by our inner Light, we too, may experience transformation, insight, and healing in our lives.
Now there's one person from the story that I haven't talked about yet. And that's King Herod.
King Herod was someone who was all about power and wealth. He wanted control. He was actually fearful of the light, because the Light threatens his power and control.
Again, Rev. Salvatore Sapienza helped me see a deeper symbolism in Herod. He says,
“Herod represents our ego. It's the part of ourselves that is threatened by the light. Notice, the Magi, once they discover the Christ light, they don't go back to Herod. It says that they took another road home… when we stop listening to the commands and the voice of our ego, the worldly self, the self that wants to control things, and we begin to listen more fully to the voice of the Spirit, and let that guide us, we're following another road. We're not following the way of the world. We're following the way of the Lord, the way of the Christ.”
So, Friends, on this day, let us not just remember and celebrate the Magi. But rather, let us recommit ourselves to being the Magi, to becoming the Magi, to be people whose focus is on the Light. As Quakers it seems befitting, since early on we even called ourselves “Children of the Light.”
And when we allow ourselves to be guided by our inner Light, to receive a new epiphany that will help us heal and transform, not just ourselves, but also the hurting world around us.
So let us keep watch and be aware of all the epiphanies, be they great or small that God has in store for us in 2024. Remembering what Scripture says that God's plans for us are not plans of harm, but plans of fullness, to give us a future and a hope. Happy New Year First Friends!
Now, as we center down and enter waiting worship, take some time to ponder the following queries:
1. When is the last time I felt the presence and power of God within me in a strong and real way?
2. Who am I having a hard time seeing the Light of God within? Why?
3. In 2024, how will I prepare myself and respond to the new epiphanies of the Divine?