The Magi

O Sapientia

I cannot think unless I have been thought,

Nor can I speak unless I have been spoken.

I cannot teach except as I am taught,

Or break the bread except as I am broken.

O Mind behind the mind through which I seek,

O Light within the light by which I see,

O Word beneath the words with which I speak,

O founding, unfound Wisdom, finding me,

O sounding Song whose depth is sounding me,

O Memory of time, reminding me,

My Ground of Being, always grounding me,

My Maker’s Bounding Line, defining me,

Come, hidden Wisdom, come with all you bring,

Come to me now, disguised as everything.

Malcolm Guite 

Who were the Magi? Strange mysterious people from the East.

 To the East of the Roman empire there were the Parthians one of a series of kingdoms, we can learn something about them in the book of Daniel , half a century before. There were a series of rulers coming down from the Asian Steppe, men such as Darius and Cyrus, advised by wise men who made a deep study of the stars a wisdom which formed a mixture of astronomy and astrology. Stars were important for a nomad people to navigate over the featureless steppe. For them the sun moon and stars were important deities that needed to be studied and worshipped. 

 Hence the writer of Genesis 1 had to emphasise that the sun, moon and stars were created entities subservient to the one true God.

So why is the story of these wise men so important to Matthew and what is it saying to us today?

What do we know about the wise men? Only two things, they were wise, and that they were humble. All of their combined wisdom pointed them to a stable containing a very poor and very un-royal couple with a very ordinary baby, yet they were humble enough to bow down and worship this baby who in fact was the creator of the star they followed and every star which they had studied.  

In Proverbs Ch 8 we see wisdom personified as the wise woman created before anything else calling out to people who have the humility to hear her; calling out through our best  and most humble endeavours to point us to the creator God.

Just as the Queen of Sheba came with humility and wonder, bearing gifts to marvel at the God given wisdom of Solomon, so these wise men come bearing their most precious gifts  to the Infant King.

We see the wisdom and humility of these wise men contrasted with the deadly pride and  selfishness of the puppet king Herod, who seeks only to hang on to the illusionary trappings of kingship by a ruthless determination to exterminate the true king and saviour of his people through heartless genocide.   

So how will we react to the baby king this Christmas will we follow the wisdom of the Magi, and the humility of Mary to worship, or will our pride and self centeredness cut us off from the mystery of the entry of the Creator into His creation. 

Will we make the discovery that this baby is our Saviour and our God.