KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 8 January
There came wise men from the east
The Magoi of Anatolia, “wise men from the East,” are an outstanding feature of the Christmas story, perhaps its most iconic and familiar image across a range of cultures. They are the heralds of the Epiphany which marks the end of Christmas and inaugurates a new focus of interest. Epiphany means manifestation, ‘making known’. The ‘making known’ of what we may ask? The ‘making known’ of the essential divinity of Jesus Christ in the Christian understanding. That ‘making known’ has a universal aspect. With the coming of the Magoi to Bethlehem, Christmas goes global. It is omni populo, for all people, which is why one half of the Christian world, the Christian East in the churches of Greek, Armenian, Georgian, Coptic, Armenian, Serbian, Ukrainian, Russian Orthodoxy (and others), celebrate Christmas on January 6th. Merry Christmas, then, to a number of our students!
No story perhaps illustrates the idea of the universal significance of the Christmas story more profoundly, more intriguingly, and more eloquently than Matthew’s account of the wise ones, the magoi, coming to Bethlehem and worshipping the child Christ with “sacred gifts of mystic meaning.” They are gifts that teach.
For centuries upon centuries, the Magi were a dominant feature of the Christmas story in art and song. It is not just that they have captured the imaginations of centuries of artists, which they certainly have, but that they concentrate for us something of the deeper wonder and truth of the Christmas story. It is for all. It is universal. The Magi are not from within Israel yet they belong entirely to the mystery of God revealed through the history and story of Israel.
The Magi are the original ‘come-from-aways’, we might say, as well as the original ‘Johnny-come-latelys’! They illumine so much for us about the mystery of God and his dealings with our humanity in the God made man, Jesus Christ. And the Magi speak powerfully to your life as students. For in every way at the heart of their story is the idea of worship, which is about what is worthy of your attention, and thus the concept of teaching and learning. The Magi belong very much to the nature of education. They provide the origin, too, of the Christian and cultural traditions of gift-giving.