One evening just before Christmas a friend of mine was called by his three young children to watch a Christmas play they had created. My friend entered the living room and surveyed the scene. Jesus was being played by a doll wrapped in a blanket. His oldest son was obviously Joseph wearing a bathrobe and holding a broom handle as his staff. His middle child was playing Mary. Her head was draped with a sheet and she looked intently toward the doll. His youngest child wore an aluminum foil crown and carried a box of gifts. The child felt it was necessary to explain herself and her mission. "I'm all three wise men,” she said proudly, “I bring precious gifts: gold, circumstance and mud!”

The story of the wise men is among the most haunting and evocative of the stories that surround the birth of Jesus. They are mentioned only in one of the four gospels, and what is said of them is brief, even cryptic. We are told that they come from the East, they read the night sky, and they bear gifts to a child whose star they have observed.

The term “magi” has several distinct uses. It can designate a Persian priestly caste called the Magians, followers of Zoroaster. In this instance, however, most scholars favor the use of the term as meaning “astrologers”, as it was their observation of the stars that prompted their journey.

Matthew tells us that the visitors celebrated the Christ child with the most valuable items in the ancient world: gold, frankincense and myrrh.

It is on the basis of these gifts that legend has grown up around the magi. Because there were three gifts, legend has it that there were three magi. Legend has also given them exotic names and homelands: Melchior, Gaspar and Balthasar … who are said to hail from Persia, Arabia and Ethiopia.

The first gift, brought by Melchior, is gold.
[Musical interlude.]
Born a King on Bethlehem’s plain
Gold I bring to crown Him again,
King forever, ceasing never,
Over us all to reign.

The first gift, gold, seems a startling present to introduce into the crude surroundings in which the child is born. Symbolically, gold is an emblem of royalty. The gift of gold, therefore, signifies Jesus’ so-called kingship over all the earth.

But if this child is a king, he is a kind of anti-king … for whoever heard of a king who acted like he did: living from hand to mouth as a wandering mendicant? Nor did he rule in any conventional sense. Instead, Jesus subverted the imperial idea of king. He had no army and bore no allegiance to any power, principality, potentate, or territory. His allegiance was to God.

There is one more thing we know about the magi from Matthew’s report. We know that they are either clumsy or naïve about power and politics. On their way to the child, they pass through Jerusalem and gain an audience with King Herod. They inform Herod that that they are looking for another king who has just been born. Fortunately, through a dream, God gives them insight into the human proclivity for jealously and power. The wise men wise up to the terrifying brutality of Herod. Having met with Herod on their way to the child, they are now wiser and warier. Avoiding him, they return home by a different route.

This week, a friend and I were reflecting on the journey of the wise men … and on our own journeys. We I talked together about the places to which we had each journeyed in our lives … all on account of this child in the manger. We had spent time in jails and prisons and soup kitchens, in hospitals and nursing homes. We had been in state houses and safe houses. We had visited townships in South Africa and American Indian reservations in the US. We had stood in vigils, walked in marches, practiced civil disobedience and worshipped in every size and shape of sanctuary … all on account of this child.

As we talked we marveled at the magnetic pull he has had on the course of our lives. We marveled at the places to which he has taken us, at the people he has caused us to meet. We marveled at what we had read, said and done, all because of this child. I know that you know what I am talking about …

To follow the star that leads to Jesus is to find ourselves traveling into the world of human pain and sin. Having traveled thus, it is not possible to return home the same way you came. It is not possible to meet the child, and remain unchanged.

[Musical interlude.]
Frankincense to offer have I;
Incense owns a Deity nigh;
Prayer and praising, voices raising,
Worshipping God on high.

The second gift, frankincense, is an aromatic gum resin, obtained from Asian trees of the genus Boswallia. Frankincense was used in the holy anointing oil with which priests were consecrated. Pure frankincense was poured upon the sacramental bread of the Temple. As gold was the emblem of royalty, frankincense was the emblem of divinity.

The one who offers the gift of frankincense bows in humility before the human child who is of God and who is God. There is a sign here, and a warning: the child who lies in a rustic shed, in a provincial town, will change the course of history.

In the person of the second of the magi, the sign is an invitation: an invitation to each of us to travel to meet this child who is of God and who is God.

The magi traversed more than geography in their journey to Jesus. They also entered territories, met people, and encountered circumstances with which they had been unfamiliar. They traversed nations and races and religions and ethnicities as they followed the star that led to the stable.

In a world that is characterized by its polarities, where national boarders are clearly drawn, where territory and ethnicity and religion ignite violence in our cities and wars across the earth, where will you go to follow this Christ? What bridges will you cross? What bridges will you build? Where will you follow him in the course of a day, a year, a life-time? Will you, like the magi, go out of your way to follow the one who points us to God?

[Musical interlude.]
Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume breathes a life of gathering gloom;
Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, sealed in the stone cold tomb.

The third of the magi bears the bitter gift of myrrh. His is a prophetic gift, a gift which alludes to the persecution, suffering and death that awaits the child.  The verse that we have just heard, placed in the mouth of Balthasar, is among the most raw and painful of any verse of Christian hymnody:

Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume breathes a life of gathering gloom;
Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, sealed in the stone cold tomb.

Myrrh, mingled with wine, was given to Jesus has he hung on the cross to help deaden the excruciating pain of crucifixion. Myrrh was among the ingredients used by the women who anointed Jesus’ body for burial.

Myrrh, used in the ancient world to embalm the dead, is offered as a portent of things to come. The child in the manger, sovereign over all, Child of God, will experience the betrayal and denial of his dearest friends. He will know the enmity of the world. He will feel the fire of human hate burning him.

Even as Christians celebrate the birth of Christ, even as we rejoice at this gift of love with which God has visited our world, it comes with a cost. The life of a Christian is no day in the park. If we follow him well, it will take its toll on us. It will take us to places we had not intended to go.

Their treasures opened, their gifts given, the magi return to their own lands. Being warned in a dream not to return to the twisted and dangerous Herod, they travel home by a different route.

And, that, too, is their gift to us … that they travel home by a different route. As the magi learned, you cannot meet this child without being changed. We enter by one door, with all our routines and assumptions and comforts intact. We approach the child believing that it is power and wealth that rule the world. But to meet this Christ is to be proved wrong. It is to understand that, despite the evidence, it is goodness and love that rule.

After all, it is this child, born in obscurity and who lived in poverty, who has had more impact on the human heart and on the course of history than any other.

Come, friends, let us join the magi in setting out upon this journey. Come, meet the One who has changed the course of history. If you come, if you join us on this journey, I promise you: it will change your life.