Those Troublesome Magi

They’ve been called kings, wise men, and astrologers, sorcerers, and magicians, but we ought to call them what they are: Magi.  I know, that doesn’t tell you anything, but that’s just the point; we know what all those other things are, so we think we understand, at least a little, who these guys were.  At least when we call them Magi, we know we don’t know, and maybe we’ll do a little investigation.

Matthew doesn’t just call them Magi, however; he tells us they are from the East.  Of the four great empires mentioned in the Old Testament, only the Egyptian Empire is not from the east.  The Assyrian, Babylonian, and the Medo-Persian Empires are from the east; in fact, these empires covered much of the same territory.  The Babylonians wrested it from the Assyrians, and Cyrus of Persia conquered the Babylonians (and also the kingdoms of Lydia and Media, thus forming the Medo-Persian Empire.)

Magi were priests of Zoroastrianism, and were originally from Media, where they were actually a priestly tribe not unlike the tribe of Levi in Israel.  They were very powerful in the courts of the Babylonians and the Medo-Persians, so much so that Cyrus sought to put them down.  They survived enough to revolt against his son Cambyses and install their own king, though he was murdered shortly thereafter when Darius became king. Still, their influence in the east continued even into the Greek and Roman empires.

They were politically powerful, rumored to be able to practice magic and sorcery, interpret dreams, and divine the stars.  They influenced empires, overthrew empires, outlasted empires.

So Herod wasn’t just upset that some guys showed up asking about a newborn king of the Jews.   If some guys just walked in off the street talking about a baby king he might have been curious, but he might not have taken it seriously.

But not Magi.  Not from the East.  Magi from the East asking about a new king and talking about a magical star; this was not to be ignored.

Herod knew to take this seriously, because this couldn’t be good. Especially when they said they came to give homage to this king.

Nothing mentioned about these Magi paying homage to Herod.

They apparently didn’t give him any gifts either.

Uh oh.

When guys with a history of deposing and installing kings show up and don’t leave any gold, frankincense, and myrrh, there’s trouble afoot.  And when they blew Herod off and skirted Jerusalem on their way back home, Herod understood what was going on:

Revolution.

Rebellion.

Coup d'état.

It was brewing.  A new king.  A new kingdom.

If was just, as we often think of it, a spiritual kingdom, a heavenly kingdom, then Herod didn’t have anything to worry about.  But Herod knew.

He knew that spiritual matters have earthly consequences, just as earthly matters have spiritual consequences.  He knew that a king in heaven was king on earth, that in fact a heavenly king was king of the entire earth.

King not just of Jerusalem, but of Rome, Herod’s protector.

Magi don’t concern themselves with mere kingdoms—Magi deal with whole empires.

Matthew is telling us that Jesus didn’t come just to increase the population of heaven, he came to change the world.

And he did.  And does.  And will.

Will you join him?

A Dangerous Baby

We don’t normally think of babies as dangerous, and certainly not the baby Jesus, but that’s exactly how Matthew portrays him. He’s a dangerous baby, a threat to the most powerful man on earth at the time, the Roman Emperor, Caesar Augustus.

True, Augustus is never mentioned in Matthew’s version of the birth narrative, but if you know what to look for, you can see that baby Jesus is challenging the legitimacy of Augustus’ kingship in Israel.

To begin with, Matthew opens his gospel with a genealogy that traces Jesus’ lineage back to Abraham, the father of Israel. The most significant aspect of this genealogy, however, is that it is a royal lineage. Beginning with King David, every king of Judah is named, all the way to the Babylonian Exile and the end of the monarchy, which ended with the deportation and death in Babylon of King Jeconiah.

Thus Matthew is asserting that Jesus, not Augustus, comes from the long line of kings of Judah, and he does so by birth. This is not insignificant because Augustus, the royal name of the man born Octavian, was the adopted son of Julius Caesar. Could it be that, among the Jews, where the first-born son was always seen as the legitimate heir, Matthew was calling into question Augustus’ right to be king?

After the genealogy, Matthew simply reports that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the city of David, and quickly moves ahead almost two years to the arrival of star-diviners from the East, inquiring of King Herod where “the king of the Jews” could be found. This sets Herod off on a paranoid search for the baby, and when the Easterners slip off without reporting where they found the baby king, Herod goes on a murderous rampage of the young boys around Bethlehem.

Herod sat uneasy on his throne because most of the Jews did not view him as a legitimate king. His family was from Idumea, the Roman province that included ancient Edom, and though he had converted to Judaism, he, like most Edomites, weren’t considered authentic Jews by the Pharisees of the day.

The overriding issue, however, is that he was a puppet king in the service of Augustus. He was a collaborator with the very regime that had conquered, occupied, and brutalized the Jewish people. To challenge his legitimacy as king was to challenge the legitimacy of the emperor who placed him on his “throne.”

Matthew’s birth narrative, therefore, is subversive literature, challenging the legitimacy of the Roman emperor and his turncoat “Jewish” king. There is a new king in the land, Matthew declares, and even as a baby he is a threat that needs to be dealt with. He is a very dangerous baby.

And he grew to be a very dangerous man. Walking around proclaiming that the kingdom of God was at hand was a direct challenge to Caesar.

In many ways, Christians are called to be subversives in our culture. As much as many decry secular culture “taking the Christ out of Christmas,” perhaps the far greater harm is done by Christians themselves when they ignore—either by ignorance or by choice—the subversive nature of the Nativity, domesticating it into a sweet, heartwarming story of a baby in a manger surrounded by shepherds, donkeys and sheep.

This frees us from having to be subversive ourselves. We can enjoy a nice Christmas, thankful that our personal sins have been taken care of without concerning ourselves with the societal sins that continue to burden the “least of these” in our own culture.

We need to remember that Christ is the Greek form of the Hebrew word messiah, and for the Jews messiah meant “king.” Anyone claiming to be a king anywhere in the Roman Empire was challenging Caesar’s claim to the throne.

But by domesticating the baby Jesus, we have removed this threat. Christ is no longer a word for the one challenging the guy on the throne; it’s simply a word for someone who takes away our personal sin.

And when we do that, we are the ones taking the Christ out of Christmas.



Check out a related Bible limerick from Bible Bus Limericks