The Gift of the Magi

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him” (Matthew 2:1-2).

I love the Christmas story. I love how it is the beginning of God’s plan of redemption and reconciliation for us, and more so that it begins the way we begin – with Christ as a baby. How perfect that Jesus’ life is an entire human cycle that completely legitimizes Him as our example, having gone through everything we do. I love the way God reassures Mary and Joseph that what’s happening is part of His plan, they get to be key players in it, and the part where the angels announce the birth to the shepherds and allow them to be the first to worship Jesus.

But my absolute favorite part of the Christmas story is the magi.

Let’s look a little more closely at them:

Who were they exactly?

The Bible calls the men magi, and it says they came from the East. They were probably from the area of Persia, Assyria, and/or Babylonia, as these lands existed during the time of Christ’s birth and were to the East of Judah (where Jesus’ birth town of Bethlehem was located). Further evidence they probably came from one of these places is in what they are called: magi. The magi (plural of magus) were magicians, astrologers, and sorcerers. They weren’t kings, but they did work for kings. They were trusted advisors because they had vast knowledge of medicine, alchemy, math, and astronomy. They also practiced magic and paranormal arts, and they interpreted dreams. We have an example of the magi and their importance in Daniel 2:1-4.

One night during the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar had such disturbing dreams that he couldn’t sleep. He called in his magicians, enchanters, sorcerers, and astrologers, and he demanded that they tell him what he had dreamed. As they stood before the king, he said, “I have had a dream that deeply troubles me, and I must know what it means.” Then the astrologers answered the king in Aramaic, “Long live the king! Tell us the dream, and we will tell you what it means.”

The Magi were called on to interpret Nebuchadnezzar’s dream because they were believed to be the ones who would know such things…but they couldn’t do it. God revealed the answer to Daniel in a dream, who then told the king not only what the meaning of his dream was, but also WHAT the dream was!

The magi were as far away from God as you could be. Everything they did was against what God has always decreed: no sorcery, alchemy, divining, etc. And yet…they were the ones who saw the star, figured out what it meant, and then followed it.

Isn’t that exactly the way Jesus operates? He meets us where we are, sin and all, and when we recognize him, He shows us the way as we follow Him.

How many magi actually went, and why those gifts?

In every Christmas story that mentions them, we are always told there were three wise men. Unfortunately, as with too many things, we don’t pay attention to the details or wording. The Bible never mentions how many Magi there were, only that they brought three types of gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. We don’t even know how much of each gift they brought. Since “men” is plural, there were at least two, but whether there were three or 50 makes no difference. The point is they came to worship the King of the Jews.

Even more important than their number is their gifts. These gifts seem to be very specific to Jesus and his life, which makes me wonder if God DID give these magi the gift of prophecy or insight. Gold is for a king, so there’s nothing mystical about that. However, very soon after the magi visit Mary and Joseph, Joseph is warned in a dream to flee to Egypt because Herod is going to try to kill Jesus. How fortunate they have the money to relocate in the dead of night and build a home in Egypt for at least two years. Convenient? Yes. Coincidence? No.

Frankincense is a kind of perfume used in the Jewish temple as well as pagan temples, like in Egypt. It’s an incense that perfumes the temple and is an honor to God. It symbolizes deity, so when the magi give this gift, they are acknowledging Jesus as a god (I write it that way because, to the magi, there was more than one God). When I was researching frankincense, I also discovered the way it’s harvested is by cutting a tree and collecting the sap that runs out of the cuts like blood. I found that very interesting given what Jesus came here to do - die on the cross for our sins.

The final gift - myrrh - is another type of resin (sap from a tree like frankincense is) that was used by the Egyptians as an ingredient in embalming fluid. In the Jewish temple, myrrh was used as a holy oil to anoint the high priest and kings of Israel. When Samuel anointed David as the next king of Israel, chances are it was myrrh oil that he used. Symbolically, myrrh can represent Jesus’ death and also Jesus as our high priest (as we see in Hebrews 2:17).

The learned Jewish scholars of Jesus’ time knew the scriptures that talked about the coming Messiah. They had memorized the signs of his coming. Yet, on the night Jesus was born, one of the two most important moments in human history, they missed it completely. Instead:

“God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong,” (1 Corinthians 1:27).

God chose the magi, men who represented and practiced everything God was against (sorcery, magic, alchemy, and paranormal arts) with the knowledge to see, recognize, and follow the star that the Bible said in Numbers 24:17, “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel. He will crush the foreheads of Moab, the skulls of all the people of Sheth,” would appear when the Messiah came. God can use anyone for His purposes, and those who are watching, vigilant, and obedient (the magi didn’t question anything - they just went) have the best chance of not missing out on being a part of God’s cosmic plan.

So, you see, no one is beyond redemption.

The magi are my favorite part of the Christmas story. The gift of the magi, the gift God gave them even though they were sorcerers, always makes me think of the movie Terminator 2: Judgement Day.

In this movie, the Terminator machine who was sent back in time to murder Sarah Conner before she can give birth to the future leader of the human resistance against Skynet and the machines returns. Only this time, he’s there to protect Sarah’s child, John. Sarah struggles with accepting this Terminator is here to protect her son, but she eventually comes to realize he is an ally. At the end of the movie, Sarah destroys the Terminator by lowering him (because he can’t do it to himself) into a vat of molten steel to hopefully change the future and keep Skynet from making Terminators to begin with. The final scene is of a highway Sarah and John are traveling down, and Sarah is speaking about the hope she now has for the future. She says, “The unknown future rolls toward us. I face it, for the first time, with a sense of hope. Because if a machine, a Terminator, can learn the value of human life, maybe we can too.”

I think if non-believers can recognize the significance of Emmanuel, God with Us, as the magi did, maybe we should too.

AMEN