Entries in Magi (2)
Journey of the Magi
Monday, December 26, 2011 at 12:02AM 
During this Advent season we’ve looked at Mary, Joseph, Zechariah and the shepherds. For the final Christmas post of 2011, I want to share with you my favorite Christmas poem. It’s the perfect example of a sanctified imagination encountering the scripture: nothing trite or easy here, just art in service of the Lord of Glory. Merry Christmas, friends.
Journey of the Magi
~ T.S. Eliot
A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times when we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities dirty and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wineskins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
Monday's Meditation: When the Right Answer is Not Enough
Monday, December 12, 2011 at 12:01AM 
Hiding inside the Christmas story are a thousand meditations. God reveals his ways. He’s faithful. He’s sneaky. He’s a risk-taker, he is unpredictable, he hides his work in plain sight, he comes right on time yet it’s when you least expect it. A teenage girl in the story observed, “he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.”
This year my favorite Christmas meditation regarding the ways of God? It’s not enough to get the right answer.
Matthew’s gospel tells the familiar story of three outsiders who find their way into the very presence of God even while the religious experts of Israel demonstrate surprisingly little regard for discovery:
Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, 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." When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; 4and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet:
"'And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.'"
Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and 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. And going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.
The story is so familiar we could be excused for missing one of those meditations hiding inside the narrative we know so well.
Have you ever noticed? These rich pagan astrologers had only the faintest understanding of the birth of a new King, yet they traveled great distances to pay him homage. As they neared their destination they stopped at the center of Israel’s religious life and asked the “experts” for help. The experts answered the question correctly, but not one of the scholars packed his bag and went with the Magi.
These Magi, strangers to the the covenant of Moses, were willing to act on the merest bit of information. They traveled far. The chief priests and scribes, who had all the revelation of Israel at their fingertips, would not even travel six miles to worship their own Messiah.
It’s not enough to get the right answer. The know-it-alls did not find their way to the feet of the Christ child.