by CCW | 12 January 2018 05:36
In complete contrast to the most disturbing story of the slaughter of the Holy Innocents, there is the most attractive story of the coming of the wise men to Bethlehem, though the two stories are connected. There is, after all, a dark note of deceit in Herod’s questioning of the wise men about where the child king is to be found, claiming that he wants to know so that he, too, can come and worship. In fact, he sees in the story of a child King a potential rival to his power. That leads to the horror of infanticide, the slaughter of the Holy Innocents in his attempt to annihilate a threat to his rule.
But the story of “the magoi from Anatolia,” the wise men from the East, captures our imagination and excites all manner of forms of ‘holy imagination’. Three Kings? There is no mention of how many came to Bethlehem or that they were even kings. All Matthew says is “magoi from Anatolia.” The imagery of kings, crowns, and camels all derives from Isaiah’s prophecy about “kings coming to the brightness of thy rising”, journeying by camels and presenting gifts of gold and frankincense to the Messiah. Matthew’s account adds myrrh, the ancient burying spice; hence three gifts from which comes the idea of three wise men. They follow a star suggesting that they were astrologers or, as we would say, astronomers. Anatolia is a rather broad term hinting at parts eastward, and things exotic.
The coming of the wise men marks the Epiphany, the making known of Christ’s nativity in principle to the whole world, a world outside the confines of ancient Israel. But where and how many and who they were is left unsaid and unknown. It is here that ‘holy imagination’ has gone to work and in wonderful ways, elaborating on the already exotic qualities of Matthew’s simple narrative. An Armenian tradition a century or so later gives the wise men names and places of origin: Balthazar, Melchior, and Gaspar from Arabia, Persia and India respectively. Nothing of that is in the biblical story. Other traditions keep the names but differ about the places of origin. Some imagine different races, variously treating either Balthazar or Melchior as black, for instance. Others think of them as representing different ages of life: young, middle-aged, and elderly, sometimes with and sometimes without beards! In short, a whole mythology develops out of the work of ‘holy imagination’ which informs later traditions such as the Drei König in Germany, the three kings, and other stories that build upon this simple narrative.
They can’t all be true in a literal sense but they are all true in a metaphorical and theological sense for they all reflect on the universal significance of the whole world being drawn into the mystery of God’s wonderful engagement with our humanity signalled in Christ’s nativity. With the coming of the wise men, the Christmas tableaux of all our imaginings is complete. With Epiphany, Christmas is omni populo, for all people. That is the deep truth upon which the labours of ‘holy imagination’ turn even including the winter wilderness of Canada as seen in the wonderful ‘Huron Carol’ written by the Jesuit martyr Jean Brébeuf in the Huron language. It sets the story among the native peoples of Canada, specifically among the Huron or Wendat tribe. It is a poignant reminder, too, of the deeper complexity of the European engagement with the native peoples of what is now Canada. The Hurons were largely wiped out, first by small-pox and, then, by the Iroquois who also tortured and killed Brébeuf. War and violence are an inescapable feature of our North American world on all fronts and across cultures.
Matthew’s story challenges and counters all of the narratives of power and domination. While the story appeals to our imaginations, it is also profoundly intellectual. Caesar’s ‘veni, vidi, vinci’ – I came, I saw, I conquered – is countered by the magi’s ‘vidimus, venimus, adoremus’ – we saw, we came, we worshipped. Instead of domination and power, there is understanding and respect. Everything is an epiphany, the making known of the things to be known. The story is actually a theophany, a manifestation of divinity. The emphasis of the Epiphany is on teaching. That is part of its appeal. It is very much about the making known of things which change us, “being transformed through the renewing of our minds,” as Paul suggests.
They bring gifts, the origin of our Christmas customs. The gifts of the magi teach us something important about gift-giving. It is really about honouring one another, about recognizing the real worth and dignity of one another. Unlike other traditions of gift-giving is not about using one another, buying favours and seeking an advantage, as it were. The gifts of the magi reveal something, too, about the nature of the one to whom they are given. The gifts teach that Christ is “King and God and Sacrifice.” Powerful theological concepts.
Teaching changes us simply by opening us out to the power of ideas, to the beauty and the power of truth that challenges all and every form of arbitrary authority. The Scriptures read in Chapel counter, perhaps, the ‘digital dopamania’ of our own culture in which we are increasingly the willing slaves of mindless algorithms that manipulate our neural networks, rendering us unable to attend to anything for very long. Yet these readings compel our attention. They demand our thoughtfulness which in turn shapes our actions. The magi return to their own lands but by another way, changed in some sense by what they have learned. So too for all of us in this school. Such is our prayer.
On Thursday and Friday, following the story of the wise men, we had the story of the Baptism of Christ which is understood as an epiphany as well, an epiphany of the essential divinity of Christ in the voice of the Father and the coming down of the Holy Ghost “like a dove” upon the Son. Once again, something is made known which shapes action. Here is the only Gospel of Advent and Christmas taken from Mark’s Gospel. He begins his Gospel with Christ’s baptism as an Epiphany of his identity and mission. It marks the beginning of Christ’s public ministry, the work of human redemption. Thus these readings awaken our imagination and shape our intellects in the things of God, changed into something rich and strange by what we have been taught.
(Rev’d) David Curry
Chaplain, English & ToK teacher
Chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy
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