Love: The Magi Candle (Week 17, Dec 18)
Reading
Matthew 2:1–12
Silent Reflection
Remarks
[B]ehold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
… After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.
Matthew 2:1–2, 9–10 (ESV)
It’s hard to say exactly who or what the magi were. Some say they were astrologers and soothsayers—stargazers with one eye on the heavens and the other on the future. Some say foreign rulers. But one thing they were for certain: outsiders. They were Gentiles “from the east.” East of Jerusalem, they were from wherever the people of God weren’t. Which leads us to question, why would they want to come worship the new king of Israel? Why were they watching the stars with such interest in the birth of a foreign king?
Maybe it’s because they were fortune tellers who were particularly invested in world-shaping events. Maybe they were dangerous foreigners from nations that were Israel’s historical enemies, who—like Herod—said they were coming to worship the child, but actually had something more violent in mind. Maybe God was just mysteriously and unconventionally drawing these peculiar pagan outsiders to Himself.
Whatever the case, we do know this: when the signs in the heavens finally brought them to him, what they felt at that moment was overwhelming joy. And whatever they had expected to find or to do, when they found him, they knew they had found something they’d been seeking—not just for the weeks they’d been traveling, but for their entire lives. All they could do was fall down, worship, and rejoice exceedingly with great joy.
Last week it was the shepherds. This week, the magi. God just can’t resist telling these unlikely people news that makes them leap for joy.
What link can we make between the tradition of the magi candle and the week of Advent devoted to love? What do these enigmatic figures with their shadowy motives and strange gifts have to do with the love of God for us?
Is it not simply and profoundly this: for God so loved the world. It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. A people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light. The Scripture testifies to it in a thousand ways, but let us say it this way: the steadfast love of God that endures forever is for the whole world. Not just the ones in our temples and sanctuaries, but even for the ones from the east searching the stars for some sign of the One Out There—love that reaches out beyond borders, down below the ground, into the hearts of all people.
There are traditions that ascribe various meanings to the wise men and their gifts, but the one I like best says that what they offered him represented three distinct things.
The gold, a precious metal reserved for royalty, represented kingship.
The frankincense, used in various temple practices, represented priesthood.
And the myrrh, which played a part in Egyptian burial rituals, represented death.
If we interpret the gifts in this way, they capture three things about this child that are essential to who he is for us and the world. As king, Jesus enacts the wisdom and rule of God over creation for the sake of its own good and flourishing. As a priest, he mediates and embodies the love of God for the people, restoring them to a proper relationship without fear or shame. And in his death, he offers himself for the life of the world so that the death we both cause and are subject to might be thrown down from over us and cast out from within us.
And what do the magi and their gifts have to do, not just with the love of Christ for us, but with our love for him?
I think I’m supposed to become like the magi. I’m not supposed to stop at simply acknowledging his kingship, priesthood, and death, but to go further and offer him my own kingship, priesthood, and death.
I can love him by giving my gold—being the royalty he’s made me to be, not the kind who lords authority over others for my own gain, but being like Jesus, who reflects the wisdom of God into creation for its own good and flourishing.
I can love him by giving my frankincense—being the priest he’s made me to be, not full of piety for the sake of my own righteousness, not widening the gap between others and God even as I think I narrow it for myself, but by being a priest who communicates and embodies the love of God to others, closing the distance between them and Him.
And I can love him by giving my myrrh—as Paul said, by becoming like Jesus in his death. By, as Jesus said, picking up my cross and following him. By becoming obedient for the sake of loving God, neighbor, foreigner, and enemy—obedient to love them whatever it may cost me, offering him even my own death when the time comes, just as he has already offered me his. I wonder if it isn’t the only way I can truly love. I’d like to think they’re my gifts, but I wonder if the magi and I are really just giving back to God the gold, frankincense, and myrrh He’s already given us.
Silent Reflection
Response
Are there any magi making their way into your life? How do you think God is trying to communicate His love to them?
Do you ever feel like you’ve searched for “he who has been born king of the Jews” and haven’t found him? Or that you found him in a surprising way? Or in a place you weren’t expecting to find him?
In the tradition of the magi above, what does it mean to you to offer your gold, your frankincense, and your myrrh?