2023, the Magi, and You
Happy New Year everyone! It’s 2023, and I have no idea what is in store for this year. I was certainly surprised last year with many of the events that took place, and I think since 2020 we are all more used to not knowing what the heck is going on. When I reflect back on most years, they are all quite surprising. I am not a huge planner, which Kate can attest to, but I still like to have some sort of grip on things that I’d like to see happen. . .hopes for the year. For example, I have already begun to plan when I am going to take my vacation this summer. Start with the important things, right? And lest you think we are always just winging it with this whole ministry thing, we have many plans already in place for Dandelion’s year. Evangelistic weekends, weekend church retreats, creative arts summer camp, making a new record, painting series, possibly more international travel, etc.
Even with my many plans, I always have the words of former Archbishop of the ACNA, Robert Duncan, in the back of my head. When I was getting ordained, he said, “If you want to make God laugh make plans.” Not something you’d normally expect your ordaining bishop to say especially since he is supposed to be the leader of the leaders. Shouldn’t he have encouraged us to develop vision and be responsible with our schedules and such. . .exhorting us to be reliable leaders who know where they are going and how they are going to get their churches/ministries/people there? That’s certainly what a lot of the leadership books out there say and the church focused ones are some of the worst because they have the wonderful addition of God’s judgment thrown into it. How are you going to lead God’s people? How are you going to be responsible with this call God has given you? Or something to that effect.
But thank God Archbishop Duncan said nothing of the sort. Instead, he said, “If you want to make God laugh make plans.” And I love him for it. It’s one of the greatest things I have ever heard. It’s not just because I don’t like to plan sometimes, there are moments when I think I actually feel physical pain when I have to think more than two months into the future. It’s like getting your syllabi the first day of school and wondering how in the world you’re going to get all of this done. My pain is not all the time though, and it probably has more to do with the subject matter more than anything else. As I said, I love planning for vacation and exciting ministry opportunities, but planning the yearly budget is like pulling teeth…pulling teeth while having a very large person in high heels step on your bare-feet. . .or something like that. What the archbishop said is great because it is a word of relief, a word of permission, for me to admit the truth: I have no idea what is going to happen. I have no idea what is going to happen this afternoon let alone in June. I just do not know what the future will bring. In other words, I am not in control.
Now, as I have said, this is a word of relief, and I will return to that, but I need to cover the fact that it is often first a word of great discomfort. You do not know the future. You cannot predict it; you cannot control it. As Robert Burns wrote, “The best laid schemes o’ mice and men.” You can make plans, but they may not happen, in fact they will often change without your input. This is frustrating, or at least it can be. We do not like being told that we cannot determine our own path. We do not like being confronted with the fact that we are not in control of our own futures. Instead, we plan, plan, plan. Just watch any financial planning commercial out there today, and you will hear what we want. Ensure a solid future for you and your family. Let us help you accomplish your financial goals. We’re here to make your plans happen. Etc. etc. We want to feel like we have some sort of control over our futures. You hear it in college ads, grad school ads, insurance ads. Time and time again, the take-control-of-your-life message rings out and it’s appealing.
The ironic thing about most of these ads is that they sound so confident and bold and often have some image of an unmovable rock like Prudential or a strong pillar like Northwestern Mutual, but they are addressing areas of our greatest anxiety, the areas where we feel most out of control. Our finances, job stability, careers, natural disasters, these are all areas where we feel a great sense of unpredictability. Things are good now, but what if the market crashes again? I have a good paying job, but what if they start to lay people off? We finally bought our dream home, but what if a storm floods it or causes a tree to fall on it? We are all healthy now, but what if one of us gets really sick? What if we get into an accident? What if? What if? What if? We need to be reassured that we can gain some sort of control over all of the possibilities that might hit. These ads exist exactly because we sense the truth that we are not in control.
So, this idea that you do not know the future and cannot control it even with carefully thought-out planning is very uncomfortable indeed. It is downright scary. It reminds me of a scene from the 90s classic Wayne’s World. The evil Benjamin played by Rob Lowe in an incredible pair of pleated slacks and shiny blousy shirt, which at one point was the height of fashion, Benjamin comes up to Garth, who is clearly working on some sort of random robotic experiment, and tells him that he is thinking of giving their corporate sponsor a weekly interview on their show and asks Garth what he thought about making a change to which Garth responds, “We fear change.” Just then the robotic hand on the table starts to move and Garth bashes it repeatedly with a hammer til it stops moving. And the scene ends. Wonderfully random and at the same time very poignant. We fear change.
But I talked about not knowing the future as primarily a relieving idea, but how can that be if we fear change and if we always want control?
Matthew 2:1-12 recounts the events of the magi or the wise men visiting Jesus and in it we see two very different reactions to change, God changing plans. First, we have Herod the Great, the current king of Israel when Jesus was born. He was appointed as king over Israel by the Romans, which made him very loyal to Rome. He is called great because he was the greatest builder in Jewish history. More structures were built in the land of Judea during his reign than any other time. The most famous of these was his expansion of the temple in Jerusalem. But Herod had a real dark side to him. He was incredibly paranoid to the point where he killed his own family members and associates. Think Stalin: wildly ambitious and at the same time completely paranoid. One might call him a control freak. And he receives these three men from foreign nations and they tell him they have come to worship, pay respects and honor the newly born king of the Jews.
Talk about a surprise for Herod. In typically understated biblical form, Matthew says that Herod was “troubled” by this news, as was all of Jerusalem with him. He was troubled because this was a threat to his future, or his plans for his future. He was the king, and he would stop at nothing to make sure it stayed that way. That’s why all of Jerusalem was troubled. They were worried about the wrath of Herod at this news of a new king being born. What would he do in response? This was not the typical way a king came to power. They usually were appointed king when the previous king died or gave up his rule, but this one was given the title of king from birth. Herod was given his reign by the Romans, but this king was king in his own right, His title was not given to him by anyone. Herod was more than troubled I would say.
He called in the Pharisees and Sadducees and asked them about where the Christ was to be born. And here we see who exactly he suspected this king to be. He thought it was the Messiah, and the Jewish teachers confirmed it to be so. He asked the wise men to go and find where Jesus was and come back and tell him so that he could go and worship him, which was an outright lie. He wanted to find Jesus and kill him. He wanted to maintain control. He wanted to ensure that his plans for the future continued. He did not want God’s plan to go any further even though it was a plan of deliverance for Israel. It was a good plan of God fulfilling his good promise that spanned all the way back to the dawn of time. Regardless, Herod is a picture of the great discomfort we can feel when our plans are changed, when we realize we are out of control.
Then we have the wise men themselves. There is a lot of debate about exactly who these guys were. Some of our songs and traditions refer to them as three kings, other accounts call them the magi, which almost sounds like something out of Star Wars, and our translation refers to them as the wise men. All scholars agree that they were Gentiles from foreign lands, an important detail for all of us non-Jews. . . Jesus had come to save the world. Magi is actually closest to the Greek word and it covered a wide variety of men interested in dreams, astrology, magic, books thought to contain mysterious references to the future, and so on. Our translation calls them wise men I think as a catch all for the fact that they were interested in learning, but more so probably referring to the fact that they very wisely followed the star and wanted to worship Jesus. It is a title that stands in contrast to the other major players in the story, namely Herod and the Jewish leaders. Anyhow, these guys were interested in the future just like the rest of us, and when they saw the star rising, they most likely remembered reading about such an event in one of their books. Most scholars believe it refers to a prophetic word from Numbers 24:17, “A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel.” Matthew tells us that they recognized the star’s meaning, which suggests they were familiar with Old Testament prophecy regarding the Messiah.
They also knew who this king was, but their reaction was very different from Herod’s. Instead of fear, they were excited. They wanted to come and meet this king whose birth was marked by miraculous astrological events. They recognized this as very significant, but their knowledge must have reached its limits somewhere around there. As we said, they were not Jewish, but were Gentiles. They obviously had some understanding of Jewish scriptures, but would not be anywhere near as studied and aware of all of the messianic prophecies as a regular Jew let alone the Pharisees and Sadducees and scribes. And so we see the contrast. Those who would have known far less about Jesus and his significance at least according to scriptural teaching were most excited, and those who knew the most were afraid.
But the message was the same for both. The true king has arrived. The one with the true power and control is here. God’s plan was happening. Depending on where you sat in reference to this event determined how you reacted to it. Herod and the Jewish leaders had a lot to lose. They thought they were in control. They liked how things worked just the way they were. They didn’t want to lose what they had, which is ironic considering the fact that what they had wasn’t that great. Herod and the Pharisees and Sadducees were allowed to have power over the Jews by the permission of the Romans. They weren’t even really in power, but they liked the level of control they had and they knew how to work with the Romans.
Jesus on the other hand, the Messiah, was unpredictable. He was a free radical and a true threat to them and their plans.
The magi or wise men on the other hand were foreigners. They didn’t have any investment in the Jewish hierarchical structures. They weren’t worried about losing power or control. In fact, they were fascinated by the prophetic, which implies they were fascinated by the idea that there was Someone out there with a much larger plan than them. They were into dreams, magic, and the mysterious so the idea that there was a power greater than them that was out of their control was exciting and compelled them to travel a great distance to see who it was. They had nothing to lose and everything to gain with all of these incredible events unfolding before them.
And this is the way it works for all of us. If we are in a place of perceived power and control, we often do what we can to not lose it. We are usually motivated by fear, and we want to maintain the way things are and continue to have a good grip on our plans for the future. The thought of someone else being able to change our plans at a moment’s notice is discomforting. And it betrays the fact that we do not trust anyone but ourselves. But if we are in a place where we realize that we are not in control, if we know that we cannot predict the future, if we know that it is out of our hands it is very relieving to hear that there is a plan even if it is not ours. That’s what Bishop Duncan was saying, “If you want to make God laugh make plans.” He was saying that you are not in control and that’s a good thing because it means that God is in control. He has a plan for you and for the whole of history and he is carrying it out day by day. This account of the wise men is evidence of this. They saw the fulfillment of prophecy and were fulfillment themselves by bringing gifts to Jesus after his birth. The pinnacle of God’s plan to save the world from sin had happened. God was making good on his promises, and the magi were a part of the celebration.
Herod, on the other hand, trying to grasp control resulted in disaster for hundreds. After learning of Jesus’ birth, he ordered every boy in Bethlehem and surrounding areas up to age 3 killed in attempt to stop Jesus from taking his place as king. While it is not often on the same scale, it is also a disaster when we try to grasp for control when it was never ours in the first place. Thankfully, God’s plan would not be thwarted. He warns Joseph in a dream to flee to Egypt to protect Mary and Jesus and thankfully the magi had just given them “treasures” of gold and frankincense and myrrh, which they could use to pay for their trip.
This passage tells us that we can just be humans. We can look at 2023 and not know what is going to happen and find relief in that because God does know. He is in control, and he ensures that everything will unfold according to his plan. All of the interventions in this passage are from him. He protects Jesus and his family. He guides the magi and warns them about Herod. He prevents Herod from succeeding in his plans. God is in control. There is relief for us there because we do not have to have it all figured out. We do not have to be prepared for all inevitabilities. We do not have to try to maintain control. Rather we can rest in his plans for us and know that He is trustworthy and our future is guaranteed in Jesus Christ. . .an eternal future where there will be no more tears, no more pain, no more fear. . .a future of love, joy, and peace. The God that gave us that gift is here with us now as we start 2023. Amen.
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