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Once each year the calendar page turns over and we are asked us to let our imaginations run wild and dance a bit upon the page of this ancient story of the visitation of the Magi to the little town of Bethlehem. The hectic, exotic journey of these Epiphany witnesses is like none other in Holy Writ. From mysterious origins in the East they have come to the rural town of Bethlehem; a journey from out-of-time into the fulfillment of time, and into the timeless coming of the incarnate one, the Christ child.

This coming Tuesday, January 6 is the holy day or holiday – two words that once meant the same thing, just change the “y” in holy to an “i” – marking the commemoration of the magical journey of these travelers who have come out of the East. By this Tuesday, I suspect we will all be into our familiar new year routines, so the magi will likely go unnoticed, especially since our Christmas card art has already jammed them into the nativity scene even though their journey to Bethlehem was quite a bit later than the birth that night.

Traditionally, Epiphany has been considered the 12^th of the Twelve Days of Christmas, the first being December 26, those 12 days popularized by the song of the same title, all the way from a partridge in a pear tree to twelve drummers drumming.

Although they didn’t have 12 drummers drumming leading the way, these pilgrims from the East do arrive as representatives of the secular and the scientific world. One theory is that they were astrologers from Persia, the location of the ancient ziggurats -- temple-like structures that served as revered sites for star gazing, especially for religious devotees of the ancient dualistic near Eastern religion of Zorastrianism.

Whatever their origins, they do manage to overcome various obstacles in order to bring their homage and worship and joy to Bethlehem. Although these magi or kings or wise men or astrologers or magicians or sorcerers or whatever you wish to call them have been rather domesticated, shall we say, by Christmas pageants and cute children wearing homemade crowns and Dad’s bathrobe and carrying Mom’s gaudy bottle of perfume, they, nevertheless, still have to be considered among the strangest of all the characters who get paraded across the pages of scripture.

We don’t know if there were actually three seekers from the East – all that Matthew tells us is that there were three gifts. And despite that first hymn we sang today, there is no indication in Matthew that they represented royalty – that interpretation usually comes from a reading of Isaiah 60. And one wonders just how wise they, in fact, were since these travelers foolishly went to King Herod and announced their mission, thus precipitating Herod’s slaughtering of hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent children in his furious search to eliminate the purported rival to his throne.

Given Herod’s hatred and ruthless rule, it would seem that the rumbling of an earthquake would be a more portentous and appropriate sign in nature than that rather benign star resting over the little town of Bethlehem. But the holy family’s flight into Egypt to escape a wicked ruler’s wrath will come soon enough. Epiphany is first of all about the manifestation of God’s glory in Christ to all the nations – and these gentile travelers from the East enact the truth that God’s purposes are now greater than just the Jewish people.

One church father from around the year 700 offered this characterization of these seekers from the East, perhaps the one with which we are most familiar: “The magi were the ones who gave gifts to the Lord. The first is said to have been Melchior, an old man with white hair and a long beard . . . who offered gold to the Lord as a King. The second, Gaspar by name, young and beardless and ruddy complexioned . . . honored him as God by his gift of incense, an oblation worthy of divinity. The third, black-skinned and heavily bearded, named Balthasar . .. by his gift of myrrh testified to the Son of Man who has to die” (quoted in The Birth of the Messiah, 199).

Barring some Dead Sea Scroll-like discovery of a heretofore unknown sacred text, we will probably never be able to separate history from legend. Nonetheless, these mysterious travelers have captured and will continue to capture the Church’s imagination.

I like to think of them as magi or astrologers, thus setting aside the conventional gender assumption that they had to be wise men or even Kings. While it might seem a bit far-fetched given what we know about near eastern society and religion, why could these exotic pilgrims not have been women sent as emissaries from a foreign government or the daughters of a well-established astrologer from Babylon sent out to track the trajectory of a strange star?

Whatever be the fact or legend of these eastern strangers, perhaps the point is that even though their origins are cloaked in mystery, they remain, really, a lot like us – different skin textures, of different ages, perhaps even of different ethnicity, each possessing a unique gift, each on a new journey illuminated by a new light and moving towards a new land and even a new destiny.

The essayist E.B.White once described an experience he had while shopping one Christmas season in a busy department store. He watched a small boy put his hand hopefully on a cheap plaster Christ child displayed on a counter. “What is this?” the child asked his harried mother. “Come on,” the mother answered sharply, “you don’t want that thing!” “And she grimly dragged him away,” said White, “her mind dark with other thoughts, following some star of her own devising.

The choice regarding the star to which we would hitch our proverbial wagon is a choice ever before us. And there will never be a shortage of stars of our own devising. These visitors from the east had to choose which king would receive their devotion, a political choice of sorts that we, too, face -- even today. They had to choose the homeward path they would follow upon departing Bethlehem – either to do it as they had done it before or to take an alternate route, thus always traveling with an edge of uncertainty. And presumably, even before departing, they had to decide what gifts they should deliver to the child of poverty who already had everything.

Perhaps the most valuable gift they had was their time. Their long journey from the east may have taken as long as a year out of their lives. I wonder, how many of us would give a year of our time as a gift to Christ?

At the very least, the journey of these pilgrims from the east to Bethlehem is a metaphor for our own spiritual journey. All of us have been given some gift to share, some ministry to offer in the name of peace, justice, love.

There is an ancient Hasidic tale that tells of a prince in a far distant country who dreamed of a place where people might live in perfect community – in reciprocal, fair, and loving relationships. The prince called together the many different people to form such a community through the establishment of a common covenant.

As a sign of the covenant, the prince asked each person to bring a bottle of his or her finest wine. When they arrived at the place where the covenant was to be made, each person was asked to take their bottle of expensive wine and pour it into a great bowl, to symbolize that each one was bringing their best gifts to form community.

One man thought to himself: “I will take a bottle of my most expensive wine, pour out the contents into another bottle, and fill that expensive bottle with water. Who is to know the difference? That way I will not be wasting my precious vintage.

When the day for the founding of the community came, each person came and poured the content of their bottle into the great bowl. Then the prince had everyone take a cup and drink from the bowl as a sign of their new life together. To everyone’s horror, all the wine was water! Every single person had done what the man had done. They, too, had substituted water for wine. (Naylor and Willimon, The Search for Meaning, 132 quoted by Mickey Anders.)

What is the best we can bring to God and to God’s community, whether it be the community of the church or the community of the world? What are the risks we can take? Will our gifts represent the best we possess or a cheap substitute?

A minister tells about an Advent communion service when the elements were received by intinction, that is, by dipping a piece of bread into the cup. As in many churches where the sacrament is so shared, it was the custom to speak words such as “the body of Christ” and “the cup of salvation” as the people came forward to receive the bread and the cup. But before the service began, an elder suggested using the word “rejoice” as a preface to the customary phrases. “It may help,” the elder said, “after all, it often seems that folks come forward as though they were about to consume hemlock.”

So they agreed to add the word: “Rejoice! The body of Christ” . . . Rejoice, the blood of Christ.” The minister pondered the difference that one word might make as the congregation lined up to receive the elements. The thought became almost overwhelming as he looked into the faces of those people – one recuperating from open-heart surgery, another feebly walking with a cane, another whose child had been killed in an accident, a couple trying to hold a troubled marriage together. But he spoke the words of blessing and exhortation . . . Rejoice, Allan . . . Rejoice, Mary. And as he did, he could see amid the tears and smiles of response something of the mystery of what it means, in all circumstances, to bring our best, to bring our joy to God. For days and weeks afterward, he said that thinking of that service nuanced the way he interacted with everyone he met. (in Expecting God’s Surprises: Devotions for the Advent Journey, 53).

Remember, as Matthew tells us, that when the Magi saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with What??? Not fear, not hesitation, not a desire to be thrifty, not reticence at the unknown, not reservations about why they had made the trek in the first place. No, they were overwhelmed with JOY!!!

As we journey, like the Magi of old, through this new year, if all else fails, perhaps we should consider using the word “joy” as the preface to all of our actions, all of our words, all of our plans, all of our discussions and decision-making. Joy. It must have at least been the feeling, if not the exact word, those visitors from the East felt and uttered as they knelt down to worship in Bethlehem.

Joy, for they brought their very best to Christ, and so can we.

Let us pray.

Instill in us, O Lord, a desire to give to you out of the abundance that you have given to us. In this New Year, deliver us from the pride and vanity of clinging ever so tightly to that which hinders the full joy of our devotion to you and to the ways of your coming kingdom. Breathe into us your breath of life so that the gifts we bring might breathe new life into your whole creation. For Christ’s sake. Amen.